The Humanist Cafe
Wednesday, July 6, 7 – 8:30 pm
James Bay New Horizons 234 Menzies St., James Bay
Topic: Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach: The Essence Of Religion
Presenter: Alan Danesh
Moderator: John Pope
All welcome!
The eminent 19th Century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach shows that in every aspect “God” corresponds to some feature or need of human nature.
Thus “God” is nothing else but the outward projection of the human’s inward nature. This projection is dubbed as a chimera by Feuerbach. He states that the qualities of benevolence attributed to “God” are not denoted as divine because of their godly association. The qualities themselves are divine therefore making “God” divine.
The most harmful aspect of the illusion of “God” is that we project the best qualities we are capable of as humans – love, justice, compassion etc. – onto a “God” which is merely a creation of our own human imagination, and so we are left with only negative qualities – greed, hatred, cruelty, etc. And then we beg the same illusory “God” to give us back some of the same positive qualities we have attributed to him.
Selected References:
http://www.enotes.com/topics/essence-christianity
http://apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds3/med52/med1088.html
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/lectures/
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/feuerbach_lectures_contents.html
“In the beginning man created God; and in the image of Man created him.” -Jethro Tull
See you there! Bring a friend or two.