Excerpts from The Essence of Christianity By Ludwig Feuerbach
Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image
If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism — at least in the sense of this work — is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.
My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,
Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are "half animal, half angel" into persons, into whole persons... I negate the fantastic hypocrisy of theology and religion only in order to affirm the true nature of man.
To the truly religious man, God is not being without qualities... the denial of determinate, positive predicates... is nothing else than a denial of religion, with, however, an appearance of religion in its favour, so that it is not recognized as a denial; it is simply a subtle, disguised atheism.
I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.
Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.
I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.
The first philosophers were astronomers. The heavens remind man ... that he is destined not merely to act, but also to contemplate.
God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing because it explains everything without distinction -
- he is the night of theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating comprehension -- the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their identity and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion.
I added "The Essence of Christianity" by Ludwig Feuerbach to my up and coming reads. There is something about this man's wisdom and genius that I want to dive further into. This collection of quotes if from our AFL daily reading. I bolded the ones that really stand out for me.
I do want to embellish on one of Feuerbach's quotes.
My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,
What if we don't have to transform anyone to change from one to another... but maybe we can have "friends of God" who are also "friends of man" We could have believers who are also thinkers and people devoted to prayer and work... still making them students of the world.
I don't want to take away a person's faith and belief if that is their lens to see the world and be a better person... but to add to that... now that would be something worth wishing for. Then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of thinking anymore.
