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Anrakyr
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Why? Why does it?
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bfree1216
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For anyone who didn’t get the full scope of Feuerbach’s ideas by my own quick summary, this is a really nice synopsis of his thesis.
I think for me this is the kicker. I’ve been reading a whole lot of Chesterton lately and he describes finding his Christian identity through an incredibly unorthodox method which sheds light to the notion of a God that exists outside of man’s invention. In figuring out what he believed and didn’t believe about life, he came to believe he had invented his own sort of “heresy” that didn’t fit anything. But then, taking a closer look at Christianity, he came to realize that the ideas he had fathomed actually fit perfectly into what Christianity had already said since the beginning.
In other words, in attempting to ascribe his own meaning to life and the world, he came to find that it had already been ascribed meaning by Christianity.
But this still doesn’t necessarily answer Feuerbach’s question, since one could use Chesterton’s story to say that this is exactly how Christianity could’ve been founded–maybe man got to the point Chesterton did, found nothing that fit the mold, and established it as religion. So to counter Feuerbach’s arguments, we would then have to look deeper into the claims of Christianity and of Jesus and see what it says.
For me, and I think the logical argument that makes the most sense, comes down to Jesus’s divinity. And in the works he performed and the claims that he proposed and then backed up, he showed that what he was saying is true. That the source of objectivity isn’t something man “comes up with” but is established outside of man, for if man comes up with it, it’s manipulable, but if it exists outside of man and has it’s source in and of itself, it’s fixed–it’s truly objective.
To believe in a fairy tale that you’ve written is one thing. But to believe in a fairy tale tale that was written by someone else–the Unmoved Mover, the source of objectivity, and therefore, an objective fairy tale–is a whole other thing.
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bfree1216
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Yep that’s my main question! And what logic there exists to refute that claim.
And noooo worries at all, I appreciate your interest in this at all!
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Wozza
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OK. Roger that.Wozza:
Yep that’s my main question! And what logic there exists to refute that claim.
And noooo worries at all, I appreciate your interest in this at all!
Then the faith (and we’re just taking Catholicism) is surely a response to the resurrection and the interpretation of scripture in that light. Assuming that you believe in God and the resurrection in the first place.
I don’t. So I personally believe that it is a man-made artifact to fullfill a basic need for spirituality. A worthwhile excercise in a lot of ways as it brings people together. This obviously, in my opinion, relates to all religions. Not just yours. So I’m not singling it out for any reason.
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IWantGod
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That could be true, but where does that basic need for spirituality come from and why would it exist in a reality where there is nothing spiritual?
I prefer to think of the spiritual progression or evolution of religion in the history of humanity as the almost unconscious search for the true God. That while the artifact many not represent something objective, the root of that basic need does reflect something about reality itself; and one may argue that we make the best sense of that need in the actual existence of what one might call the true God.
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Wozza
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We’re generally frightened of the unknown.Wozza:
That could be true, but where does that basic need for spirituality come from and why would it exist in a reality where there is nothing spiritual?
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IWantGod
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Does that really answer the question?
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Wozza
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Well, there’s a lot more to it. But if you want something short and sweet and succinct, then yeah. It does. Feel free to expound on it.Wozza:
Does that really answer the question?
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IWantGod
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Then it really isn’t the answer. Sure, i can imagine a scenario where people would hope for the existence of spiritual guardians against the onslaught of nature. But that is not the only reason a person would be spiritual. It is because they recognise a need in themselves for something greater than themselves which cannot be found in nature. This can be confused with a fear of the unknown i suppose. But we experience meaning in our response to the world, a meaning that can only be fulfilled by God.
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IWantGod
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So in other-words, if life has no meaning, then we can make fantasies about it.
There is no escape from nihilism once you put God out of the picture. The best you can do is make a fantasy of life, which is why i tend to laugh when people say that God is a delusion since most of the values we hold as human-beings are delusional if there is no God; and yet i discover atheists that are culturally christian every where i look.
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Wozza
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The problem in talking about religions with anyone religious is that they all think the others are wrong and that theirs is right. Obviously. But a corollary to that is when I talk about people looking for meaning and something greater than themselves (your comment actually) then that applies to literally everyone. And for many thousands of years before even Christianity arrived.Wozza:
Then it really isn’t the answer. Sure, i can imagine a scenario where people would hope for the existence of spiritual guardians against the onslaught of nature. But that is not the only reason a person would be spiritual. It is because they recognise a need in themselves for something greater than themselves which cannot be found in nature. This can be confused with a fear of the unknown i suppose. But we experience meaning in our response to the world, a meaning that can only be fulfilled by God.
Their meaning was supplied by whatever god(s) in which they believed. And it was as true for them as your belief is for you.
Nobody worships false gods. It’s worth bearing that in mind.
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EZweber
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Are you implying that there is no one true faith that excludes others? It’s only logical in religion that (for example) if Islam is true, then Calvinism is not.
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IWantGod
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These are generally disagreements about what God is.
Yes, and in principle the meaning of life can only be fulfilled in God. Otherwise there is no meaning to life other than what we fantasize. People disagree about what God is, but we all mostly agree that the meaning to life rests in God despite there being different religions.
The culturally christian atheist differs in that they think there is meaning and value to their activities and lives regardless of God.
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Wozza
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No. I am saying that all faiths exclude all others. Every faith is the one true faith to all those who embrace it.
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Wozza
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When you say God, you mean your God. He is VERY specific. The countless trillions who have believed in their own deity would disagree most definitely with each other. Let alone with you.Wozza:
These are generally disagreements about what God is.
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IWantGod
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No. Most religions, if not all, have a concept of a higher power or God or God’s that they ultimately feel makes the best sense of their existential situation.
The Abramic religions disagree with their idea of God and argue that our God is much greater than their concept of God, that our God is the truest God; is the true God.
The three major religions, judaism, islam, and Christianity, mostly disagree over the nature of Jesus Christ; but we all believe in the one true God.
True, but we all believe in a higher power that is greater than ourselves. We simply disagree with what that higher power is, what God is, what ultimate reality is.
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Wozza
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You need to drop the capital G when talking about anything other than the Christian, Newish and Muslim God.
And try not to restrict yourself to western religion of the last 2,000 years. Or 3,500 in the case of Judaism. You are thinking too recently and too parochially. How can you discuss all religions at all times if you only consider three over the last few millenia?
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Anrakyr
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Not always. There will be in this case a leader, he needs to keep his followers in line so rules are needed. The best way to enforce them is a gods will.
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Gorgias
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I’m not deeply versed in Feuerbach’s ideas, but I thought his contention was that humanity was kind of a ‘Borg’ creature – that our individuality isn’t what’s most true about us (and, in fact, that when a person thinks, it isn’t the individual who thinks, but the collective nature who thinks, in a way expressed through the temporal, individual being). This being the case, then, it’s not that “man objectifies his subjective nature”; it’s that humanity is, in its essence, already an objective, collective spirit. He suggested, IIRC, that what we call ‘God’ is really just our understanding of what the properties of this collective spirit are. In a sense, then, it’s not that “man created God”, it’s that “humanity (as a collective) is what we identify as ‘God’.”
With that in mind, then, it’s not that “religion is man-made”, as much as it is that we are what we posit about God. (There’s lots more there, including his beefs with Hegel and others, but that seems to be at the core of it.)
Now, let’s look at what you posit: you claim that “God gives us what we need” (e.g., ‘strength’) and then we utilize these gifts by virtue of independent action. Or, you claim, we could turn this on its ear and say “some biological force gives humans agency, and humans merely exercise that agency”, as a means of saying “there ain’t no such thing as God.”
I don’t think that the former idea is what Christian theology posits, and so, I don’t think that we can draw a line from theology to the sort of un-theology that you’re suggesting.
I think Aquinas would assert that God, in creating us, gives us potential (or potency) in terms of human nature, and that potency is actualized in terms of secondary causation, such that we act (according to our nature) in individual ways.
The only way to change that assertion, then, would be to posit that some thing (undefined? unspecified?) is what gives us potential and human nature. For this to hold, though, we’d have to define what has that power and ability to give us these things. The refutation, I’d assert, is that, unless we can identify what that thing is, and why we’d assert that it has the ability to ‘grant’ potential / life / agency to us, then we have an empty theory devoid of explanatory value.
That doesn’t help much, though, unless you have something else that you can use to posit the existence of humans / human nature / creation.
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Gorgias
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Except that I don’t think that this is Feuerbach’s claim, is it? It’s not that man creates God wholecloth out of thin air as a crutch (as some modern atheists might claim), but rather, that there are real grounds to religion – namely, Geist (understood as the collective human spirit) – and these grounds are expressed in terms that we’d identify as ‘religion’.
Except that Feuerbach is responding to criticism that suggested that the Gospels were constructed out of thin air as a way to express man’s own understanding of his spirituality (which is kinda what you’re espousing as your own belief). So, Feuerbach is criticizing you and your take on things…!
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