Skip to main content

Genuine Atheist



Ludwig Feuerbach was a 19th century philosopher who started as a theologian and soon became an atheist.  He was of the opinion that religion and God diminished the greatness of man.  Religion and God alienate man and impoverish him by transferring to them the qualities that man should possess.  Love, truth, justice, and other such qualities are transferred by man to God.  God is love, God is truth, etc are statements we hear frequently.  But it should be the other way around, says Feuerbach.  Love is a human virtue.  So is truth.  So are compassion and other virtues we transfer to our gods. 

If we bring these qualities back from gods and religions to human beings, we will have a better world.  Haven’t we been, throughout history, adjusting our gods to our own needs, longings and purposes? Asks Feuerbach.  Haven’t we been reducing our gods to the demands of our banal everyday reality?  Haven’t we fought enough battles and wars in the name of our gods – gods who are supposed to be love and truth and compassion and what not?

Have we not talked about God and meant by this our own interests?  Haven’t we been seeking our own wishes in the name of divine purposes?

God is merely a projection of our personal wishes and selfish interests.  He is the sum total of the qualities we should possess but actually care not to cultivate. 


Feuerbach gave up God and religion in his honest pursuit of meaning in life.  He could not relegate the responsibility for his actions to any other being.  He even gave up his job as a professor and lived a simple and highly disciplined life.  He was such an exemplary human being that a Catholic priest, Ildephonsus Muller, praised him as a “man of character who is in the habit of expressing his personal conviction freely and frankly.”  The priest wished, “Being what you are, if only you were one of us.”  The priest knew that the atheist Feuerbach was more ‘religious’ than most religious people!
Labels:

Comments

  1. AmitAagJune 21, 2014 at 1:16 PM

    I have found atheists generally more religious than most religious people..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 21, 2014 at 1:20 PM

      True. My experience has not been different either.

      Delete
  2. UppalJune 22, 2014 at 7:23 AM

    Yes, it is the other side of the coin and fairly impressive one at that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 22, 2014 at 10:18 AM

      There are many like him. People generally do not take interest in getting to know them.

      Delete
  3. UnknownJune 22, 2014 at 9:34 AM

    Logical. Not a single statement that I can deny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 22, 2014 at 10:19 AM

      Did I manage to shake your religious faith a little? :)

      Delete
    2. UnknownJune 23, 2014 at 11:35 AM

      Actually, you managed to agitage the radical surface of my mind. :)

      Delete
  4. Vinay NagarajuJune 22, 2014 at 10:43 AM

    I like this part where you say - God is merely a projection of our personal wishes and selfish interests; It reminds me of the so many gods we create - one for wealth, one for knowledge, one for pleasure and the other for pain..lf we look closely, I guess we can see all the human emotions right there in front of us :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 22, 2014 at 11:04 AM

      Yeah, polytheism creates separate gods for each wish. In India, we have deified 33,000 crore wishes!

      Delete
  5. AnonymousJune 22, 2014 at 2:23 PM

    That really is a very interesting read. And that is also so true.. that at times the irreligious amongst us sometimes are more religious than the 'religious'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 23, 2014 at 8:28 AM

      Those who question religion and such 'sacred' things are on genuine quests. That's why they are more virtuous.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

The Buddha in the Central Vista

Prime Minister Modi was taking a dip in the mineral water pond constructed on the bank of the Yamuna as part of his weekly photo op when Siddhartha Gautama aka the Buddha walked into the office of the National Committee for Correcting Civilizational Narratives (NCCCN) in Central Vista, New Delhi. An email was received by “Dr Sri Siddhartha Gautama Buddha PhD” from the PMO [Prime Minister’s Office] inviting him to attend a meeting “to authenticate and align the curriculum with indigenous perspectives as part of implementing the National Education Policy, NEP.” Siddhartha was amused on receiving the mail. “Is it possible they still wish to learn after proclaiming themselves the Vishwaguru?” He wondered with a wry smile. He was more amused to see the honorary doctorate conferred upon him by the Vishwaguru Vishwavidyala, in Spiritual Sciences. It’d be interesting to make a visit, he decided. When he entered the opulent office, whose floor was paved with Italian marble tiles, he reca...
11 comments
Read more

Being Christian in BJP’s India

A moment of triumph for India’s women’s cricket team turned unexpectedly into a controversy about religious faith and expression, thanks to some right-wing footsloggers. After her stellar performance in the semi-final of the Wormen’s World Cup (2025), Jemimah Rodrigues thanked Jesus for her achievement. “Jesus fought for me,” she said quoting the Bible: “Stand still and God will fight for you” [1 Samuel 12:16]. Some BJP leaders and their mindless followers took strong exception to that and roiled the religious fervour of the bourgeoning right wing with acerbic remarks. If Ms Rodrigues were a Hindu, she would have thanked her deity: Ram or Hanuman or whoever. Since she is a Christian, she thanked Jesus. What’s wrong in that? If she was a nonbeliever like me, God wouldn’t have topped the list of her benefactors. Religion is a talisman for a lot of people. There’s nothing wrong in imagining that some god sitting in some heaven is taking care of you. In fact, it gives a lot of psychologic...
12 comments
Read more

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti...
31 comments
Read more