Ludwig Feuerbach |
The
19th century was a century of revolutionary changes in human
thinking. People started questioning
religion openly without fear. The
Romantic Movement questioned the absolutisms of classicism. Karl Marx laid the axe at the root of the
traditional social hierarchies. In spite
and because of Marx, capitalism broke a million more traditions. Industrialisation
pulled people out of family-based work, colonialism led to miscegenation of
different races and cultures, the Enlightenment of the previous centuries
conquered new heights in human consciousness, women began to assert themselves
against the strictures of patriarchy and religion was forced to take a
backseat.
Ludwig
Feuerbach is one of the many philosophers who redefined divinity for the
thinking man (and woman, of course) in the century of various upheavals. The leading religions of the time had externalised
God and put Him (not Her,
significantly) somewhere out there – Heaven or some such place. In his path-breaking work, The Essence of Christianity (1841),
Feuerbach argued that a God sitting somewhere out there would be quite useless.
God
is within us. God is a projection of
ourselves onto the heavens. God
corresponds to some feature or need of the human being. It is the human being who craves for infinite
love, endless compassion, benevolence and wisdom. These qualities are divine but they are part
of the human nature. Our mistake is to
externalise them and put them onto an idol in the religious place. By doing this we are denying these qualities
within us and transferring the responsibility to God for loving us and looking
after us. And also for giving us
truths.
Some
clever people go one step beyond and make scriptures and claim that they come
from God. These clever people become the
manufacturers of our truths. They make
use of God and religion to enslave other people. Feuerbach argues that this process of
externalising the divine qualities and truths “poisons, nay destroys, the
divinest feeling in man, the sense of truth.”
Worse, it replaces the qualities and truths with rituals and
superstitions.
Feuerbach
did not wish to eliminate God or religion.
Rather he wanted us to discover our God within ourselves. The qualities we ascribe to God lie dormant
within us, wake them up, allow them to grow and spread so that the world becomes
a divine place. Jesus would probably have
agreed for he had said (among many contradictory things) that “the Kingdom of
God is within us.” Religion can be an
excellent tool for self-examination, argued Feuerbach. It can enhance our self-understanding
significantly.
If
we understand Feuerbach and apply his theory to our lives, the world would be a
paradise of divine creatures. We would
be the real gods. The imaginary gods we
create could still be there as our aids and guides in self-analysis and
self-understanding.
Very interesting and thought provoking post sir!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm reading Jennifer Hecht's book, 'Doubt: a History', which has inspired quite a few of my recent posts.
Deletei believe humans always need religion, just to identify with themselves, with their thought, and with others.
ReplyDeleteIt's like saying man always needs some drug or the other :)
Deleteyou can say that... we humans are so fragile creatures that we need something to support our views :)
DeleteAlready known and read facts wonderfully composed and put together to make it a great piece!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amit ji.
DeleteVery interesting.....
ReplyDeleteHistory is full of interesting stories
Delete