Feuerbach's Atheistic Theory Of Religion

Feuerbach raised a very important issue when he says that “religion is a projection of human nature into a fantastic divine being.” This singular point raised by Feuerbach marks a rigorous break-away from the idealistic Hegelian philosophy that colonized that era as mentioned earlier in chapter one; Hegel’s idealistic extremism would at least have been revolted against and corrected especially by a philosopher of Feuerbach’s calibre who had youthful experiences and influences from both the philosophical and the religious worlds. However, Feuerbach in his anthropological atheistic theory of God, lost track too, he eventually went into the extremist position of scientism. Religion does not negate or prevent civilization, development in science

If humans are projecting their own natures onto the idea of God, what follows is that when we understand religion we are not coming to knowledge of God, but rather of ourselves. Feuerbach says this quite explicitly: "Consciousness of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge." What Feuerbach is getting at is that the idea of God is reducible to humankind, it is in essence anthropology. One leading scholar on Feuerbach, Eugene Kamenka, notes this reduction: "Feuerbach presents each of these reductions so forcefully, with so much rhetoric, that he appears to regard each of them as the true essence in terms of which the whole of religion should be explained." If religion is, strictly speaking, anthropology then we must, if we are religious persons, grow up and realize that God and man are identical. Yet if we do not accept the theories upon which this conclusion is drawn then we must admit to something other than humankind, which is irreducible to the material

Sociology as it exists, furnishes us with enough evidence that the long-standing relation between society and religion is capable of annulling the Feuerbach’s notion of religion as man’s self-alienation. “All peoples have some notions of a high ‘God’ who creates and maintains the order of the world.” Emile Durkheim states, “The social function of religion is to support and conserve an ongoing society…religion is functional to social cohesion and solidarity.” This fact is a depiction of the social benefits of religion to the society that creates a chance for the reign of