The Essence of Christianity (Dover Philosophical Classics)

A classic which so lovingly deals with the very finest of human qualities that before the last pages you know you might be an atheist and an admirer of The Christ, too. So clearly written in the German language that the translation job by "George Eliot" was an event which lost nothing. You remember George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) as the author of "The Mill on the Floss" and "Silas Marner" . This book explains exactly what it means to be born into a culture altered by Christianity. It might be good to start the book about one third of the way in as the first third is thin gruel unless you have philosophical training. Once upon a time, this book was very hard to find. The book is so wonderful, you tend not to keep it in your library because one gives it away, but buy again it when you need an emotional lift. It is a rigorous empirical treatment of the anthropomorphic and at the same time encorporating the celebration of the accomplishment. The best minds of Christendom worked on this for about 1000 years, and it shows. Should be a part of a modern canon. Most graceful writing.

Absolutely phenomenal. Completely dispels the belief that a turn from traditional Christianity to atheism is due to a desire for moral disorder or leniency. Within the first section he blew my mind when he explained the conception of God and universal morality from an anthropological point of view. Feuerbach does an amazing job of creating a structural base of arguments and nails it in the last two sections, both of which turn the concept of Christian morality on its head. A must read for anyone raised in the church and having second thoughts about his/her faith. Also check out "Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism" by Bernard Schweizer. The first section of the book summarizes other philosophers that challenge the Christian faith and helps one discover other thinkers worthy of more in-depth exploration.

"Conscousness of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge." wrote Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) in his landmark text ESSENCE of CHRISTIANITY. Atheism had found its critical voice in a student of Hegel.Feuerbach took on the task of showing that the antithesis of divine and human is altogether illusory, that it is nothing else than the antithesis between the human nature in general and the human individual; that, consequently, the object and contents of the Christian religion are altogether. God is a projection of the highest human values.The ideal of humanity, realized collectively by the aggregate of all human experience, replaces a divine ideal. Feuerbach contends that the consciousness of God is nothing else than the concsiousness of the species; that man can and should raise himself only above the limits of his individuality, and not above the laws, the positive essential conditions of his species; that there is no other essence which man can think, dream of imagine, feel, believe in, wish for, love and adore as the absolute, than the essence of human nature itself.Although he espouses a distorted and often inaccurate picture as a result of his completely arbitrary use of biblical and ecclesiastical texts and facts, Feuerbach addresses a very real problem with Christianity, specifically, and religion, in general. Namely, that a heavenly focus can sometimes be of no earthly value. Feuerbach saw the evil that persisted in the world exacerbated by the neglect fostered by religious institutions. But does Feuerbach offer anything more concrete when he speculates on an ideal of a collective humanity?Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud were both greatly influenced by Feuerbach's work. Marx offered a socio-economic system of dialectical conflict. Marxist socio-economic solutions have shown themselves to be no more compassionate to the problems of humanity than the systems they tried to replace. Freud's psychoanalysis viewed religious ideas as the fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind. This is quite true and the believer in God can say the same. Feuerbach's, and subsequently, Marx and Freud's, atheism turns out to be a hypothesis that has not been conclusively proved, nor disproved.Herr Doktor Hans Küng in his landmark text _Does God Exist?_ identifies three points in Feuerbach's critique of religion that religious and spiritual people would do well to consider. _Have not Church and theology frequently defended God at the expense of man, the hereafter at the expense of the here and now?... Is it not clear at this point how close we are to atheism if we do not distinguish between theological and anthropological propositions, if we identify man's interest with God's, if we one-sidedly stress God's nonobjectivity, almost see God as absorbed in our neighbor and the mystery of being simply as the mystery of love?... The weaknesses in the first place are those of an all-too-naïve, anthropomorphic talk about God, his words and deeds, in metaphors, formulas predicates, that are actually more appropriate to the reality of man than to the reality of God... But the weaknesses are also those of philosophical-speculative talk about God..._For my own spiritual relationship, I can accept Feuerbach's anthropological argument. Assigning God as the ideal of human values does not bring my spiritual relationship any closer to my individual experience. Instead, it tends to remove my commitment from the experiences of my life directly opposed to Feuerbach's intent. My spiritual relationship becomes yet one more humanist tool with which to navigate through the challenges of life. On the other hand, I find strength in my spiritual commiment when the circumstances of my life become opportunities of faith. When my own individuality, denied by both Feuerbach and Hegel, is acknowledged, I am not only more aware of my shortcomings but also, my own capacity for a spiritual relationship. Whether this is theology or anthropology, I encourage each reader to decide on their own.If you are interested in the origins of atheism, the development of western philosophy or in challenging your spiritual assumptions, this book may be interesting to you.PEACECatrina

Heavily annotated and marked in, with lots of post it notes sticking out. Other than that... It’s a decent copy of the book.

This is an important book in the history of religious thought. Thinkers will love it. I'm very glad I finally read it for myself.

exellent

Product was sold as described.

Indeed, everyone really tends to create their own God(s). Projection is true.

Très bien.

Feuerbach is the father of modern atheism, I enjoyed reading his book as a Catholic myself. All the arguments and "contradictions" he uses against Christianity have been dismissed centuries before his birth by the Doctors of the Church: Thomas Aquinas, Irenaeus, Augustin among many others.Feuerbach essentially says that God is an invention of the imagination, a reflection of man's own nature: why then does God "walk", "eat", have feelings? Why does he have human characteristics? Isn't it because he is a human invention? Here, Fueurbach shows that he doesn't understand the nature of the Christian God. His argument shows that he never read Thomas Aquinas's Somma Theologica in which Thomas presents God as "epsum esse", God is Being itself, not some kind of a being hiding somewhere in the cosmos.Another argument is that Faith and Love are incompatible. Faith teaches that those who don't believe in God are going to hell, Love can't send anyone to hell. Faith teaches us to damn the ennemis of God, Love teaches us to forgive them. Again, Thomas Aquinas addressed this issue long before Fueurbach was born and the Vatican II emphasized Aquinas's teachings: those who live a righteous life in love and compassion are the Sons of God, whether they are Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Hindus, etc. All these people have a shade of God's grace. As Love itself, God does not send them to hell. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church doesn't believe that hell is full of people, the Church's official stance is "we don't know".

This book is one of early work of sociologist that they are trying to understand why society function in a certain way. Karl Marx rejected Feuerbach works. Karl Marx was explicit in his remark toward Feuerbach that he was dumb.

Something has gone very wrong in the creation of the Kindle version of this book. Words are scrambled into random characters, partly complete, look like they're scanned in from a paper copy, or a combination of all three.I'll try to find another version to read, but for now I cannot recommend this Kindle version.