Throughout history thinkers proclaimed their belief that God
was a product of man’s imagination. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) taught that
man, due to his fear of death, wishes God into existence.
Man recognizes his limitations and fears. God is projected
to calm these fears. In short, God is what man wishes to be. Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939) saw two separate causes for man’s belief in God. First, Freud
believed that each boy desires to have sexual relations with his mother.
Because of this, he becomes jealous of his father and develops a hatred for
him. Second, since man could not fully understand the forces of nature, he
began to fear nature. Freud concluded that due to these two factors (man’s
guilt for hating his father and man’s fear of nature), mankind deified nature
and personalized it into a Father God.
It should be understood that the speculation
of Feuerbach and Freud was never meant to be used as an argument against God’s existence.
Instead, these two thinkers believed that God’s existence had already been
proven false by the advances of modern science. Their views were promoted not
to disprove God’s existence. Rather, they were promoted as a desperate attempt
to explain why nearly all of mankind believes in a non-existent God. Therefore,
the ideas of Feuerbach and Freud should not be considered evidence against God’s
existence. Instead, their theories were merely attempts to explain away some of
the evidence against their views. Freud’s own theories can be used
against him. For it seems more likely that atheism is caused by the desire to
kill the father image, rather than theism being caused by man’s guilt for
wanting to kill his father. In man’s attempt to be autonomous, he wishes God
out of existence.
Whatever the case, the speculation of Feuerbach and
Freud seems itself to be wishful thinking by atheists. If men were to invent a
God, it is doubtful that it would be the demanding God of the Bible. Man would
create a more permissive god, much like the gods of the pagan religions. In
short, the theories of Feuerbach and Freud offer a more adequate explanation
for atheism and idolatry than they do for Christianity.
Article taken from http://www.philfernandes.org/thefailureofatheism.htm by Dr. Phil Fernandes
Yeah, it's very hard to imagine guys like Feuerbach and Freud labeled as "Thinkers."
ReplyDeleteAnd Hebrews nicely discounts both in Chapter 2:14,15. Fifteen reads "And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
I don't mean to try and displace what is self-evident about mankind's fear of physical death, Pastor J and Nelis, but let me offer an idea that may not have occurred to you.
And that is that men and women are seldom preoccupied "moment to moment" with the fear of death because we have eternity build into us. In other words, mankind has an unconscious realization of eternal life for exactly that reason, that eternity is build into the very fabric of our being. We are created in the image of God, and God cannot die, so in turn, we cannot die. I address this issue in the letter to my hometown newspaper that I retyped into another comment section.
Anyway, Feuerbach and Freud were intellectual children, and only a secular person would ever consider them to be great thinkers.
Isn't it overwhelming that so many people can live an entire lifetime and never enjoy God? Wow.