Outline on Atheism
Atheism
Outline
* Atheism – the critique and denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism, which banners the belief that “all the heavens and the earth and all that they contain owe their existence and continuance in existence to the wisdom and will of a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent being who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created.” * Atheistic Principles: a. Philosophical atheists reject the assumption of the existence of disembodied spirits, or that incorporeal entities of any sort can exercise a causal agency b. Atheists generally manifest a marked empirical temper, and often take as their ideal the intellectual methods employed in the contemporaneous empirical sciences. c. Atheistic thinkers have generally accepted a utilitarian basis for judging moral issues, and they have exhibited a libertarian attitude toward human needs and impulses. The conceptions of the human good they have advocated are conceptions which are commensurate with the actual capacities of mortal men, so that it is the satisfaction of the complex needs of the human creature which is the final standard for evaluating the validity of moral ideal or moral prescription.
Ludwig Feuerbach
(1804-1872)
Raised in a solidly Christian family Went to Heidelberg University to study theology but gave it up later for philosophy.
Wrote Das Wesen Christentums published in 1841 “God is a Projection of the Human Mind”
* Feuerbach was influenced by Georg W.F. Hegel who criticized the Judeo-Christian religion as a backward religion as it treats man and the world as divorced from God yet places primacy over the latter. Man in consequence becomes forgetful of his concrete life on earth to be realized through his natural human efforts. Man rather becomes witnesses and martyrs of the world beyond instead of heroes of action in this world. * Feuerbach saw during his time that man was no longer
Outline
* Atheism – the critique and denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism, which banners the belief that “all the heavens and the earth and all that they contain owe their existence and continuance in existence to the wisdom and will of a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent being who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created.” * Atheistic Principles: a. Philosophical atheists reject the assumption of the existence of disembodied spirits, or that incorporeal entities of any sort can exercise a causal agency b. Atheists generally manifest a marked empirical temper, and often take as their ideal the intellectual methods employed in the contemporaneous empirical sciences. c. Atheistic thinkers have generally accepted a utilitarian basis for judging moral issues, and they have exhibited a libertarian attitude toward human needs and impulses. The conceptions of the human good they have advocated are conceptions which are commensurate with the actual capacities of mortal men, so that it is the satisfaction of the complex needs of the human creature which is the final standard for evaluating the validity of moral ideal or moral prescription.
Ludwig Feuerbach
(1804-1872)
Raised in a solidly Christian family Went to Heidelberg University to study theology but gave it up later for philosophy.
Wrote Das Wesen Christentums published in 1841 “God is a Projection of the Human Mind”
* Feuerbach was influenced by Georg W.F. Hegel who criticized the Judeo-Christian religion as a backward religion as it treats man and the world as divorced from God yet places primacy over the latter. Man in consequence becomes forgetful of his concrete life on earth to be realized through his natural human efforts. Man rather becomes witnesses and martyrs of the world beyond instead of heroes of action in this world. * Feuerbach saw during his time that man was no longer