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Single Idea 22732

[filed under theme 28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity ]

Full Idea

It is said that …the idea that God is eternal and imperishable and perfect in happiness was introduced by way of transference from mankind.

Gist of Idea

The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind

Source

Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.045)

Book Ref

Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.25


A Reaction

This view is found in Hume, and in Feuerbach. I presume 'transference' means extrapolation and idealisation. If God exists, we may have no option but to think of God anthropomorphically.

Related Idea

Idea 22730 All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]


The 18 ideas with the same theme [God as a projection of humanity's own image]:

We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato]
Men imagine gods to be of human shape, with a human lifestyle [Aristotle]
The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero]
The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
Thinking of God as resembling humans results from a bad translation of Genesis 1:26 [Maimonides]
We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham]
The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes]
A talking triangle would say God is triangular [Spinoza]
The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume]
In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant]
God is the essence of thought, abstracted from the thinker [Hegel, by Feuerbach]
The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach]
If God is only an object for man, then only the essence of man is revealed in God [Feuerbach]
God is for us a mere empty idea, which we fill with our own ego and essence [Feuerbach]
God is what man would like to be [Feuerbach]
God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH]
Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran]
During the rise of civilizations, the main gods changed from female to male [Watson]