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Single Idea 5299

[filed under theme 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief ]

Full Idea

The "religious sentiment" (discussed by Feuerbach) is itself a social product.

Gist of Idea

Religious feeling is social in origin

Source

Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §VII)

Book Ref

Marx,K./Engels,F.: 'The German Ideology', ed/tr. Arthur,C.J. [Lawrence and Wishart 1985], p.122


A Reaction

Recent brain research has identified a part of the brain which is only active during religious thought and experience. It is easy to produce cynical political accounts of religion, but in its time it was also quite a good scientific account of nature.


The 30 ideas with the same theme [nature of belief in a conscious supernatural reality]:

Charity and ritual observance distract from the highest good of religion [Anon (Upan)]
In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus]
If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus]
No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch]
If you love the world, then you do not love the Father [John]
Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes]
Prayers are useful, because God foresaw them in his great plan [Leibniz]
Religion needs an intermediary, because none of us can connect directly to a godhead [Novalis]
To have pagan beliefs and be a pagan are quite different [Hegel]
Some religions lead to harsh servitude and the debasement of human beings [Hegel]
Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer]
Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer]
Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach]
Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach]
Absolute idealism is the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism [Feuerbach]
Religion is the opium of the people, and real happiness requires its abolition [Marx]
Religious feeling is social in origin [Marx]
The truly great haters in world history have always been priests [Nietzsche]
Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche]
We should try attaching the intensity of religious devotion to intelligent social action [Dewey]
Religions are so shockingly diverse that they have no common element [Dewey]
Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest [Bell,C]
Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil]
When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran]
A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran]
It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO]
The God of religion results from an encounter, not from a proof [Badiou]
The great religions are much more concerned with the religious life than with ethics [Graham]
Religion gives answers, comforts, creates social order, and panders to superstition [Grayling]
The three basic ingredients of religion are: the soul, seers or priests, and ritual [Watson]