|
19451
|
When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach]
|
|
Full Idea:
When, submerged in deep reflection, you forget both yourself and your surroundings, is it you who controls reason, or is it rather reason that controls and absorbs you?
|
|
From:
Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
|
|
A reaction:
A delightful question, even if it looks like a false dichotomy. I'm not sure what to make of 'me', if my reason can be subtracted from it. Aquinas was one the same wavelength here.
|
|
19450
|
Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach]
|
|
Full Idea:
Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man; they are his highest powers, his absolute essence in so far as he is man, the purpose of his existence. Man exists in order to think, love and will.
|
|
From:
Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I)
|
|
A reaction:
Feuerbach was a notable atheist, but adopts a religious style of language which modern atheists would find rather alien. Personally I love talk of ideals and perfections. Ideals have been discredited in modern times, but need a revival.
|
|
7903
|
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
|
|
Full Idea:
The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
|
|
From:
Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
|
|
A reaction:
What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
|
|
19454
|
A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach]
|
|
Full Idea:
The concept of God depends on the concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom - a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. That a quality is possessed by God does not make it divine.
|
|
From:
Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
|
|
A reaction:
This is part of Feuerbach's argument for atheism, but if you ask for the source of our human concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom, no one, I would have thought, could cite God for the role.
|
|
19453
|
If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach]
|
|
Full Idea:
If love, goodness, and personality are human determinations, the being which constitutes their source and ...their presupposition is also an anthropomorphism; so is the existence of God.
|
|
From:
Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II)
|
|
A reaction:
It is certainly a struggle for the imagination to grasp a being which is characterised by idealised versions of human virtues, and yet has an intrinsic nature which is utterly different from humanity.
|
|
21798
|
To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
|
|
Full Idea:
If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
|
|
From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
|
|
A reaction:
Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.
|
|
21797
|
Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
|
|
Full Idea:
The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
|
|
From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
|
|
A reaction:
An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?
|