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Quote by Ludwig Feuerbach

“Man distinguishes himself from Nature. This distinction of his is his God: the distinguishing of God from Nature is nothing else than the distinguishing of man from Nature. … [S]peculations and controversies concerning the personality or impersonality of God are therefore fruitless, idle, uncritical … ; … they in truth speculate only concerning themselves, only in the interest of their own instinct of self-preservation[.]”

Quote by Ludwig Feuerbach

Book:Essence of Christianity
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Essence of Christianity

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Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Feuerbach

Ludwig Feuerbach, a prominent German philosopher born on July 28, 1804, and died on September 13, 1872. He was a significant figure in the German classical philosophy and had a profound impact on the birth of Marxist philosophy. more

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“The idea of man as a species, and with it the significance of the life of the species, of humanity as a whole, vanished as Christianity became dominant. Herein we have … confirmation … that Christianity does not contain within itself the principle of culture. Where man immediately identifies the species with the individual, and posits this identity as his highest being, as God, where the idea of humanity is thus an object to him only as the idea of the Godhead, there the need of culture has vanished; man has all in himself, all in his God, consequently he has no need to supply his own deficiencies by others as the representatives of the species, or by the contemplation of the world generally; and this need alone is the spring of culture.”

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Book:Essence of Christianity
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“To him who feels that Nature is lovely, it appears an end in itself, it has the ground of its existence in itself: … the question, Why does it exist? does not arise. … Nature, as it impresses his senses, has indeed had an origin, has been produced, but not created in the religious sense, … [H]e posits … as the ground of Nature, a force of Nature, - a real, present, visibly active force, as the ground of reality. … Anaxagoras (510-428BC : 'Life is a journey.'): - Man is born to behold the world. … [M]an contents himself, allows himself free play, … [with] the sensuous imagination alone. … [H]e lets Nature subsist in peace, and constructs his castles in the air. … When, on the contrary, man … is in disunion with Nature[,] he makes Nature the abject vassal of his selfish interest, of his practical egoism. … Nature or the world is made, created, the product of a command.”

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Book:Essence of Christianity
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