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It was L A Feuerbach who in his epochal work, The Essence of Christianity dismissed the idea of God as the worship of man‘s nature by debased persons who are bereft in proper understanding of his nature. According to him, man projects his own nature outside himself to be called God. In other words, man projects himself into objectivity and believes that this is God. For him, religion is its real essence is the belief in the truth and divinity of the nature of man. Man strips himself all his best qualities as his goodness, his justice, his power etc in the process of alienating himself from the viscidities of life. He does this by removing all limitations from the projected best qualities such as infinite goodness, infinite power, etc. one can see from this that all the divine attributes are nothing other than human attributes abstracted from man and projected to God. His concludes that religion is thus man‘s self-alienation as he removes his best attributes and gives them to God and becomes nothing.

Feuerbach however, sees this stripping of oneself of his best qualities as a dialectical process of self-knowledge acquisition. Man realizes that this imaginary projection of being that he terms God is a mere idolization and worship of himself and that there is not objectively real as God. It is only in realizing that he has been worshipping and praying to himself that he can overcome his self-alienation. What is on prominent relief here is that once man reconciles with himself when he recognizes that he has been worshipping and praying to himself, he stopped the practice of religion. This is because a finite being cannot know an infinite being since his nature is limited. He admits that man has knowledge of infinitude only in the sense that it is the collection of man‘s nature. He makes real his theory by linking it with the Christian doctrine of incarnation where God reveals Himself as nothing but man. He concludes by saying that this situation enables God to be man in order for man to be God.

(Deus homo factus est; ut homo Deus fieret). What can be seen in his argument can be summarized as man looking for his perfection in the idea of God. As he puts it: ―The yearning of man after something above himself is nothing else than longing after the perfect type of his nature, the yearning to be free from himself, i.e, from the limits and defects of his individuality‖.( Feuerbach 1957:281).

From the fore going, it can be agreeable that there is a sense in which Feuerbach‘s postulation is reasonable. Since the limitation posed in man by his nature places him at a difficulty in

knowing things beyond this physical, he will certainly be left with the only option of projecting his best attributes as God. However, it is difficult to explain away the idea of God as a mere projection of man‘s best attributes. The hollowness created by man trying to understand himself in this universe by trying to find answers to the fundamental questions of life cannot be wished away as Feuerbach postulates. It is difficult to dismiss the idea of God and religion the way we have seen in the above section; what is obtainable is that God relates with man in such a way that He is worshipful and man reciprocates as a worshipper.

4.0 Conclusion

In this unit, we have examined the origin, nature and conception of religion as emanating from cultural understanding of God. We also saw the relationship between God, the sacred and the mundane as that of a worshipper and the worshipful. It is good that we have seen the origins and theories of the origin of God and ipso facto religion. You are in a better position to appreciate the notion of God, the sacred and the mundane that enthrones religious sentiments.

One thing should be noted here namely that an apparent repetition of an earlier unit is that religion is intertwined with the notion of God such that it will be difficult to discuss one without the other.

5.0 Summary

From the foregoing, it can be summarized as follows that you have learnt the following:

The nature of religion as is understandable by man

The various arguments postulated as to how religion originated.

The difficulties of the discussion of God‘s nature outside religion

The various theories of the activities designated religious understandable in metaphysical and cultural paradigms.

6.0 Self-assessment Exercises

Evaluate the Marxist perspective on the nature and origin of religion?

Examine the sociological nature and origin of religion?

Discuss the theological views of religion?

What do you understand by the anthropological conception of the origin of religion?

7.0 References/ Further Readings

Marx Karl, (1972) Thesis Against Feuerbach (6^th Thesis) printed in August Del Noce,

I Caratteri Generalli Del Pensiero Politico Contemporaneo Milano: Dott, A Giuffre Editore

O‘Connor, Timothy (2008), Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency, Oxford, Blackwell

Omoregbe, Joseph (2007), A Philosophical Look at Religion: Philosophy of Religion Lagos: Joja Educational and Research Publishers ltd

Paley William (1802), Natural Theology; London: Oxford University Press

Unamuno, Miguel de, (1954) Tragic Sense of Life, New York: Dover Publications, Inc

Unit 2; Religious Reasoning

Contents:

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Intended Learning outcomes (ILOs) 3.0 Main Content

3.1 Understanding Reasoning