{"id":1895,"date":"2022-08-29T12:54:36","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T12:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/08\/29\/god-as-human-projection-2\/"},"modified":"2022-08-29T12:54:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T12:54:36","slug":"god-as-human-projection-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/08\/29\/god-as-human-projection-2\/","title":{"rendered":"God as Human Projection?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What could be logically weaker than the theory that God is a projection of human needs? Supposedly God does not exist because his existence reflects human exigencies. This argument presupposes that God could exist only if man did not need Him. What could be more absurd? But then, why is this idea so widespread?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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Augusto Del Noce, in The Crisis of Modernity<\/em> edited and translated by Carlo Lancellotti, (MQUP, Kindle Edition), p. 299. HT: Michael Liccione, Facebook, 12\/16\/21.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\"Augusto_del-noce-2343201140\"<\/a>The Continental philosopher will often say in an obscure and confusing way what the analytic philosopher can say clearly.  Allow me to demonstrate.<\/span><\/div>\n
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God cannot be a human projection. This follows directly from what we mean by 'God' and what we mean by 'projection.' By 'God' we mean a being whose existence does not depend on the existence of anything else.  Of course, that is not all we mean by 'God,' but it is an essential part of what we mean. So if God exists, he exists in splendid independence of humans and their wants and needs. By 'projection' we mean either a projecting or that which is projected in a projecting. Either way a projection cannot exist without a projector. It follows that God cannot be a human projection.  We know this by sheer analysis of the terms 'God' and 'projection.' For nothing that is a projection could satisfy the concept God<\/em>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Does it follow that God exists? No.  But that is not the point. The point is that God cannot be a human projection, pace<\/em> Ludwig Feuerbach and his followers.  God obviously cannot be a human projection if he exists. Suppose God does not exist. Then there is nothing in reality to which the term 'God' applies. The nonexistence of God leaves both the meaning of 'God' and the concept God<\/em> intact.  So it is not the case that if God does not exist then the concept God<\/em> becomes the concept of a human projection. The concept God<\/em> remains the concept of something such that, if it existed, it would not be dependent on anything else for its existence, and therefore, the concept of something such that, if it existed, it could not be a human projection.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So what is Ludwig Feuerbach's signature sentence, "God is an unconscious anthropomorphic projection," about? Despite its surface grammar, the sentence cannot, given the cogency of the above reasoning, be  about God, but about our concept God<\/em>. What it says about this concept is that nothing satisfies it. But then Feuerbach begs the question against the theist.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What could be logically weaker than the theory that God is a projection of human needs? Supposedly God does not exist because his existence reflects human exigencies. This argument presupposes that God could exist only if man did not need Him. What could be more absurd? But then, why is this idea so widespread? Augusto … Continue reading “God as Human Projection?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[404,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feuerbach","category-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}