God is a Psycological Construct

God is a Psycological Construct

Feuerbach -  God as a human projection: Believed humans invented God because they feel helpless in an alien world and need to invent God to comfort them. Feuerbach believed that there werre 3 attributes that make up human nature - REASON, WILL AND LOVE. These attributes are then projected onto an image of God, where reason becomes infinate, knowledge becomes omniscience, will becomes infinate and omnipotence, and love becomes omnbenevolence.

Feuerbach also thought there were 2 stages to human development:

1. Human dependence on nature, which leads to polytheism and the desire for needs to be satisfied.

2. Human dependence on one another in civillised society. This leads to monotheism and the search for spirituality.

He believed that with social progress, religion would disappear. Religion alienates people from their own nature by projecting all that is Good in humans onto God and leaving Humans with all the negative attributes which is psycologically damaging.

'What man is in need of he makes his God' and 'What man wishes to be he makes his God'

Critisisms:

1.Religion has not disapeared as predicted

2.Just because something is in you imagination doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

3.Just because humans wish or need to believe in God does not mean that he is our invention. Maybe God programmed us like this?

Freud - God is a Psycological need: Freud believed that the unconcious holds the key to our physical and mental health, that memories deep down can be responsible for real physical…