Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence Of Religion

Ludwig Feuerbach The Essence of Religion follows up his previous work The Essence of Christianity. The former with a greater focus on religion as whole rather than just Christianity itself. Within the Essence of Religion, Feuerbach spends are large portion of the book around the topic of Nature, and its connection to religion. Feuerbach first few sections serve the purpose of introducing what nature is and its relation to man. The latter being important to what Feuerbach discusses within the book. For example, Feuerbach establishes an important connection between God and Nature within section 10. The main point that Feuerbach is aiming towards in the prescribed passage is that our image of God's existence is linked to the fact that man assumes it owes its existence to Nature. Within the same passage, Feuerbach makes another important point and writes: "The existence of …show more content…
The first of these reasons being dependence, and the second being our understanding. Within the second point of this book, Feuerbach states that the source of religion comes man's dependence. However, he further proceeds to state that the feeling of that dependence is Nature (§. 2). Almost everything necessary to s that man needs to sustain himself is provided by nature. However, with that thought it cause an individual to ask why that is. The system of how life operates may seem too perfect to some. The Earth has all our essentials: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. Not only that, but the sun exists to assist in reproducing the materials we need to survive on this planet. As Feuerbach states in section three, man needs the other to stay alive (§. 3). From that though, it would be natural for man to think that something, or someone, could have created Nature. So, it would only natural for a concept such as religion to be formed from our dependence on