06-23-2020, 04:32 PM
(06-23-2020, 04:05 PM)Dill Wrote: Yes, a left-Hegelian humanism. God is "externalized" and projected outwards, first on to fetishized objects, then into the heavens, in a kind of self-estrangement or alienation of "Man's" own inner values.
In his version of religious history, "Man" gradually comes to recognize himself as the source of these externally projected values. Jesus is a big step in this process (recognizing God within) which culminates in "man's" full recognition of himself as source/author, and a "liberation" from superstition. So critique of religion is process of self-recognition and re-integration of alienated value.
Marx has an interesting critique of this in The German Ideology, where he argues that Feuerbach's conception of man is itself "theological," and a historical form of "bourgeois consciousness."
Interesting that Marx described it as bourgeois consciousness. I had a conversation with a couple of colleagues a few months back where that topic, or the basic premise associated with it, came up. There is a movement by some theologians involved with the current academic circuit that are leaning more and more in this direction, whether it be an archetypal model of explanation, a increasingly meta-spiritual definition of belief, etc.
I could envision some describing that shift as a "bourgeois redefining" of traditional religious belief, although I will say that it is much more in line with what I believe to be far more precise representation of historical origin and a much more logical, honest position than that of a "literal God."
