Why Do We Care if God Exists?

Ludwig Feuerbach says we invent God because we are afraid of ourselves.

I’m not strictly following the usual Method of Engagement because on this topic I prefer to mingle the ideas rather than compartmentalize them.

I started this Substack project in search of the best philosophical arguments for atheism. Most recommendations are people who are living, writing, and debating today. Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, however, is from the nineteenth century and best known for his work, The Essence of Christianity.

Feuerbach (1804 – 1872) was a German philosopher who was influenced by Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831), who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) and Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), and who, in turn, shaped the thought of Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), and Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). Because he is situated among these peers and because he was advocate of atheism, I expected Feuerbach’s writing to be more syllogistic. Terms, assumptions, and premises are laid o…