““Religion has no physical conception of the world; it has no interest in a physical explanation, which can never be given but with a mode of origin. Origin is a theoretical, natural philosophical idea. The heathen philosophers busied themselves with the origin of things. But the religious consciousness abhorred this idea as heathen, irreligious, and substituted the practical or subjective idea of creation, which is nothing else than a prohibition to conceive things as having arisen in a natural way … The religious consciousness connects the world immediately with God; … The question, how did God create? is an indirect doubt that he did create the world. It was the question which brought man to atheism, materialism, naturalism.””
![“As Israel made the wants of his national existence the law of the world, as under the dominance of these wants he deified even his political vindictiveness; so the Christian made the requirements of human feeling the absolute powers and laws of the world. [T]hat is, indeed, only of man considered…” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/dd1/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_abrahamism_as-israel-made-the-wants-of-his-national_31284.jpg)
![“Religion annexes to its doctrines a curse and a blessing … Blessed is he that believeth, cursed is he that believeth not. Thus it appeals not to reason, but to feeling, … to the passions of hope and fear. … [T]he fear of hell urges me to believe. Even supposing my belief to be in its origin free…” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/70b/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_faith_religion-annexes-to-its-doctrines-a-curs_35960.jpg)
![“[T]o think God is therefore to affirm what God is, to establish the being of God as an act. That God is thought, cognised, is essential; that this tree is thought, is to the tree accidental, unessential. … [H]ow is it possible that God – if he is to exist for us, to be an object to us – must…” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/ef5/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_quote_t-o-think-god-is-therefore-to-affirm-wha_219124.jpg)
![“The essence of faith … is the idea that that which man wishes actually is: he wishes to be immortal, therefore he is immortal; he wishes for the existence of a being who can do everything which is impossible to Nature and reason, therefore such a being exists[.]” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bb8/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_faith_the-essence-of-faith-is-the-idea-that-th_247786.jpg)
![“[H]eavenly personality, or the perpetuation of human personality in heaven is nothing else than personality released from all earthly encumbrances and limitations[.] [H]ere we are men, there gods[.]” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/3a6/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_clinging-to-self_h-eavenly-personality-or-the-perpetuatio_340334.jpg)
![“[A]lthough the deeds opposed to love which mark Christian religious history, are in accordance with Christianity, and its antagonists are therefore right in imputing to it the horrible actions resulting from dogmatic creeds; those deeds nevertheless at the same time contradict Christianity…” quote by Ludwig Feuerbach](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6ab/ludwig-feuerbach-3406_accepting-love_a-lthough-the-deeds-opposed-to-love-whic_414411.jpg)
![“I never knew any man who had once tasted the sweetness of experimental knowledge, that ever afterward fasted after ye Vapour garlick and onions of phantasmatical seeming philosophy." [William Petty]” quote by Carl Zimmer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e5a/carl-zimmer-16331_knowledge_i-never-knew-any-man-who-had-once-tasted_1770.jpg)
