Feuerbach's influence has been greatest upon the anti-Christian Philosophers such as Strauss. But many of his ideas were taken up by those who had entered into the struggle between church and state in Germany, and those who, like Karl Marx, were leaders in the rising of labour against the power of capital. His meanings were too confusing. ("Keine Philosophie ist meine Philosophie", "My philosophy is no philosophy") to ever make him a power in philosophy.
“It is as clear as the sun and as evident as the day that there is no God and that there can be none."
"Christianity has in fact long vanished, not only from the reason but also from the life of mankind, and it is nothing more than a fixed idea." What he is trying to say here is as long as you don’t see God, the beliefs of it will never exist but the idea of God being there will be still there.
"Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established." This means that whenever honesty is based on beliefs, whenever right is made dependent on perfect power, the most evil, unjust, shameful things can be answered and proved.
All people are equal to God immediately, without any spiritual development required. It may be said that he humanized God while defying (challenging) mankind.
Religion therefore is "Nothing else than the consciousness of the infinity of the consciousness; or, in the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature." In this way God is nothing else than man: He is, so to speak, the visible prediction of man's hidden features.
“For even love, in itself the deepest, truest emotion, becomes by means of religiousness merely ostensible (doubtful), illusory (false), since religious love gives itself to man only for God’s sake, so that it is given only in appearance to man, but in reality to God.”
“If man is to find contentment in God, he must find himself in God." This means that if we want to find happiness in God, we must find ourselves in God first. (Referring to Causal Adequacy Principle?)
Feuerbach’s purpose of his work is “to show that the supernatural mysteries of religion are based upon quite simple natural truths.” He is trying to say that human beings have created their own Gods and Religions which include their own idealized idea of their hopes, goals, needs and fears. Therefore I think his approach is not social but rather psychological. Mainly because it concerns the mind. I don’t think it was an innate approach as it is not included in us people to believe or not believe in God. We don’t inherit the feature of believing in God.
