In his book [/i]Essence of Christianity Fuerbach stated that it is not God who created Man. Nevertheless, it is Man who created God. In other words, religions are essences of human beings. Everything that exist in this world are either product of Man or product of Nature. Man himself is a product of Nature. When I first read these notions which were represented by Fuerbach, I started to question my faith. And the more I questioned my faith, the more I realize that there are alot of contradictions on religions. I think through criticism i would be able to understand my world cleary if not perfectley. Marx was right when he said [/b]“Philosophy begins with the critique of religion.”
According to Marx,it is very significant to know the first premise of human history. And the first premise of all human history is that man must be in a position to live in order to be able to make history.But life before everything else consists of eating, drinking, clothing,habitation…etc. To fullfell these wants or needs man had to work or produce. History began with the notion of man as a producer. This idea of course contradicts the creation of Adam and Ave by God. Therefore, I believe that the beginning of human beings was on the earth rather than on the sky.[/i]
I would say that this is only partially true since I believe that Man is dual natured. Man as animal is the result of what you describe after the initial creation of all organic life. The spiritual aspect of Man and its materiality has its arising at a higher level of existence than the earth and initially descended to it well after the beginning of mechanical evolution.
“Human being” includes both.
Explain what you mean more.
Another bit to add is that, in my opinion, in order to really understand the Bible for what it is one must not spend so much time looking at it as a historical book (even though some of it is) but as a book of morals and stories. Also, back when the Bible was written man couldn’t possibly comprehend anything like evolution and as such one would have written the Bible in terms man could understand.
Case in point, the story of the creation, as told by the Bible, for me is just a big metaphor for evolution. It seems quite evident when you look at it this way: first came the earth, then it was formed (water and land). Then came animals. Then came man. In the second story of creation the whole forming of Adam out of the clay of the ground seemed a direct arrow pointing to a metaphor for how man came from primordial ooze and eventually evolved into what we are today: rational, free willed beings. With this notion we can see that, as proven by evolution, the producer man could have, and did exist.
The bigger point I’m trying to make here is that the so-called contradictions in religion are only evident if one takes the particular text they’re reading for face value and doesn’t take the time to look deeper into it for the theme, lesson, or whatever may be. Reading a holy text should be no different than reading a book. The underlying message should always be found if one wishes to understand it.
-Peter