Which famous philosopher stated that were there no higher powers we would need to create them?

Question

(possibly to fulfill a psychological need for their existence?)

Answer 1

Immanuel Kant. Hang on, I'm looking it up.

Well, I did look it up, and it wasn't Kant, it was Voltaire:

Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer. [If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.]

IT'S I AGAIN!

Well, Kant said something very like it, but being Kant, he didn't make it easy to understand. Here it is:

"In the foregoing analysis the moral law led to a practical problem which is prescribed by pure reason alone, without the aid of any sensible motives, namely, that of the necessary completeness of the first and principle element of the summum bonum, viz., morality; and, as this can be perfectly solved only in eternity, to the postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead us to affirm the possibility of the second element of the summum bonum, viz., happiness proportioned to that morality, and this on grounds as disinterested as before, and solely from impartial reason; that is, it must lead to the supposition of the existence of a cause adequate to this effect; in other words, it must postulate the existence of God, as the necessary condition of the possibility of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is necessarily connected with the moral legislation of pure reason). We proceed to exhibit this connection in a convincing manner." (1788)

Answer 2

I think it was Kant as well, and I agree. Looking back on human history and the history of thought and knowledge, the creation of gods and religions seems mostly inevitable. Primitive peoples lacked the knowledge of how to think rationally, and so were at a loss as to how to figure stuff out without invoking supernatural or other fantasy causes.

Gods evolved from spirits, which were conceived to explain the unexplainable, stuff like the wind, fortune or misfortune, the power and/or capriciousness of animals that hunted humans, cycles of fertility & drought, etc. Fables were invented to try to explain other questions like what happens after death, or as a means to convey concepts of community or of good & evil. Later, the institution of the church evolved from more primitive gatherings. It acts as a social bonding tool, a way to try to curry and keep favor with the god(s), and a means of morality enforcement.

Answer 3

Freud saw religion as the "universal neuroses," he developed this theory by looking at the totems and taboos of early societies.