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On Religion

According to Bultmann, "religion is the attempt to become lord over anxiety in face of the dark powers that encounter human beings out of nature and destiny and out of their own being; the attempt, as it were, to exorcise these powers by presenting them in pictures, by becoming thoroughly familiar with them and establishing regulated associations with them just as one associates with other human beings." Thus what is at work in religion is "not true reverence in the presence of God but anxiety about life in face of the uncanniness of the world, and this religion is simultaneously the attempt of human beings to become lord of this anxiety by bringing the uncanny under their control, integrating it into their life, thereby reassuring themselves in face of the riddle of their existence and creating their own security" (Marburger Predigten: 3 f.).

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