The Ultimate Form of Critiquing Human-Made Gods: From Feuerbach to Lao-Yang’s Natural God Cosmological Order

Throughout human civilization, the relationship between “God and Man” has consistently been a central issue in philosophy, religion, society, and scientific thought. Traditional theology places God above the universe and humanity, endowing God with ultimate authority. German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach proposed the provocative thesis: “It is not God who created man, but man who created God,” revealing the psychological, anthropological, and cultural roots of personalized divine authority. Although Feuerbach completed the philosophical dismantling of “the death of God,” he still assumed humans as the ultimate standard, failing to fully transcend the limitations of anthropocentric humanism. The crises of modern civilization—including the emergence of political gods, capitalist gods, technological gods, and AI gods—demonstrate that humans continue to create new “gods,” perpetuating mechanisms of alienation and authority. The Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology centers on a non-personal, non-willed, and non-purposive Dao, offering the ultimate form of human-made god critique. Dao gives birth to all things (Dao sheng wanwu) reveals the generative logic of natural gods: the universe self-organizes along a generative chain from galaxies to solar systems, Earth, the Moon, and finally life and civilization. Dao follows nature (Dao fa ziran) establishes the principles of natural civilization: humans align with generative order rather than exercising domination. This paper systematically explores these themes across seven chapters: from Feuerbach’s philosophical deconstruction of human-made gods and its psychological and historical analysis, to Lao-Yang’s scientific-philosophical structure of a non-personal cosmic order, and finally to the modern disguises of new gods and the reconstruction of civilization. It proposes standards for contemporary human awakening: freedom and value are achieved not through reliance on a personalized ultimate being, but through understanding, emulation, and participation in generative order. The ultimate proposition can be summarized as: “It was not God who created man, it was not man who created the universe, but the universe that generated man, and man mistakenly created God.” This study deepens the critique of religious philosophy and anthropology while providing a scientific-philosophical framework for modern civilization ethics, ecological governance, technology, and AI philosophy.