Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, pt. 3

I read a little more about Hegel today, and, from a Christian standpoint at least, his beliefs are nothing short of ridiculous. He believed that God's main goal was to "find himself, become aware of himself, coincide with himself", and that God (a word which Hegel used interchangeably with "the Idea") had to "alienate itself in order to find itself again." When Hegel looked at history, and saw that in ancient times only one man was free: the despot. In Greece and Rome, the Republics made several men free, but there were still many slaves. Hegel believed that all men were free in the Germanic world (Hegel was German). In the same way, he believed that the "Idea" was revealed through art (a sensual and imperfect revelation), through religion (a mental and more refined revelation), and finally through philosophy, the final perfection (Hegel of course, was a philosopher). Hence, Hegel's philosophy led right back to himself, and Hegel believed that he had "recapitulated and given expression to the autobiography of the divine." This is the result when a human tries to put himself on the same level as God. Tragic...and ridiculous.