Freud and God

Freud and God

Basic claims:

1.       Religion is a projection, an objectification, an externalization of subconscious desires. Once this desire is objectified into ‘’God’’ it is mistakenly taken to be an autonomous existence independent of its human creators

2.       Religion is therefore a coded way for human beings to talk about their desires. Human’s beings have desires and human beings with their desires invent Gods who are able to fulfil these desires. If the fundamental human desire is happiness then religion offers happiness- if not in this world then in the next.

3.       Religion is therefore born if wish fulfilment. It is desire fulfilled.

4.       Freud believed that by exposing these revelations he would liberate humans to act in a more informed freeway.

 Freud was interested in what the triggers for religion within the personality were, and what drove the subconscious motivations behind religious ideas, rituals and doctrines.

Freud believed his method of psychoanalysis could uncover these triggers. For Freud religion is nothing more than his product of a psychological process. Indeed Freud did not hate religion but rather view its time as having helped human society to developed and now it was inhibiting a new age of science and psychoanalysis.

Freud and Religion

Freud’s first attempt to explain religion in physiological terms can be found in Totem and Taboo (1915) where he suggests that religion arose during pre-historic man as an act of expiation (the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement.) for the primeval murder of the father by the male adolescents because they desire the mother. The adolescent males then begin to feel guilt about the killing of the farther and so erect a totem in his honour. The Totem takes on the attributes of the farther and the males in time worship it. In doing so the adolescent males are able to relive their feelings of guilt while future generations are prevented for committing such crimes.

For Freud the religious response to the world is neurosis which has its roots in childhood. If the problem area can be identified by psychoanalysis then the religious neurosis should disappear.

1.       Religion is the defence mechanism of the religious person to the experience of living in a hostile world. The world is a fearful place for a child and if learning how to deal with the world is not accomplished in childhood it reveals itself later in life in the form of religious neurosis. The child creates a great farther figure as he remembers from childhood how his dad represented the protector. God is therefore the magnified farther figure that the religious person wishes to depend on throughout the rest of their lives.

This is why, Freud argued, that young people often lose their faith in God when they realise that their own fathers are as perfect as they view God and to make mistakes.

2.       Religion is a form of wish fulfilment – This is the wish of the child for a loving farther in a hostile world who will look after them and upon they can depend leads them to create God. God is the ideal projection of what the farther should be.

The existence of God is therefore an illusion and religion is a mass delusion that shapes the reality for believers.  Individuals feel the need for one upon whom they can rely and create a God with whom they can share all their troubles. Religion enables people to feel comforted and secure as the God they worship is all-powerful, loving and total trustworthy so whatever happens during the individual’s life they can feel confident that it will work out in the end

3.       Freud noted that in religion there are repetitive patterns of behaviour in rituals and services. He considered these to be similar to the neurotic behaviour patterns that some of his clients exhibited. Freud believed that religious rituals provide a mechanism for man to work out early tensions which have developed as a result of the Oedipus complex.

The Oedipus complex is the male desire to kill his farther and have sexual intercourse with his mother; this like most things by Freud has its origins in the childhood. He said that babies developed very complexed feelings about their parents. They see their parents as a threat as the farther often takes over the priority which the mother initially gives to the baby and thus creates a feeling of jealously. The farther as a result is seen as a rival or a threat to the baby and the love given to it by the farther.