Sigmund Freud: Religion

Sigmund Freud: Religion

as Universal Obsessional

Neurosis

Religion as an Illusion

Origins of Religion

Creation of Religion

What is the difference between a delusion and an illusion?

A delusion is cleary false and a contradition of reality

An illusion is more to do with human wants and wishes and motivations of belief. They are more psychic in origin.

The repression of the Oedipal urge (Kill Dad and have sex with Mum) is shown through neurotic obsessional acts (religion)

Thus, religion (as neurosis) has its origins in the supression of the libido.

God's are the projection of the natural world, natural forces that threaten mankind - fire, wind, rain, disease, floods etc. Thus, religion provides us with help from external suffering = afterlife/appeasement of the Gods

Freud believes in nature, the young males are prohibited from mating with the females by the 'father' figure of the group. This leads the males to killing the father figure so that they can mate - see Oedipal Urge again!

However, the younger males are ultimately upset by what they have done and to compensate for lacking a father figure - they begin to venerate a father ideal! (See handout - pg 155, atheism for beginners).

Totem and Taboo

This ends becoming a God - father like, ideal which is worshipped as the males deal with their guilt and repression of the Oedipus complex.

Religion also provides us with an answer to internal suffering.

We continually battle: INCEST, Lust for KILLING, CANNABILISM. But religious laws make these taboo- so we repress them and neurosis springs forth, as seen by religious rituals and moral commands we must follow.

All being done to appease and the over denial of guilt, by worshipping a FATHER FIGURE GOD.

By following religion we protect society from the above traumas.

The father figure not only protects us from external torubles (see above) but from internal ones, such as the Oedipal Urge.

Thus, the element of guilt is the main emotion felt by religious believers.

1) for the Oedipal Urge

2) for the memory of the primal horde traumas.

So to repress this extreme guilt, gets displayed in the most fervant and repetative rituals - all being done to placate the FATHER we have offended and to try and avert the punishment we deserve.

In addition, the TOTEM was a sacred object used by the tribe, which acts as a guardian spirit. This totem must never be killed. This totem brings the tribe together as one big family, which further promotes exogamy.

Freud also looked at primitive religions and primitive people. He looked at what was taboo in their society - the main one being INCEST - which linked with his Oedipal Urge theory. Exogamy was promoted - to find sexual partners outside of the tribe.

The Oedipal urge is passed down through the generations

Religion is thus a neurotic illness: a return of the repressed

Thus the great taboo of society is incest! It is avoided at all costs because it is secretly desired the most. Hence the link to the Oedipal Urge.

Oedipus Complex

See handout (pg 154 - Atheism for beginners)

Thus; repressing the trauma of the Oedipal impulse (incest with the mother and hatred of the father): Therefore, this repressing ends up being shown as a neurotic obsession.

Therefore, if the Oedipal complex is repressed at that early age, then the beginnings of religion, must be linked to the repression of the Oedipal urge, because religion, as an example of neurosis, must be an outlay for a repressed trauma.

Neurosis & Ritual

Freud observes that religious behaviour is very similar to that of a obsessional neurotic.

What does Freud mean by this?

Hours are spent carrying out certain rituals, which have religious importance: counting prayer beads for example. Why do it: the person feels guilty if they do not!

Background:

Freud never departs from 2 main strands of thinking

1) Repression

2) Oedipus Complex

Repression is a mechanism which occurs when a person has suffered traumas at an early age which they consider painful or shameful and have become locked in the unconscious mind.

• Hysteria occurs when these traumas are remembered.
• Thus repression occurs to prevent hysteria.
• Neurosis then occurs as the persons unconscious battles to keep the trauma there and not let it into the conscious mind.

''Reality''

It is the repression of the Libido (sexual instinct), in particular the libido between the child and his parents:

Known most famously as Oedipus Complex.

Freud believed that men and women should be 'educated to reality' and reality being that there is no God and that this is the only world there is, and once they are educated to see religion for what it is:

AN ILLUSION - there will be a greater chance of social progress.

Freud believes that religion is like a drug that has infected people since childhood and that many are capable of breaking the habit.

The impulse to believe does not derive, then, from any external deity. But is an internal and psychological affliction.

You can be cured from this by introspection and laying bare all their hidden impulses of their innermost being, assisted only by psychoanalysis.