In 1927, Sigmund Freud published a book titled The Future of an illusion, published

during the time where he was diagnosed with mouth cancer, due to his heavy smoking
habits. It was also during this time, he published a majority of books criticising religion as
a system of false beliefs. He believed his system of psychoanalysis was the bases of all
human nature, and that all human behaviours could be explained by using his method of
analysis, and everything from jokes and dreams could be explained and interpreted. Here
I will discuss the theories proposed by Sigmund Freud, and hopefully you will understand
the reasoning behind his theories.
Civilization, as explained by Freud, was created by man for two reasons: one is to
suppress and restrict individual tendencies of human beings, some of which may be
destructive, and the other to redistribute wealth to people. He believed rulers are there to
exercise control over the masses, and its only possible if the rulers are of a different
class, e.g. rankings. He then proceeds to explain the values that religious ideas have on
individuals within a civilization, he says that god is a human creation for three major
reasons, to explain and remove the terror of nature, provide reconciliation to humans on
subjects of death and fate, and the pains that human experience in partaking within
civilizations.
Freud mentions when humans are presented with the idea of religion. There are usually
three reasons given of believing in it, that our ancestors had belief in it, and the religion
being passed down by our ancestors should be respected, also it is forbidden to question
them. He believed that religion was simply an infantile neurosis, where a child would
develop an imagine of a fatherly figure that is all knowing and all powerful. But when we
grow up we know that the truth is that our father is not that immense and powerful as we
perceived him to be, our mind create an image that bear all the same traits that we
imagined our father to be as an infant. The reason that this is classified as a neurosis as
explained by Freud, is owing to the fact that this is a naturally occurring phenomena
involving distress, created to reduce anxiety. He also further explained the common
characteristics of neurosis, involving magical and wishful thinking, clear motivations
between fear and guilt, ritualistic behaviours (e.g. baptism and ceremonies) and
obsessional thoughts. He added that religion creates virtues for adults, such as being
honest, obedient, humble and courageous, which plays a mediating role in developing
the Id of the human psyche and why it is so easily accepted by many individuals. Like all
neurosis, there are sacrifices involved, the inability to view the world as it is, not being
able to grow into full adulthood and failure to be free in the mind. In the future, Freud
believed all religions will be explained and proved to be false with science, and through
his model of psychoanalysis, which he believed to be science.
In the later parts of his book, he discusses what happens when the thought of rejecting
religion occurs. Religion often describes about the penalties that may occur for certain
actions, such as hell for non-believers. This, in some way is linked to how civilizations
imposes laws and penalties for certain actions, where a lot of minor laws have no actual
moral value but has religious values embedded inside them, and after having grouped
together to form major laws.

Religion is an illusion. The existence of a powerful divine

person is one of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent
wishes of mankind. Illusion is not error, but a wishfulfillment as a prominent factor in its motivation and [a]
disregard of its relations to reality.(40) While admitting
religion has clearly performed great services for human
civilization Freud firmly denies its truth saying religion has
really failed to make people satisfied in the past few
thousands of years (47). Natural science has identified the
errors in religious documents and thus decreases their
influence among the masses (50). Freud treated religion as a
universal obsessional neurosis (55). Finally, Freud
deconstructed the argument that religion furnishes
essentially plausibility structures for society by saying that
people should withdraw from religion and rely instead on
scientific knowledge, which would increase the power and
independence of humans in the face of nature and Fate (63).
Freud produced a convincing analysis that the human race is
stuck between animal instinct and regulations, and also
between building civilization and rebellion against
civilization. Through an atheistic psychoanalytic approach,
Freud drew a picture of a scientific utopia by saying that
without religion humanity will be liberated and probably
succeed in achieving a state in which life will become
tolerable for everyone and civilization no longer oppressive
to anyone (63). The atheistic, utopian and communistic
blueprint he created here proved to be an illusion and a
catastrophe only a few decades later.
http://firmitas.org/FreudFuture.html
Criticisms of Freud on Religion
People who have mystical experiences do not always feel comforted and safe. Often they feel
challenged by God to go out in to the world and make it better and this can often lead them into
dangerous situations. Freud`s assessment of mystical experiences was therefore simplistic. Storr says
that if Freud had
experienced anything of the kind himself, he might have been forced to consider some other
explanation.
Freud claimed to be scientific but was he? Science starts with observations of the world and creates
theories or hypotheses based on what it finds. Freud began with a theory and looked for evidence to
back it up.
Isn`t religion supposed to bring comfort to people? A religious person is likely to concede that religion
does this but argue that this in no way makes it false.

Freud`s concept of religion was very narrow. His theories about religion as a `universal neurosis` are
based mainly on the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity that he knew. He said his theory of religion
applies to all religions but it is hard to see how it can apply to religions with no strong God figure (e.g.
Buddhism and Taoism) or to religions that have strong Goddess figures (e.g. Hinduism).
It is purely wild speculation to argue that the development of an individual human mirrors the
development of the species. The history of humanity is incredibly complex. Freud simplifies and
distorts the reality with this
theory and has absolutely no evidence for it.
Freud believed that religion is the return of the repressed trauma of the Oedipus complex. He treated
this primitive murder of the patriarchal figure as an actual, historical event and claims that all religion
since is
simply the manifestation of the emotional guilt from this murder. For this to be true:
a) the event needs to have actually happened but there is no evidence for it b) somehow the guilt of the
event must have passed into the collective consciousness of the human race this
is a bit like the idea of `Original sin` and again there is no evidence that it can happen
The idea that religion is a form of `wish fulfilment` whereby people feel safe and protected by a
heavenly father figure and are able to shrink away from the realities of daily life is a misrepresentation
of religion. Most religious people would claim that their faith is not an easy option but something that
is challenging and
that can be difficult. They may feel called to stand up to injustice in society and may struggle with
ideas like the problem of suffering. It isn`t all plain sailing.
Many argue that religious behaviour only resembles neurotic behaviour in a superficial way (e.g.
parallels between ritual washing and obsessive compulsive behaviour). There are actually very
sigifnicant differences. For example, religious ritual is usually public whereas neurotic behaviour is
usually private. Also, religious ritual has meaning (e.g. it links to religious events like the Last Supper).
Religious people also believe it enhances their lives and brings fulfilment it is not a sign that they are
mentally unwell.
Even if religion does involve some projection of human fears onto a heavenly `father figure`, does this
in
itself prove that God does not exist?
Anthropologists who theorised about the primal horde have now been discredited. There is no hard
evidence that this primal group led by a patriarch ever existed.
Did Freud really know what the experience of being in the womb feels like? His claim that religious
people are seeking an `oceanic feeling` of comfort and safety is based on an assumption of what the
womb experience is
like not actual knowledge.
Freud was an `armchair philosopher` who created grand theories about religion without ever doing any
empirical research himself. He relied on writings of historians and anthropologists, many of whom
have long been discedited. According to E.J. Sharpe, Freud used the theories of others to create one of
the wildest and most bizarre constructions in the history of modern thought and manipulated his
sources to