I Want to State the Conclusion That the Beginnings of Religion Ethics Society and Art Freud

Sigmund Freud's views on religion are described in several of his books and essays. Freud regarded God as an illusion, based on the infantile need for a powerful male parent figure. Co-ordinate to him, religion, necessary to help us restrain tearing impulses earlier in the development of culture, can now be set aside in favor of reason and science.^[1]

Freud's religious groundwork [edit]

In An Autobiographical Study, originally published in 1925, Freud recounts that "My parents were Jews, and I have remained a Jew myself." Familiarity with Bible stories, from an historic period even before he learned to read, had "an enduring effect on the direction of my involvement." In 1873, upon attending the University at Vienna, he starting time encountered antisemitism: "I institute that I was expected to feel myself inferior and an conflicting because I was a Jew."^[2]

In a prefatory note to the Hebrew translation of Totem and Taboo (1930) Freud describes himself as "an author who is ignorant of the language of holy writ, who is completely estranged from the religion of his fathers—as well as from every other organized religion" only who remains "in his essential nature a Jew and who has no desire to change that nature".^[3]

Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices [edit]

In Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices (1907), his primeval writing about religion, Freud suggests that religion and neurosis are like products of the human mind: neurosis, with its compulsive behavior, is "an private religiosity", and religion, with its repetitive rituals, is a "universal obsessional neurosis".^[4]

Totem and Taboo [edit]

In Totem and Taboo, published in 1913, Freud analyzes the tendency of primitive tribes to promulgate rules confronting incest within groups named for totem animal and objects, and to create taboos regarding actions, people and things. He notes that taboos (such as that regarding incest) nevertheless play a significant part in mod society just that totemism "has long been abased as an actuality and replaced by newer forms". Freud believes that an original act of patricide—the killing and devouring of "the trigger-happy primal father" was remembered and re-enacted equally a "totem repast...mankind'southward earliest festival" which was "the get-go of so many things—of social arrangement, of moral restrictions and of religion".^[v] Freud develops this thought farther in Moses and Monotheism, his final book, discussed below. He further goes to aspect creation of gods to humans: "...nosotros know that, like gods, [demons] are simply the product of the psychic powers of man; they accept been created from and out of something."^[half-dozen]

In An Autobiographical Written report Freud elaborated on the core thought of Totem and Taboo: "This view of religion throws a particularly clear light upon the psychological basis of Christianity, in which, it may be added, the ceremony of the totem-feast yet survives with only picayune distortion in the grade of Communion."^[7]

The Future of an Illusion [edit]

In The Time to come of an Illusion (1927),^[8] Freud refers to religion every bit an illusion which is "possibly the most important particular in the psychical inventory of a civilization". In his estimation, religion provides for defense against "the crushingly superior force of nature" and "the urge to rectify the shortcomings of civilization which made themselves painfully felt".^[ix] He concludes that all religious behavior are "illusions and insusceptible of proof".^[10]

Freud then examines the event of whether, without organized religion, people will experience "exempt from all obligation to obey the precepts of culture".^[11] He notes that "civilisation has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers" in whom secular motives for morality replace religious ones, merely he acknowledges the existence of "the groovy mass of the uneducated and oppressed" who may commit murder if not told that God forbids it, and who must be "held down most severely" unless "the relationship between civilization and religion" undergoes "a fundamental revision".^[12]

Freud asserts that dogmatic religious grooming contributes to a weakness of intellect by foreclosing lines of inquiry.^[13] He argues that "in the long run nix can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction which faith offers to both is all likewise palpable."^{[14] [15]} The volume expressed Freud'south "hope that in the time to come scientific discipline will get across religion, and reason volition replace religion in God".^[16]

In an afterword to An Autobiographical Study (1925, revised 1935), Freud states that his "substantially negative" view of religion changed somewhat later on The Future of an Illusion; while faith's "ability lies in the truth which information technology contains, I showed that that truth was not a material just a historical truth."^[17]

Harold Blossom calls The Hereafter of an Illusion "ane of the nifty failures of religious criticism." Bloom believes that Freud underestimated religion, and that as a upshot his criticisms of information technology were no more disarming than T. South. Eliot'south criticisms of psychoanalysis. Bloom suggests that psychoanalysis and Christianity are both interpretations of the earth and of human nature, and that while Freud believed that religious beliefs are illusions and delusions, the same may be said of psychoanalytic theory. In his view zero is accomplished with regard to either Christianity or psychoanalysis by listing their illusions and delusions.^[xviii]

Civilization and its Discontents [edit]

In Civilization and its Discontents, published in 1930, Freud says that man's need for religion could be explained by "a awareness of 'eternity', a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded—as it were, 'oceanic'", and adds, "I cannot detect this 'oceanic' feeling in myself".^[19] Freud suggests that the "oceanic feeling", which his friend Romain Rolland had described to him in a letter, is a wish fulfillment, related to the child'southward egocentric need for protection.^[twenty]

James Strachey, editor and translator of this and other works of Freud, describes the principal theme of the work every bit "the irremediable antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of civilization".^[21] Freud also treats two other themes, the development of civilization recapitulating individual development, and the personal and social struggle betwixt "Eros" and "Thanatos", life and expiry urges.^[22]

Freud expresses deep pessimism about the odds of humanity's reason triumphing over its destructive forces. He added a concluding sentence to the book in a 1931 edition, when the threat of Hitler was already condign apparent: "Only who can foresee with what success and with what event?"^[23]

Atheist political commentator and author Christopher Hitchens cited this book as a reason behind Freud being one of his virtually influential figures. Hitchens described the volume equally a "pessimistic unillusioned tale of realism," noting that Freud "wasted petty time in identifying [the need for organized religion] as infantile" and pointing out a summary by Freud's biographer Ernest Jones that "Man happiness, therefore, does not seem to be the purpose of the universe."^[24]

Moses and Monotheism [edit]

Moses and Monotheism was Freud's final book, published in 1939, the year of his death. In information technology, Freud makes sure guesses and assumptions well-nigh Moses as a historical effigy, particularly that he was not born Jewish just was adopted by Jews (the contrary of the Biblical story) and that he was murdered by his followers, who then via reaction germination revered him and became irrevocably committed to the monotheistic idea he represented.^{[25] [26] [27]}

Mark Edmundson comments that in writing Moses and Monotheism, Freud, while non abandoning his atheism, perceived for the showtime fourth dimension a value in the abstract class of monotheism—the worship of an invisible God, without Jesus or saints—practiced by the Jews.^[28]

And so the mental labor of monotheism prepared the Jews — every bit it would eventually gear up others in the West — to achieve stardom in police, in mathematics, in science and in literary art. Information technology gave them an advantage in all activities that involved making an abstract model of experience, in words or numbers or lines, and working with the brainchild to achieve control over nature or to bring humane lodge to life. Freud calls this internalizing process an "advance in intellectuality," and he credits information technology directly to religion.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud proposed that Moses had been a priest of Akhenaten who fled Egypt afterward the pharaoh's expiry and perpetuated monotheism through a different religion.^[29]

Co-ordinate to Jay Geller, Moses and Monotheism is full of "false starts, deferred conclusions, repetitions, rationalizations, defensive self-justifications, questionable methods, and weak arguments that are readily best-selling every bit such by Freud."^[30]

The Question of a Weltanschauung [edit]

The subsequently developments in Freud's views on faith are summarized in his lecture on the Question of a Weltanschauung, Vienna, 1932. There he describes the struggles of science in its relations with three other powers: art, philosophy and organized religion.

Art is an illusion of some sort and a long story. Philosophy goes off-target in its method. Religion constructed a consistent and self-contained Weltanschauung to an unparalleled degree. By comparison science is marked past certain negative characteristics. Among them it asserts that at that place are no sources of noesis of the universe other than the intellectual working over of carefully scrutinized observations, and none that is derived from revelation, intuition or divination.

On relations betwixt science and philosophy and scientific discipline and organized religion Freud has this much to say in one sentence: "It is not permissible to declare that scientific discipline is i field of man mental activity and that faith and philosophy are others, at least equal in value, and that science has no business concern to interfere with the other ii: that they all have an equal claim to be true and that anybody is at liberty to choose from which he volition draw his convictions and in which he will place his belief." Then he goes on to say that such an impermissible view is regarded as superior and tolerant, but that it is not tenable, that it shares all the pernicious features of an entirely unscientific Weltanschauung and that it is equivalent to one in practice.

With respect to faith in particular he explains that a religious person had in one case been feeble and helpless. A parent had protected him. Later such a person gets more insight into the perils of life and he rightly concludes that fundamentally he still remains only as helpless as he was in his childhood.

So he harks back to the mnemic epitome.^[31]

Responses and criticisms [edit]

In a 1949 essay in Commentary magazine, Irving Kristol says that Freud exposed what he believed to be the irrationality of organized religion without evidence, merely has not substituted annihilation across "a mythology of rational despair".^[32]

In a 1949 book entitled Christianity after Freud, Benjamin Gilbert Sanders draws parallels between the theory of psychoanalysis and Christian religion, referring to Jesus Christ as "the Smashing Psychiatrist" and Christians' dear for Christ as "a more positive form of the Transference".^[33]

Karen Armstrong notes in A History of God that "non all psychoanalysts agreed with Freud's view of God," citing Alfred Adler, who believed God was a projection which had been "helpful to humanity", and C.G. Jung, who, when asked whether he believed in God, said "Difficult to respond, I know. I don't demand to believe. I know."^[34]

Tony Campolo, founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, observes that "With Freud, God, and the demand for God-dictated restraints, had been abolished,"^[35] resulting in an increase in social chaos and unhappiness which could take been avoided past adherence to organized religion.

A number of critics depict the parallel between religious beliefs and Freud's theories, that neither can be scientifically proven, only only experienced subjectively. Lee Siegel writes that "you either grasp the reality of Freud's dynamic notion of the subconscious intuitively – the mode, in fact, you do or do not grasp the truthfulness of Ecclesiastes – or you cannot accept that it exists."^[36]

See also [edit]

• Freud and Philosophy
• The Foundations of Psychoanalysis
• Theories of Organized religion

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Armstrong, Karen. A History of God (New York: Ballantine Books 1993) p. 357 ISBN 0-345-38456-3
2. ^ Freud, Sigmund, An Autobiographical Report (New York: West.W. Norton & Co., 1989 [1952]) pp. 13–14. ISBN 0-393-00146-6
3. ^ "Freud, Sigmind Totem and Taboo (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1950) p. xi ISBN 0-393-00143-1
4. ^ Gay, Peter, editor, The Freud Reader (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1995) p. 435 ISBN 0-393-31403-0
5. ^ Freud, Sigmind Totem and Taboo (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1950) pp. x, 142 ISBN 0-393-00143-ane
6. ^ Freud, Sigmund "Totem and Taboo" (chapter ii, kindle edition)
7. ^ Freud, Sigmund, An Autobiographical Report (New York:West.W. Norton & Co., 1989 [1952]) pp. 130–131 ISBN 0-393-00146-six
8. ^ Freud 1961, p. fourteen
9. ^ Freud 1961, p. 21
10. ^ Freud 1961, p. 31
11. ^ Freud 1961, p. 34
12. ^ Freud 1961, p. 39
13. ^ Freud 1961, p. 47
14. ^ Freud 1961, p. 54
15. ^ Gay, Peter. Freud: A life for our time (New York: Norton, 1998) p. 535 ISBN 0-393-31826-five
16. ^ Mary Grand. O'Neill and Salman Aktar, eds, On Freud'south 'The Future of an Illusion' (London: Karnac Books, 2009) p. ten ISBN 978-1-85575-627-4
17. ^ Freud, Sigmund, An Autobiographical Written report (New York:W.Westward. Norton & Co., 1989 [1952]) pp. 130–131, 138 ISBN 0-393-00146-6
18. ^ Flower, Harold. The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, pp. 34–35.
19. ^ Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents (New York: Norton 1962), pp. eleven–12 ISBN 0-393-09623-8)
20. ^ Fisher, David, Cultural Theory and Psychoanalytic Tradition (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers Rutgers University 2009) p. 117 ISBN 978-1-4128-0859-0
21. ^ James Strachey, "Editors' Introduction", in Freud, Sigmund, Culture and its Discontents (New York: Norton 1962), pp. xi–12 ISBN 0-393-09623-8)
22. ^ Lee Siegel, "Freud and His Discontents", in The New York Times for May 8, 2005 https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/books/review/08SIEGELL.html?pagewanted=print Accessed January 25, 2011
23. ^ Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents (New York: Norton 1962), pp. 92 and editor'southward footnote ISBN 0-393-09623-eight)
24. ^ Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents (New York/London Due west.W. Norton 2010), pp. nine-xx introduction ISBN 0-393-30451-five)
25. ^ Stratton, Kimberly B. (Baronial 2017). Copp, Paul; Wedemeyer, Christian G. (eds.). "Narrating Violence, Narrating Self: Exodus and Collective Identity in Early Rabbinic Literature". History of Religions. University of Chicago Printing for the University of Chicago Divinity School. 57 (1): 68–92. doi:ten.1086/692318. ISSN 0018-2710. JSTOR 00182710. LCCN 64001081. OCLC 299661763.
26. ^ Freud, Sigmund, Moses and Monotheism (New York: Vintage Books 1967
27. ^ Mark Edmundson, "Defender of the Faith?" The New York Times September 9, 2007 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/mag/09wwln-lede-t.html?pagewanted=one&_r=1 Accessed Jan 24, 2011
28. ^ Mark Edmundson, "Defender of the Faith?" The New York Times September ix, 2007 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09wwln-lede-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 Accessed January 24, 2011
29. ^ S. Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939), "Moses and monotheism". London: Hogarth Printing, 1964.
30. ^ Jay Geller, "A PALEONTOLOGICAL VIEW OF FREUD'S Report OF Faith: UNEARTHING THE LEITFOSSIL CIRCUMCISION" Modernistic Judaism 13 (1993): 49–lxx http://mj.oxfordjournals.org/content/xiii/ane/49.total.pdf Accessed Jan 25, 2011
31. ^ Freud, Sigmund, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, New York: Due west. W. Norton and Company, 1965, pages 195-202.
32. ^ Irving Kristol, "God and the Psychoanalysts: Can Freud and Religion Be Reconciled?" Commentary Magazine Nov 1949 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/god-and-the-psychoanalysts-br-em-tin-freud-and-religion-be-reconciled-em--906 Accessed January 24, 2011
33. ^ "Freudian Christianity", Time Magazine, February vi, 1950 [1] Accessed January 24, 2011
34. ^ Armstrong, Karen. A History of God (New York: Ballantine Books 1993) p. 357 ISBN 0-345-38456-3
35. ^ Tony Campolo, "Religion After Freud", Huffington Mail service January 31, 2007 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-campolo/faith-after-freud_b_40071.html Accessed January 24, 2011
36. ^ Lee Siegel, "Freud and His Discontents", in The New York Times for May eight, 2005 https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/books/review/08SIEGELL.html?pagewanted=print Accessed January 25, 2011

Sources [edit]

• Freud, Sigmund (1961) [1927], Strachey, James (ed.), The future of an illusion, Norton, ISBN978-0-393-00831-9

External links [edit]

• "Freud and Organized religion" at the Freud Museum
• Sigmund Freud: Faith commodity in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud%27s_views_on_religion

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