The notion of religion in Freud

Abstract

Although Freud was an atheist, he did not think religion unimportant. He did not like Marx, think it would wither away it the historical situation changed, but that it should be directly combatted; and he did not like Jung think that, although based on illusion, it could be beneficial, since tor him health meant the recognition of reality as it is. Freud therefore wrote a lot about-and-against religion. It is interesting to note that, even while his views on other subjects changed, there is no real evolution in Freud's thinking on the subject of religion. It is quite true that greater attention is paid to the subject in the last decades of his life, but his ideas in these last works are mere elaborations of views that were produced much earlier in his life. Freud reached three essential conclusions about religion: Religion was adequately and completely explained by psycho analysis, that is by the technique invented by him to reveal what lies hidden within man's unconscious. He considered this point of view to be adequate and complete because religion is the product of man's unconscious, that is of that part of man's mental life that is not apprehended by the conscious mind. ii)The origin of religion lies in the Oedipus Crisis on the individual level and in the Collective type of Oedipus Crisis of the first primitive society on the collective level. iii) Religion makes man remain for ever a child since the practising of religion meant for him extending the experience of the Oedipus Crisis. Freud maintained that it is now high-time for men to begin to face reality as it is in fact. "Man", he wrote, "cannot remain a child for ever; he must venture at last into the hostile world." These three conclusions will be examined in turn, concluding with an analysis of Freud's statement that religion is an illusion.