Sigmund Freud on Religion

Title: Sigmund Freud on Religion

Date: 4th November 2023

Topic: Philosophy of Religion

Keywords:

Class notes:

Freud argued there were two possible explanations:

  • Reductive: religious belief is a product/function of the human mind which causes people to perform meaningless religious rituals which have no basis in reality
  • Non-reductive: the result of genuine revelation, religious experience and/or enlightenment

Freud supports the reductive view.

Freud believed that the human mind contained ‘unconscious’ material which the person was not aware of.

He divides the human psyche into three parts:

  1. Id[unconscious] - the pleasure principle: unconscious, primitive, instinctive, impulsive → innate desires present at birth // suppressed by our conscious mind but can resurface in dreams
  • Babies are ‘‘bundles of Id’’ - Freud
  1. Superego[pre-conscience, conscience and unconscious] - the moral principle: sense of right or wrong ingrained in us from society’s morals/rules → controls the Id and can lead to guilty conscience if one gives into the Id
  2. Ego[conscious] - mediates between the tensions of Id and Superego

The unconscious mind contains two aspects:

  • Repressed feelings: the unconscious mind holds repressed feelings, ideas and memories
  • Powerful desires: the unconscious mind holds powerful innate desires that are hidden but not always there

The source of the unconscious mind is some form of childhood sexual experience or desire which, due to the overwhelming nature, was repressed into the unconscious mind.

  • Freud believed that to reach maturity the individual needs to face the content of the unconscious mind and if they don't, then they develop religious belief

Religion is an illusion - the Oedipus Complex:

Freud believed that one of the repressed feelings in the unconscious mind was the male child’s unconscious desire to kill his father and have sexual relations with his mother → this stems from the idea all males have a ‘libido’ [a powerful lustful desire - for a newborn child this ‘libido’ is in the mouth which the mother satisfies the desire by breastfeeding the child.

At the age of 2 or 3 the libido transfers to the child’s sexual organs but the child still wishes for the mother to satisfy their libido but she is being satisfied by the father.

  • This child builds up ambivalent feelings towards the father: they respect him as he's the head or they are full of anger and hate for their father

It is these feelings that get repressed into our unconscious minds because the child cannot cope with these strong and hateful feelings.

  • Freud then argues that belief in God arises when we get ‘projections’ of the oedipus complex from our unconscious mind and we confuse this with the idea of ‘a God type figure’

This is why God is always seen as:

  • A male figure
  • Powerful and strong
  • To be feared

According to Freud, the belief in God is an illusion because they are no more than projections and so an illustration that a person has successfully dealt with these repressed memories and feelings, is that they no longer believe in God.

Optional 1 - Freud created a female version of the ‘Oedipus complex’ - ‘Electra complex’

Optional 2 - the oedipus and electra complexes could be successfully dealt with by psychoanalysis and analysis of a person’s dreams

Religion is an illusion - The Primal Horde:

Freud claimed there was a historical reason for beliefs in God but they are too just an illusion.

Influenced by Charles Darwin, Freud argued, in his book ‘Totem and Taboo’ that primitive humans had lived in hordes.

  • It is within the primal horde that the collective neurosis originated.

Each horde was dominated by a powerful alpha male who had sex with all the women in the group and fought off any men who attempted to take what ‘belonged’ to him.

  • They then became overwhelmed with guilt at killing the alphas male, and thus put a totem or symbol in place of the alpha male

Taboos were formed forbidding killing and incest as reactions to guilt

  • This process of transferring extreme guilt onto a totem is called ‘Animism’
  • Eventually totems become unsatisfactory and they evolved into Gods, from which religions developed

For freud, this explained the christian ritual of the Eucharist as jesus now replaced the father figure as the centre of religious devotion through his offering of atonement

→ The earlier totemic meal is now replaced by Holy communion and identified with the son rather than the totem

Questions/retrieval:

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