Questions
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freud.pptSigmund Freud 1856-1939
Major Topics:
Freud the life-long atheist
Freud on Religion:
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Excerpt from Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism
Analysis
Critique
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud the life-long atheist
If you begin as an atheist,
what is the most bothersome question
about religion?
Ans: why are people in general all religious?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud the life-long atheist
If you begin as an atheist,
what is the most bothersome question
about religion?
Ans: why are people in general all religious?
Tylor and Frazer shared an answer:
mistaken attempts to explain reality – magic, spirits.
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud the life-long atheist
If you begin as an atheist,
what is the most bothersome question
about religion?
Freud digs deeper than Tylor and Frazer
to try to find hidden sources/causes/motives’drives.
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo (1913) – Pals’ outline:
Tylor and Frazer did not go far enough.
They saw religion as attempt at rational explanation.
Freud looked for the unconscious basis of religion
(so did Durkheim)
Freud’s question is WHY primitive people
established totems and taboos
– especially incest taboos and
-- taboo against eating the totem (except in rare cases).
What is his answer as to WHY primitive people do this?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo
His answer:
Primordial horde (males) to get women,
killed the patriarch, and ate his body.
Then out of fear of the dead father’s spirit,
they try to appease it ceremoniously
making a totem their “father”
and sharing it in a sacred meal.
This = the age-old “Oedipus complex” working itself out,
as in the Christian communion service also.
These practices evolved into new forms over time.
Your opinion of this theory?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo – main theory in this:
The Future of an Illusion
Pals’ version:
Nature threatens us with death and decay.
As children our parents protect us.
But we grow up.
So we “project” a father-figure into the sky,
who will protect us
and assure us of ultimate justice.
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo :
The Future of an Illusion
Pals’ version
But this is an illusion:
wish-fulfillment.
and for Freud a delusion also
It is like a childhood neurosis
continuing into adulthood.
We should learn to outgrow it.
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Specifics from the excerpts from FI.
1. In response to the threat of nature (“Fate”)
2. And to the sufferings imposed on people by civilization.
[#2 sounds odd. Freud’s theory is that in order to live with
one another we have to impose collective rules on ourselves
(the “superego”). These rules prevent us from having all the
fun and power which we (the “id”) naturally want. So to be
civilized is to be safer but sadder. The “ego” represents
intellectual and moral maturity which accepts civilization.]
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Specifics from the excerpts from FI.
1. In response to the threat of nature (“Fate”)
a. The humanization of nature’s forces
turns them into gods.
b. Scientific thought turns nature in reliable laws.
c. But gods are still needed for 3 things -- to
i. exorcize the terrors of nature;
ii reconcile people “to the cruelty of Fate” and death;
iii compensate them for sufferings caused by society.
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Specifics from the excerpts from FI.
1. In response to the threat of nature (“Fate”)
2. On the nature of “illusion” – belief as wish fulfillment:
Some religious beliefs are very improbable – delusions?
Other religious beliefs are beyond proof or refutation.
An imaginary interlocuter then asks:
If some beliefs cannot be refuted, why not believe?
Freud responds as an atheist: this is “a lame excuse.”
“Ignorance is ignorance; no right to believe anything
can be derived from it.”
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Freud’s writings on religion.
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism (1938)
Moses was Egyptian, a follower of Akhenaton
He adopted the Hebrews, gave them a single God.
But the Hebrews revolted, killed him, & chose a new god,
“a violent, volcano-deity named Yahweh.”
Centuries later, monotheistic prophets called
the Hebrews back to worship of Moses’
noble God
Ques: Is any of this plausible?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Major Topics:
Freud the life-long atheist
Freud on Religion:
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Excerpt from Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism
Analysis
Critique
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Analysis – by Pals
“Depth” psychology
finds religion more valuable
e.g., Jung – religion as expression of psychic depths.
[e.g. Abraham Maslow and peak experiences;
e.g. Gordon Allport – extrinsic, intrinsic;
e.g. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled . . . .]
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Analysis – by Pals
“Depth” psychology
finds religion more valuable
Freud was borrowing the “projection” theory
from Feuerbach.
But after Tylor and Frazer, more people were open
to theories which explained religion as a mistake.
Freud could add an answer, though,
why religion persists in these ‘enlightened’ times.
(His answer is thoroughly reductionist.)
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Major Topics:
Freud the life-long atheist
Freud on Religion:
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Excerpt from Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism
Analysis
Critique
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Critique
1. If religion is based on a father figure,
why are there non-theistic religions?
2. How do we know that individual development
mirrors cultural development?
Or that the sacred meal rituals arose from murder?
Or that Jewish history is anything like Freud’s version?
- “Circularity” – presupposed religion is irrational;
Presupposes that all “projections” are incorrect.
4. P.S. Psychoanalysis is unscientific?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Major Topics:
Freud the life-long atheist
Freud on Religion:
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Excerpt from Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism
Analysis
Critique
Additional Theological Comments
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Additional Theological Comments
As with Marx, has Freud just pointed out ways
in which religion fulfills real human needs --
sense of hope, of ultimate justice?
Religion also links religion to love of neighbor, etc.,
as a constructive force in history.
Freud also refused to accept “oceanic experience,”
a notion of God as the infinite horizon of human existence,
as “real” religion. Why?
Because an anthropomorphic God is easier to treat as illusory?
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939
Major Topics:
Freud the life-long atheist
Freud on Religion:
Totem and Taboo
The Future of an Illusion
Excerpt from Future of an Illusion
Moses and Monotheism
Analysis
Critique
Additional Theological Comments
