What Is Religion In The Future Of An Illusion Sigmund Freud

Almost all religions around the world are based on a belief. Almost every religion have certain rules and principles that order together within a society: Many people misunderstand and misinterpret the holy texts the Bible, Quran, Torah, and others fabricate. Religion is defined as faith to a higher being who one believes has created us. It has also been used as laws through history to stop the committing of crimes. In many religions, the consequences of breaking rules and regulations of the religion are burning in the pit of hell. Religion is man-made and was created for many reasons but mainly to keep peace and justice in the world. But the words can be manipulated and used as an excuse to start wars on this planet. This caused many to believe that the world would be a better place without religion.

Religious behaviors developed to what they are today beginning in the pre-historic times of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and the Neolithic. There is evidence of these behaviors in the archaeological artifacts as well as mythological evidence. Religious behaviors evolved as humans evolved.

Religion is one of the greatest creations of mankind. Human beings are different from any other animals because of their ability to think and to create. When man evolved to form societies or countries, when they need to understand better the world around them, religions were created naturally.

Religion forms as a method for dealing with life and the world it makes up. It answers the questions that are beyond science and logic. It eliminates the question of "Why?", and brings the fellow believers together to cope with the community and personal problems. People come to religion to find stability, a sense of understanding, and help from other believers. These are the needs that religion fulfills.

In his book The Future of An Illusion, Freud (1928) struggled to create a theory that

Freud illuminates with slight sarcasm how convenient religion is in it's ability to rectify all the trials and tribulations of life for us. "Everything that happens in this world is an expression of the intentions of an intelligence superior to us, which in the end, though its ways and byways are difficult to follow, orders everything for the best." (Freud, 23) The existence of this divine creature who creates justice for us ensures that the masses will not stray from the laws and beliefs of religion and society for fear of being judged by this entity. Religion is also valuable to civilization for it's ability to explain death. Thanks to religion, death became something other than simply the termination of a life. Death stopped being the end and was recasted into the role of a doorway to another existence. As though knowing that the continuation of life were not enough, religion furthers it's own appeal by promising that the afterlife will be better than life on Earth. The afterlife itself also serves a function as well. A desire to gain entry into this afterlife will cause many of the masses to renounce their instincts.

Although Freud argues that these religious values should not be accepted due to the absence of proof; people find interest in the information, connection to ones beliefs and answers to otherwise indefinable questions through religion. The three claims made to support religious foundation are: beliefs practiced and shared by ancestors, possession of proofs and it is socially forbidden to raise questions regarding evidence supporting religious ideas (p. 33). Freud is quick to rebut these claims with three reasons to be suspicious. He begins by denouncing the ancestors who passed down these religious doctrines as being too ignorant to trust. He then condemns the proofs as impossible to judge for any truth as a result of being “full of contradictions, revisions and falsifications” (p. 33). He finally stated that the third claim was the most suspicious of all, pronouncing that openly reproaching the question of authenticity was a clear declaration of society’s insecurity with the religious doctrines. Freud fails to understand how religion has the ability to assume such great influence over civilization without any unequivocal evidence supporting its ideas. His rebuttal successfully casts a sense of foolishness and absurdity on the inadequate and irrational claims. The claims themselves seem to be grasping for any semi-valid idea or at least an idea which proves difficult to question. Although society thinks they are showing respect and good

Freud in his writing suggests that religion is an “illusion.” Not your typical deception of something, rather misapprehension of religion. Additionally, Freud provides brand new eyes to look at religion and its construct of civilization. He further provides evidence of his own, as well as suggesting a psychoanalytical approach to religion.

Religion emerges from the human susceptibility for protection and use it as a tool for liberation from the bitter realities and perplexities of the world. “Religious ideas are teachings and pronouncements about facts and states of external (or internal) reality that convey something one has not discovered for oneself and which assert the right to be believed” (Freud 88). We must object to religious claims because there is no proof to substantiate them and merely ideas we follow for generations. Religious ideas are beyond the control of reasoning, as if we don’t validate our beliefs and behave that our beliefs have a substantial basis of support. Religious ideas are teachings, not the thought that

Freud concerns himself with the discussion of the institution of religion as a principle of ethics in the fifth chapter of Civilization and Its Discontents. Towards the beginning of his analysis, Freud specifically asserts his grievances over one of the Ten Commandments, “‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’” (Freud, 91) and utilizes this Christian edict to argue that individuals are “creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness” (Freud, 94). Freud’s account is actually validated by Christian belief, as the Bible reads, “Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (King James Version, Psalm 51:5). He goes on to declare, however, that this inherent nature of aggression that man is born with causes for civilization to be “perpetually threatened with disintegration” (Freud, 94) and recounts a number of ways in which man has been unsuccessfully restrained by codes of righteousness like the Ten Commandments to inflict harm on other citizens.

The belief in Gods has always existed throughout human’s recored history. Whether it be the Greek Gods: Apollo, and Zeus, or the Judeo-Christian God, believed by Christians in modern day society. The belief of God has always existed among humans, however, assuming God does not exist, what explains the cultural evolution of such a false belief, namely religion? I shall argue that the reason this false belief is successful is because it manipulates human nature better than any other belief by these three points: an avoidance of death (the soul), a sense of worth (knowledge), and a sense, or need of belief (faith).

Sigmund Freud was a psychologist known as the ‘father of psychoanalysis’ who believed that our sense of moral understanding is a result of the conditioning of a growing being.

Religion has existed for as long as man has. Both men, and women believed in a

Although he doesn’t believe its completely a lost cause, Freud merely suggests that religion is born out of a deeper fulfillment of our wish to understand, both nature and fate, as well as a force to provide protection. Through the removal of religion, we thusly remove the societal crush that is employed to deal with given problems and learn to use the resources that are

Religion has been a powerful force in human history. Mankind has longed and searched for the answers to its purpose, the reason for being and the possibility of life after physical death. They reasoned that an afterlife would be a place of accounting and reckoning for the life they lived on earth. Religious belief systems seemed to give the answers as to how to prepare for the afterlife. Religion became the means of giving answers to those basic yet deep-seated questions of both life and death. Religion provided a format of rules and laws for conduct and treatment toward others based on the desires and wishes of a god or gods that people envisioned, imagined or invented. Religious belief systems have been a powerful force for good and bad...good in the sense that it provided a measure of individual behavior and order in society for the wellbeing of the whole, but bad in the sense that men of ambition who craved power and control over others would often use religion as a tool of manipulation and fear. A casual glance of history tells us that complete civilizations have been built, grown and maintained around elaborate religious systems, ancient Egypt being a prime example.