Religion as Wishful thinking

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Religion as Wishful thinking

• Simund Freud
• Hui Ka Yu 06013996

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The projection theory of belief in God

• The most definitive statement of Freuds views
• The future of an illusion
• Published in 1927

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The future of an illusion

• Religious ideas have arisen from the same need
  as have all the other achievements of
  civilization from the necessity of defending
  oneself against the crushing superior force of
  nature.

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The future of an illusion

• Religious beliefs are illusion, fulfillments of
  the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of
  mankind. As we already know, the terrifying
  impression of helplessness in childhood aroused
  the need for protection , for protection through
  love, which was provided by the father. Thus the
  benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our
  fear of the dangers of life.

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Freuds thinking

• Atheism
• Religion
• projection of our own unconscious desire
• No reality in the idea of God
• one of the assumptions
• his personal opinion

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Freuds thinking

• God
• father-figure
• Afraid trust his protection
• Protection
• religious beliefs

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Freuds structural theory

• Three areas of the personality
• Id
• the area of the human genetic endowment
• the repository of the biologically determined
  instincts

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Freuds structural theory

• Ego
• the conscious mind
• ? attempts to reconcile the instinctual
  demands of the id with the realities of the
  external environment

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Freuds structural theory

• Super ego
• part of the ego
• ? develop during childhood as a sort of
  policeman
• ? controls some harmful products of the id

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Freuds structural theory

• Superego stays around into adulthood as some sort
  of god or authority image
• ? limits the persons freedom and filling life
  with guilt

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Freuds thinking

• Person
• ? faces the dangers of nature and the evils of
  society itself
• ? feel painful and helpless
• ? returns unconsciously to his own childhood

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Freuds thinking

• ? invents an all-powerful father
• ? the father fulfills his most insistent need
  and desires
• ? emerges belief in a personal God
• religion projection of ones psychology