Sigmund Freud is no longer the revered figure he once was. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that Freud is no longer routinely assigned even in psychology curricula. In a way, Freud is following the downward path of that other great totem of the last couple of centuries, Karl Marx. It's hard to believe so many intelligent people spent their lives studying these two thinkers. Intellectuals, we have to conclude, are often fatally attracted to far-out theories that tease the mind but that bear little relation to what's actually going on in the world.
Marxism worked well in academic laboratories and only failed miserably when it was actually tried. Similarly for decades Freud spun out his elaborate theories, and they sounded so scientific and so modern and so avant garde. Depression? Well, that's because your sister abused you when you were four, and you have concealed from yourself the memory of it, but if you do hundreds of hours of therapy, you can excavate the source of your anxiety, and by coming to terms with it you can slowly overcome it. But today when you go to the doctor and are diagnosed with depression, he gives you a pill and you feel better. No need for most people to visit the therapist's couch.
Freud also argued that what we are secretly attracted to, we make into a taboo. Freud explained the "incest taboo" by saying that we secretly want to have sex with our mothers and our sisters, and so we repress those feelings and outlaw them. In Freud's words, "The strength of the incestuous wishes can be detected behind the prohibition against them."
The cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker pointed out the shortcoming of this theory. Pinker notes that by Freud's logic the fact that humans are averse to eating cow dung shows that we secretly want to eat it. Pinker's point is that there are sound evolutionary reasons both for avoiding cow dung and for avoiding incest. The former is unhealthy and attracts disease-carrying insects; the latter results in biological abnormalities. So natural selection produces humans who avoid both. Once again, Freudian fantasy is replaced with a much more plausible scientific alternative.
I've been reading Freud's The Future of an Illusion, where Freud makes the case that religion is a form of "wish fulfillment." Freud writes that for the individual "life is hard to bear," and beyond this there is "the painful riddle of death, against which no medicine has yet been found." And so to "make helplessness tolerable" man invents God and religion not because they are true but because we wish them to be true. " For Freud, one may say, Christianity is adult Disneyland. We forget that Freud is the author of this portrait of religion that is widely espoused in our time.
Well, let's examine this Freudian explanation in an entirely secular and rational way. Imagine a bunch of people who have gathered in a room because they want to avoid life's difficulties--sickness, suffering, death--by making up a religion that will make them feel better. I can entirely see how such a group would come up with the concept of heaven. Heaven is a place where there is no suffering and no death. Eternal bliss would surely fit into my wish-fulfillment scheme.
But I don't see why this group would come up with the concept of hell. (We are not talking about why priests might later use the concept to enforce doctrinal obedience or institutional loyalty. We are talking about why wish-fulfilling humans would invent the concept in the first place.) Hell is not only worse than sickness but also worse than death, because death is merely the end, while hell implies eternal separation from God.
I also don't see why seekers of wish-fulfillment would come up with Christian morality. Who needs the Ten Commandments or other such rules which make our lives more difficult by asserting a series of "Thou Shall Nots"? Even Christians recoil from the severe demands of their ethical code. Recall the church father Augustine, who kept putting off his conversion to Christianity, praying to God, "Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet." In other words, a project of wish-fulfillment would seem to dictate a much more libertine social morality than the one we find in the Old and New Testaments.
Bottom line: Judaism and Christianity, not to mention the other great religions, hardly look like they are the product of mere wishful thinking. In fact, they posit a God and a moral universe that makes some fairly stern demands on humans. It's almost wishful to think that God does not exist, so that we can escape those demands. This is a point that does not seem to have occurred to poor Sigmund Freud.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 17)
31. whatyourname - you are in more danger of hell fire than Christ. Only a fool says there is no God.
Man_in_Wilderness at 10:31AM on Aug 12th 2008
32. I am a believer of gods work and admirality. I find his work to be immpaculable. In my nearly 30 year experience I have crossed boundaries through positive & negative revolutions. I have studied some of Freud's theological assumptions. I was seeking knowledge and I found that Freud's talk about dreams & fantasies were in some sort reality.
rockell worts at 10:47AM on Aug 12th 2008
33. What? Only a fool says there is no god??
I never heard that before. Thank you so much for educating me. I best start believing ASAP, so that I am saved and so that I am no fool.
America's Most Gangsta at 12:57PM on Aug 12th 2008
34. MIW: Only a fool says there is or is no God with certainty.
Ryan Anderson at 10:52AM on Aug 12th 2008
35. MIW-There is no god. I must be a fool. Or maybe I am enlightened.
MajorCack at 10:59AM on Aug 12th 2008
36. How many foreigners does it take to read one man?
All of them... including the native man.
joker at 11:06AM on Aug 12th 2008
37. There is no god. Or if there is, he is most certainly not a sectular god.
::shrug:: Call me a fool. I've been called worse. But that doesn't change my beliefs in the slightest.
Now! On to Dinesh. This is pretty much the same article as he posted in July, tacking on freud's name at the front. The premise of his article is that atheists have stated that heaven is a form of wish fulfillment. Heaven, Hell, God, and the Devil are all intellectual creations. Humans have always thrilled at the idea of monsters and bad places that are haunted or cursed. Our literature is rife with creatures and places that are perilous and painful. Would Odyssius' trip to the underworld been nearly so impressive and dramatic if he's found there snuggly bunnies and bright vibrant colors?
The second reason people create a hell is as Dinesh explains: it's a system of control. 'Do as we want you to do, because God says so. And no you can't talk directly to God. Only we get to do that. If you don't then you will be punished forever and ever and ever.' Funny. Every religion seems to come up with this scam with the exception of the Jews. Piss off their God and you get oblivion. Guess that's a step up in the con game.
The last reason why we made up Hell is to explain the shitty conditions people live in. It's also to reassure us that, as bad as things are here, in hell they're infinitely worse. It's a survival mechanism and a coping mechanism.
Freud might have been off on a lot of things, but he's pretty much on the ball for this one. God is the magical parential figure who will make us confortable when we die, smite our enemies when we can't, give us an edge when we compete, and help us to be better people. When we succeed, rather than credit ourselves, we credit the imaginary parental figure. When we fail, we rationalize. Oh God didn't help me because he wanted me to do it on my own. Oh God didn't help me because he wanted me to forgive my enemies. Oh God didn't help me because it's my time to die. Oh God didn't help me because he's got a plan.
And on. And on. And on.
Somber at 11:14AM on Aug 12th 2008
38. Religions are not like t-shirts. They come come into being complete. Abramaic religions started out pretty simple. 'Your decended of this guy, believe in his god, and follow what few rules he had, no problem. You would be blessed.'
Then came Moses and a bunch of laws.
Then came exile in Babylon and this new idea of a negative afterlife. (Thanks goes out to the Zoarastorians for that one.)
Then came Christ and the "My way or hell", eat what you want, love Me, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Also no fighting, ever, at all. (St. Augustine wasn't in the Bible, I'm guessing his justifications for war don't trump Jesus's prohibition against it.)
By the time Islam came along, it had a large body of work to draw off of including but not limited to the local cultural beliefs.
Religion doesn't develope in a vacuum. The do tend to develope over time.
Thirg at 11:50AM on Aug 12th 2008
39. One error is all it takes?
Dear Mr D'Souza, this posting clearly states your position that being in error in one part of your philosophy negates the entirety. If true, does that mean if we counter with a single one of your errors, that you will resign yourself to the dustbin of history? Is it that easy?
Skeptical-at-best at 12:55PM on Aug 12th 2008
40. ATHEISM IS A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE
How???????????????????????????
Geoff Barker at 1:14PM on Aug 12th 2008
41.
ATHEISM IS A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE...for organized religion. As time goes by, it gets more difficult to put butts in pews.
JefFlyingV at 1:21PM on Aug 12th 2008
42. To: tmo (post #2)
You said: "Freud, everything. I really should proofread sorry."
You also misspelled "Oedipus" ...unless you intended for your entire post to be in Greek.
Troy at 1:23PM on Aug 12th 2008
43. I would say that religion is the failure, not athiesm. Athiesm doesnt have anything to teach.
There is no athiest church, no code of conduct, no punishment/rewards system for following or not following any concepts. And yet there is no evidence that being an athiest caused any specific harm. There have been isolated incidents of athiests who caused great harm to their societies. Pol Pot is the only true athiest that I can think of. Stalin was in seminary school when he was young. Hitler was against the "godless" communists. Battling them gave rise to the Nazis in the first place.
I tire of hearing the conservative christians decry those who choose not to believe in god that they are somehow no human, not moral, and capable of great evil. I submit that christians are capable of greater evil, in gods name.
MajorCack at 1:32PM on Aug 12th 2008
44. 40. ATHEISM IS A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE
How???????????????????????????
Answer: Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler...
Of course, this answer assumes that dictatorial rule and mass murder are NOT characteristic of a successful government. Anyone care to disagree on this point...? If you believe these regimes justified their actions by anything other than materialism and humanism (in other words: atheism), you have some homework to do.
Troy at 1:35PM on Aug 12th 2008
45. I repeat, Stalin was in seminary school and supported the Orthodox Church until the end of his life. Adolf Hitler hated "godless"communists and jews. He rose to power by fighting the communists first. After he got his power he had all the communists in the country arrested. Once the dictatorship arose, the jews were next. Yet, I hear nothing about the christians being sent to the camps.....why?
Here is an excerpt:
Hitler:
Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments,[202] Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in Jesus Christ.[203] In his speeches and publications Hitler even spoke of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice".[204][205] His private statements, as reported by his intimates, are more mixed, showing Hitler as a religious man but critical of traditional Christianity.[206] However, in contrast to early Nazi ideologues, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or Ariosophy,[206] and ridiculed such beliefs in Mein Kampf.[207] Rather, Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity",[208] a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and which reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews.
Hitler believed in Arthur de Gobineau's ideas of struggle for survival between the different races, among which the "Aryan race"—guided by "Providence"—was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization. In Hitler's conception Jews were enemies of all civilization.
Hitler, despite his native Catholicism, favored aspects of Protestantism if they were more amenable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics.[209][210]
Hitler expressed admiration for the Muslim military tradition. According to one confidant, Hitler stated in private, "The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness...".[211]
Hitler was opposed to state atheism, which for example was part of the political system of the Soviet Union, but he nevertheless desired a religiously neutral state system, at least during the years of his dictatorship.[42] He feared the political power that the churches had, and did not want to openly antagonize that political base until he had securely gained control of the country. Once in power Hitler showed his contempt for non-Aryan religion and sought to eliminate it from areas under his rule.[43][44] Within Hitler's Nazi Party some atheists were quite vocal, especially Baldur von Schirach[citation needed], Artur Axmann[citation needed] and Martin Bormann[citation needed]. From Hitler's promotion of declared atheists within his party and his use of Muslim fighters[45][46] in his army, it can be concluded that Hitler in the public realm tolerated different religious opinions, ranging from atheist to Islam to Christianity, as long as those people professing these different creeds would support the Nazi regime.[improper synthesis?] Hitler often used religious speech and symbolism in his propaganda to appease and promote Nazism to those that he feared would be disposed to act against him.[47][48] He also used religion as a pretext in diplomacies. The Soviet Union feared that if they commenced a program of persecution against religion in the western regions, Hitler would use that as a pretext for war.[49]
Stalin:
Stalin's beliefs are complicated and sometimes contradictory. He received his education at the Theological Seminary at Tbilisi, where his mother sent him to become a priest, but he became a closet atheist.[74]
Regarding one famous claim about evolution, historians doubt one later Soviet claim that he read The Origin of Species at the age of thirteen while still at Gori, and told a fellow pupil that it proved the nonexistence of God. The story fails on several obvious accounts, including Stalin's remaining religious, even pious, for some years longer.[75] In fact Professor of Religion Hector Avalos noted, "Stalin, in fact, had a complex relationship with religious institutions in the Soviet Union."[76]
Historian Edvard Radzinsky used recently discovered secret archives and noted a story that changed Stalin's attitude toward religion.[77] The story in which Ilya, Metropolitan of the Lebanon Mountains, claimed to receive a sign from heaven that "The churches and monasteries must be reopened throughout the country. Priests must be brought back from imprisonment, Leningrad must not be surrendered, but the sacred icon of Our Lady of Kazan should be carried around the city boundary, taken on to Moscow, where a service should be held, and thence to Stalingrad Tsaritsyn."[77] Shortly thereafter, Stalin's attitude changed and "Whatever the reason, after his mysterious retreat, he began making his peace with God. Something happened which no historian has yet written about. On his orders many priests were brought back to the camps. In Leningrad, besieged by the Germans and gradually dying of hunger, the inhabitants were astounded, and uplifted, to see wonder-working icon Our Lady of Kazan brought out into the streets and borne in procession."[77] Radzinsky asked, "Had he seen the light? Had fear made him run to his Father? Had the Marxist God-Man simply decided to exploit belief in God? Or was it all of these things at once?."[77]
During the Second World War Stalin reopened the Churches. One reason could have been to motivate the majority of the population who had Christian beliefs. The reasoning behind this is that by changing the official policy of the party and the state towards religion, the Church and its clergymen could be to his disposal in mobilizing the war effort.
Hows them homeworks???
MajorCack at 1:53PM on Aug 12th 2008