Subject:
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Freud and Religion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:15:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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2428 times
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This is a paper I wrote for a class I'm taking right now that explores the
philosophical implications of the relationship between science and religion.
Awesome class, taught, in part, by famous philosopher Michael Ruse. Anyways, I
thought my essay might be appropriate fodder for a discussion.
Enjoy!
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Freud, in his effort to provide a natural origin of religion, describes
religion as a “universal obsessional neurosis” and as an “illusion.” He came to
this conclusion by using the concept of individual neuroses as a way of
understanding a societal neurosis. A good example is compulsive hand washing
for the individual, and ritualized washing in religion for society. For the
individual, the hand washing is a continuous, and unsuccessful, attempt to wipe
away some hidden, repressed guilt. For the society, the repressed guilt still
exists, but it is shared by the community in general, and so the obsessive
cleaning must be practiced by the community in general.
For Freud, the key foundational neurosis for both the individual and society
in general is the Oedipal complex. The defining conflict of a young man’s life
is the rivalry with his father for the affections/attention of the mother,
explicitly or implicitly sexual. Every young male experiences this conflict
with the father for the mother. Freud applies this complex to society as a
whole. Freud posits the origin of this complex as the origin of society itself,
with a primordial battle within the patriarchal ‘horde,’ where the father, who
is the animalistic master of the tribe and has preferential access to all
females, is usurped by the sons, who create a new society where access to
females is mitigated by an understanding between the sons themselves.
Religion is then created as the method by which this understanding is passed
to successive generations. The pact of brothers, wherein no single brother is
able to attain the status of horde-father and possess all females, is the
primeval societal contract. Each brother is given his own female, through
marriage, and his choice is limited to females outside his immediate relations.
All cultures have an incest taboo, which is the limiting of access to females,
but the specifics of the taboo are different depending on various economic and
social situations. All of this is codified and spread through the institution
of religion, an institution that has its origins at the beginning of time and
has survived many social and political changes.
Freud also describes religion as an “illusion.” Religion expresses an
idealized view of reality, or, in other words, it is the way we want reality to
be. Using the example of the Oedipal Pact of Brothers, if this pact is real,
then we should see an end to quarrels regarding access to females. Obviously,
this is not the case. But the Oedipal Pact represents an idealized version of
how things can go. Standardizing the Oedipal Pact into religion gives the
unconscious message that if we follow this idealized agreement, then the world
will have peace. The history of society, then, could be said to be our attempt
to abide by the Oedipal Pact of Brothers, pocked by our failures, war.
Freud does not describe religion as a delusion. This is an important
distinction. The illusion of religion, albeit a child-like, non-progressive
response to conflict, is not without its use. A delusion would imply that
religion is essentially harmful. It is a false belief that has the real
possibility of bringing harm to the believer. Religion, just like any neurosis,
is maintained because it serves an important function to the psyche of society.
Religion cannot just whither away when it is exposed as being false, or even
exposed a neurosis. In order for religion is pass away, the function it
provides for society must be replaced by a non-neurotic (hopefully) solution.
The guilty neurotic obsessively washes his hands. The washing is the
ritualistic, physical way of mentally dealing with the guilt. In order for the
washing to stop, the guilt must be purged. The washing of hands is the mind’s
attempt at cleansing the soul, and the washing will only cease when the soul is
cleansed. In other words, if we wish to see religion pass away from society, it
needs to be replaced by something that can more adequately deal with society’s
core neurosis. Freud posits that science will ultimately replace religion as
the adult, mature way of interacting with nature and society.
Unfortunately, I do not think that science covers all of the functions
provided by religion. While religion was the illusory control of nature, and it
is has all been replaced by science’s far more successful and dominating control
of nature, that is not the only function of religion. Freud himself outlines
the double purpose of religion: at one part it is to control nature by way of
appeal to the gods, but it is also the creation of meaning for human life.
Freud says that science de-humanizes nature, that it takes humanized meaning
away from nature. However, humans are themselves a part of nature. Is it
possible that science would de-humanize people along with the rest of nature?
A common theme in the rise of the modern world, and one of the key features of
modernity is the success of science as a new worldview, is that meaning is no
longer a part of human existence. Where science has effective invalidated
religion, historically we see the rise of psuedo-scientific attempts at
re-humanizing nature, and, in effect, human existence. Phenomena like
occultism, the paranormal, and even creationism are efforts to co-opt the
language of science, the success of science, in the creation of a new
re-humanized world view.
Freud might counter that this is, rather than a product of the deficiencies of
science, actually part of the process of the radical transformation to societal
mental health. Often when a patient, troubled by an obsession, goes to see a
therapist, the symptoms will get worse, more violent and extreme, as the core
disease actually grows weaker. The neurosis of religion, which has been with
society for thousands of years, if not millions, will not go away in a
generation or two. Rather, it must be a long, painful process wherein we see
the mature world view of science slowly chip away at an ever struggling,
increasingly violent, world view of religion.
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