Sigmund Freud's Theories Of Religion

1462 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How religion and philosophy are intercompatible

Religion according to Sigmund Freud Throughout the semester we learned that people have different opinions about religion and hold different beliefs about what really happened during the time of Christ. Many question whether he truly exists. We briefly discussed a famous individual named Sigmund Freud, who held a much different belief about religion than most. By comparing his views to catholic, Thomas a’ Kempis, we can see exactly how different his views were. Freud’s beliefs about our personality and our death drive are important to understand in order to know how he felt about religion. Some of Freud’s theories of religion relate to mastering the Oedipus complex, a reaction to infantile helplessness, and a universal obsessional ritual. …show more content…

Thomas a’ Kempis was a very influential catholic and his writings in the Imitation of Christ are still found important and popular still today. He believed that believing in Christ and accepting him into your life was a very important part of being a catholic. He believed you must live a life that is most close to the life that Jesus lived. Thomas a’ Kempis believed in the importance of imitating Christ. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’ Kempis focuses on the interior life and spirituality. He wants people to focus on what is truly important in his opinion, Christ. No material goods or money can make you truly happy. Thomas a Kempis wants people to focus on living a life like Christ because in the end He is all you will have. Many people agree with the beliefs of Thomas a’ Kempis and follow his suggestions on how to live a life Christ would be accepting …show more content…

He believes that children have a strong desire to be close to their mothers but comes in conflict with the father who has a strong connection and investment in the mother. Freud believes in the importance of the mother while Catholics and most religions worship the father. In Catholicism, it is submission to Christ, who is a father-God. To Freud, God is an illusion(Holt 2008). We created this individual because of our infantile need for a powerful father figure. Religion is a “universal obsessional neurosis” according to Freud because of its repetitive rituals(Holt 2008). In order to follow a religion there is many things you must do. There is not necessarily rules, but morals and values of religions that each follower abides by. From Freud’s writings, his belief of religion changed somewhat from first finding it all to be an illusion, to accepting that God may have existed but that the idea of it all is one of the strangest thoughts in human thinking. Many people follow Christ on faith and will do things that most others seem crazy. The Bible tells us of stories where men killed their own brothers because they said Christ told them to do so, fathers abandoned their families, and people did unthinkable things all because they were asked by Christ to do so. These things all seem insane. How could someone want you to distrust your own family and hurt them in such ways but still call

Show More
Related

  • Freud's Attack On Christianity Essay

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    Religion has been a controversial topic among philosophers and in this paper I am focusing

    Read More

  • Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity, by David Entwistle

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is David Entwistle 2nd edition book published in 2010 by Wipf and Stock in Oregon. Entwistle is a Christian and a licensed psychologist; he has affiliations with Molone University in Canton, Ohio serving as chair of the Psychology Department and has taught courses related to his licensed field. This book clearly is not written for any newcomers to religion. However, it was written for those interested in the integration of science and religion. The authors’ purpose for writing this book was to define the relationship between psychology and theology. There are three specific areas this book touched upon to help readers’ better approach psychology and Christianity in a personal and more professional manner: The context of philosophical issues and worldview, to help the readers become aware of assumptions or beliefs- making the reader a more critical evaluators, and to introduce and familiarize the reader with five paradigms for integrating psychology and theology.

    Read More

  • The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 2002, Doctor Armand Nicholi, Jr. sought to put two of the greatest minds of the 20th century together to debate the answer to the lifelong question, “Is there a God, and if so, how should we respond to his existence?” Nicholi is the first scholar to ever put the arguments of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud side by side in an attempt to recreate as realistic of a debate as possible between the two men. He examines their writings, letters, and lectures in an attempt to accurately represent both men in this debate. His result, the nearly 300 page book, The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, is one of the most comprehensive, well researched, and unbiased summaries of the debate between the worldviews of “believer and unbeliever” (Pg. 5).

    Read More

  • Comparing Sigmund Freud's Civilization And Its Discontents

    148 Words  | 1 Pages

    After reading this week’s readings, I decide to focus my attention on Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, and to briefly touch on pragmatic views. I can see the similarities between the two, were religion, philosophy and science all intertwines, as it relates to finding truth or should I say truth as it relates to achieving certain goals in order to support social values and needs. The implications that what is true, may not necessarily be true, and that any and all knowledge that contributes to human values, can be interpreted as truth. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics should be viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes and that knowledge can be evaluated from the goals that this knowledge is able to support

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud's Psychosocial Theories

    348 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sigmund Freud first theorized the psychosexual theory after studying a patients mental health. The theory states that a human develops from underlying unconscious motives in order to achieve sensual satisfaction.

    Read More

  • Freud and C.S Lewis: Opposite Points of View on Religion

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Two great men, two exact opposite points of view, when it comes to the question of a master creator. These two men would have a profound effect on the life that we live today. Freud who was born to an orthodox Jewish family in the mid 1800’s was born into a lower class family his father was in the wool trade. The collapse of the family business moved him and his family to a Vienna, Ghetto. Freud would later become the voice of science in a logical and philosophical battle. The latter would be author, C.S Lewis; Lewis grew up in a religious home as well, being born 42 years after the birth of Freud. Lewis’s parents were both educated individuals. Lewis’s father was a lawyer and his mother a mathematician. These men would both face their own unique challenges and tribulations. One man would embrace the idea of atheism and the other would unwillingly submit to theism.

    Read More

  • Comparing Otto, Freud, And Tillich's Interpretation Of Religion

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similar to Marx, Freud believes humans simply make up the idea of God in explanation to things science could not disprove. Humans take relationships from our Earthly fathers and compare it to our Heavenly father. According to Freud, “Religion is an attempt to master the sensory world in which we are situated by means of the wishful world which we have developed within us as a result of biological and psychological necessities.” (H/R,p.26) Science can neither prove or disprove religion. Freud chooses to believe science and claims religion is only comforting and hopeful thinking to our purpose after

    Read More

  • Erich Fromm: Psychoanalysis and Religion

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    Erich Fromm in his psychoanalytical approach to religion is distinct from the earlier works of Sigmund Freud. Fromm defines religion as “any system of thought and action shared by a group which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion.” Fromm argues that irreligious systems including all the different kinds of idealism and “private” religions deserve being defined as a “religion.” Based on Fromm’s theory, it is explained that there is no human being who does not have a “religious need,” almost every part of human life reflects religious need and its fulfillment, in fact he states it to be “inherent” in man.

    Read More

  • Civilization and Its Discontents, by Sigmeund Freud

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first two chapter of the book, Freud explores a possible source of religious feeling. He describes an “oceanic feeling of wholeness, limitlessness, and eternity.” Freud himself is unable to experience such a feeling, but notes that there do indeed...

    Read More

  • Role of Religion in the Wilderness: James Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans

    1409 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the midst of his already successful career, Sigmund Freud decided to finally dedicate a book of his to religion, referring to the subject as a phenomena faced by the scientific community. This new work, Totem and Taboo, blew society off its feet, ultimately expanding the reaches of debates and intellectual studies. From the beginning, Freud argues that there exists a parallel between the archaic man and the contemporary compulsive. Both these types of people, he argues, exhibit neurotic behavior, and so the parallel between the two is sound. Freud argues that we should be able to determine the cause of religion the same way we determine the cause of neurosis. He believes, since all neuroses stem from childhood experiences, that the origins of this compulsive behavior we call religion should also be attributed to some childhood experiences of the human race, too. Freudian thought has been dominant since he became well known. In Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, religion becomes entirely evident as a major part of the novel, but the role it specifically plays is what we should question. Therefore, I argue that Freud’s approach to an inborn sense of religion and the role it plays exists in The Last of the Mohicans, in that the role religion plays in the wilderness manifests itself in the form of an untouchable truth, an innate sense of being, and most importantly, something that cannot and should not be tampered with.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Integration Entwistle

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    Entwistle’s book explores the links and integration between psychology and Christianity. As the title explains this book paints a picture of the conflicting worldviews and philosophical foundations that people perceive about how they can be integrated. Entwistle provides research through scholarly reflection and various models that link both psychology and Christianity together. Entwistle remarked by saying “There are many events that raise both theological and psychological questions and such events serve as useful springboards to investigate links between Christian theology and other disciplines” (Entwistle, 2015, p. 8). This statement sets the stage for the readers to understand how some events throughout history have laid the

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud

    3569 Words  | 8 Pages

    Sigmund Freud was the first of six children to be born into his middle class, Jewish family. His father was a wool merchant, and was the provider for the family. From the time Freud was a child, he pondered theories in math, science, and philosophy, but in his teens, he took a deep interest in what he later called psychoanalysis. He wanted to discover how a person's mind works, so he began to explore the conscious and unconscious parts of one's psyche. Freud's parents and siblings were directly involved in allowing him to pursue this unexplored area of psychology. He was given his own room so that he could study his books in silence, and was only disturbed when it was time to eat. Freud eventually married Martha Bernays. She was cooperative and completely subservient to her husband. She was simply filling a role that the society during that time insisted was proper for all women. Freud himself derived his attitudes toward women and his beliefs about the roles of individual sexes from personal experiences in the strict culture of the time. In the middle to late eighteen hundreds, Central European society distinguished clearly between the roles of men and women. Cultural norms dictated that men be responsible for work outside of the home, and the financial well being of the family, while the women's responsibilities were in the home and with the children. With these specific gender roles came the assumption of male dominance and female submission. Females were pictured as serene, calm, creatures that were lucky to have the love and protection of their superior husbands. It is in this form of the family where most children first learn the meaning and practice of hierarchical, authoritarian rule. Here is where they l...

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud's Theory Of Conformity

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    Conformity is defined as behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. This is not a good or bad thing, this just is. It exists as a compliment to earlier humans congregating into larger groups, using agriculture and domestication to create sustenance. Also, conformity is essential for life. We need people to share the same ideas, ideologies and a way of thinking in order to work efficiently and effectively. There many examples that exist like, at work or in your house and even within yourself. Sigmund Freud has explained the phenomena of group psychology in a piece titled, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Using Freud’s theory of conformity I will explain the self, what we call “me”,and its different constituents using The Principles of Psychology by

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud's Life and Contributions To The Field of Psychology

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Freiberg, Moravia, a small town in Austro-Hungarian. His parents were Amalia and Jacob Freud. His father was an industrious wool merchant with a happy and witty personality. His mother was a cheerful and vivacious woman. He was one of nine siblings. He was the first-born child of Amali and Jacob; however, two male siblings where from his father’s first marriage. When he was a young boy, his family moved to Vienna where he lived most of his life. At the age of twenty-six, he fell madly in love with Martha Bernays when she was visiting one of his sisters. Shortly thereafter, they married and had six children of their own three boys and three girls. His children describe him as a loving and compassionate man.

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

    2351 Words  | 5 Pages

    The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.

    Read More

More about Sigmund Freud's Theories Of Religion

Open Document