Obsessions, Illusions and Delusions
Psychological Analysis Religion
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An important form of helplessness against which religion acts is, according to Freud, our helplessness before our own internal and uncontrollable desires. Freud made much of the similarities between religious rituals and obsessional rituals (for example, the compulsive need to wash your hands in a specific pattern every time), the latter of which functioned to protect the ego from the emergence of fantasies, desires, and especially sexual impulses which were normally repressed. In the ritual, however, they gain some partial expression and release.
Freud saw "neurosis as an individual religion, religion as a universal obsessional neurosis." Drawing this parallel between the two, Freud called religion:
...the suppression, the renunciation, of certain instinctual impulses. These impulses, however, are not, as in the neuroses, exclusively components of the sexual instinct; they are self-seeking, socially harmful instincts, though, even so, they are usually not without a sexual component.
Anyone who has noticed the Christian obsession with all matters sexual, and particularly with the constant efforts to repress and deny most forms of sexual expression, will find that even if Freud is not entirely correct, he has certainly hit upon something important.
The issue of "illusion" is another very important part of Freud's critique of religion. At all times we must keep in mind that he drew a sharp distinction between "illusion" and "delusion," using only the former to describe religious beliefs. Illusions, including those of religion, are such not because of their content but by their sources. Calling religious beliefs illusions does not automatically deny them any sort of validity - they may, after all, even come true. Their problem lies in their source: undisciplined and uncritical human wishes.
It should be pointed out of course, that in Freud's theories just about all thinking, including scientific thinking, can have nonrational sources and be indicative of wishful thinking. With both religion and science, it is not that the source determines the value of an idea - a great idea can have a nonrational source, and a poor idea can have a rational source. What is key is just how much influence that source continues to hold over the idea in question.
Scientists can and do come across revolutionary ideas intuitively, but their intuition and wishful thinking are supposed to remain disciplined. Ideas are supposed to be open to rational critique, demonstration and verification. Convictions, no matter how strong, must be capable of being refined, modified and even abandoned if necessary. Scientific thinking can thus be differentiated from religious thinking, since religion rarely if ever allows for such an atmosphere to hold sway.
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