Religious Belief As a Product of the Human Mind

Religious Studies for A2 and A Level Year 2 – Philosophy of Religion Challenges to religious © Illuminate Publishing 2017 These are publisher’s uncorrected draft proofs belief – Religious belief as a and may contain un nished material. These pages have not been fully checked, and have not gone through product of the human mind awarding body endorsement T2 We’ve had to reduce the header size here, so that processes. the text all fi ts in the space. I hope this is OK with you? Let us know if would rather cut text to allow for consistent header size throughout the book – design This section covers AO1 content and skills D: Religious belief as a product of the Specifi cation content human mind: Sigmund Freud Religion as collective neurosis. Introduction One way of resolving confl icts between religion and the physical sciences is to Key terms argue that science addresses the physical world whilst religion addresses the inner Ego: the part of the psyche that is world. However, the focus of psychology is the inner world and it tries to present residing largely in the conscious and is itself as a science. Psychology investigates human personality and experiences. It reality-orientated. It mediates between attempts to discover laws about human behaviour and to fi nd reasons as to why the desires of the id and the superego individuals hold certain beliefs. Ideas that were previously in the special sphere of Id: the part of the psyche that is religion are therefore challenged. Human behaviour, experiences and beliefs can residing in the unconscious and relates appear to be explained without recourse to the idea of a God. to basic needs and desires Psyche: the mental or psychological Religion as collective neurosis structure of a person One of the most infl uential psychologists in the 20th century was Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis: a method of Born in 1856 of Jewish parents, Freud studied medicine. He was the founder of studying the mind and treating mental psychoanalysis and by 1902 was associate Professor of Neuropathology at the and emotional disorders based on University of Vienna – a post he held until 1938. During his life he developed his revealing and investigating the role of ideas about the psyche (personality). He believed the psyche was divided into the the unconscious mind id, ego and superego, which all developed at different stages in life. According Psychology: the study of the mind to Freud, the id is the primitive and impulsive part of our psyche which responds and behaviour to our instincts. The superego is the moral part of personality which includes Superego: part of the unconscious the conscience and the ideal-ego. It is the ego that is the decision-making part of mind personality. The ego is the conscious self that is created by the dynamic tensions and interactions between the id and the superego and has the task of reconciling their confl icting demands with the requirements of external reality. The ego experiences moral confl icts that Freud thought were refl ected in dreams and 2.1 What three parts did Freud believe neurotic symptoms. the psyche was divided into?DRAFT Design to do at 2p This is copyright so diagram cannot be used in form it is Freud’s famous couch in -so diagram needs redoing with perhaps iceberg etc. The preconscious needs to be labelled the subconscious (preconscious) Freud Freud’s model of the psyche (personality) 6 A2 RE PHILOSOPHY and ETHICS pp001-XXX_1p All Phil, 1 Unit Eth.indd 6 19/10/2017 09:30 T2 Challenges to religious belief – Religious belief as a product of the human mind Freud sought to understand religion and spirituality and in 1907 he presented a paper to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society entitled ‘Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices’. He noted that people who suffered from an obsessional neurosis involving compulsive repeated actions, exhibited similar patterns of behaviour to religious people who feel uneasy if they neglect repeated actions such as saying the rosary. Both are also meticulous about the detail of the way the actions must be carried out. Freud also noticed that there was at least one signifi cant difference. He thought 2.2 What similarity did Freud see that people suffering from obsessional neurosis did not understand the meaning between a religious person and a person suffering from obsessional of their actions whilst religious people understood the meaning of their practices. neurosis? Freud argued that by means of psychoanalysis he had found that the obsessional neurosis did have meaning. It was caused by unconscious motives derived from past events in the intimate life of the patient, and these repressed instinctual impulses (such as the sexual urge) led to a sense of guilt. The repeated actions observed by Freud were interpreted as an unconscious protective measure against 2.3 What difference did Freud discern the temptation to give way to these instinctual impulses. In the same way he saw between a religious person and a that religious rituals were similarly motivated. The instinctual impulses of the person suffering from obsessional neurosis? religious person included such impulses as self-seeking, which gave rise to a sense of guilt following continual temptation. Just as in the obsessional neurosis there is displacement from the actual important thing on to another object (e.g. from a husband, on to a chair), so in religion, there was a displacement (e.g. from doing something God disapproves of, on to the religious ritual of prayer/confession). The religious practices gradually become the essential thing. Hence Freud’s description of ‘religion as a universal obsessional neurosis’. The neurotic compulsions and religious rituals are found universally so it is called a collective neurosis. Key terms C ollective neurosis: a neurotic illness that af icts all people Instinctual impulses: an instinct that is in the unconscious but active in DRAFTthe psyche Obsessional neurosis: sometimes called compulsive neurosis, uncontrollable obsessions that can create certain daily rituals Key quote One might venture to regard obsessional neurosis as a pathological formation of a religion, and to describe that neurosis as an individual religiosity and religion as a universal obsessional neurosis. Obsessional washing of hands (Freud) and the religious ritual of washing 7 A2 RE PHILOSOPHY and ETHICS pp001-XXX_1p All Phil, 1 Unit Eth.indd 7 19/10/2017 09:05 WJEC / Eduqas Religious Studies for A Level Year 2 and A2 Philosophy and Ethics Specifi cation content Religion as a neurosis: the primal horde Religion as a neurosis: the primal Freud’s conclusion was that religion itself was a form of neurosis, caused by horde. traumas deep within the psyche. In 1913 Freud wrote Totem and Taboo in which he sought to explain the origins of these traumas. He based his theory on Charles Darwin’s conjecture that human beings had originally lived in small ‘hordes’ or groups. Freud then speculated that over many generations the horde had been dominated by single dominant males who had seized the women for themselves and had driven off or killed all rivals, including their sons. He recognised that this single alpha-male surrounded by a harem of females was similar to the arrangement of gorilla groupings in their natural habitats where a single silverback is dominant. At some time a band of prehistoric brothers expelled from the alpha- male group returned to kill their father, whom they both feared and respected. This then enabled them to become dominant over the horde and gain women themselves. However, after the event, the young males felt guilty for they had both loved and feared the father. Moreover, with their father’s death they had become rivals among themselves for possession of the women. Burdened with guilt and faced with imminent collapse of their social order, the brothers formed a tribe and a totem took the place of the father, so uniting the tribe. Freud had an interest in social anthropology and in his book he examines the system of totemism among the Australian Aborigines. He noticed that every clan had a totem (usually an animal) and people were not allowed to marry those with the same totem as themselves. Freud Australian aboriginal totem understood this as a way of preventing incest. The concept of the totem infl uenced the tribes to certain norms of behaviour and to go against them would be taboo. According to Freud, ‘The totem members 2.4 What is meant by ‘a totem’? were forbidden to eat the fl esh of the totem animal, or were allowed to do so only under specifi c conditions. A signifi cant counter-phenomenon, not irreconcilable Key quote with this, is the fact that on certain occasions the …the ceremony of the totem- eating of the totem fl esh constituted a sort of feast still survives with but ceremony ...’ little distortion in the form of Freud saw a correlation between totemism and Communion. (Freud) Darwin’s primitive horde theory. His psychoanalysis of the totem ceremony revealed that the totem animal Darwin DRAFTwas in reality a substitute for the father who was both Key terms loved and feared. Over time the reputation of the slaughtered father grew to divine A lpha-male: the dominant male in a proportions. The totem became worshipped and became the god. There was a community or group yearly commemoration by a ritual killing and eating of the totem animal. Eating Atonement: making up for and drinking are symbols of fellowship and mutual obligation. Freud argued that wrongdoing; the reconciliation of this insight through psychoanalysis explains the inherited sense of guilt that we all human beings with God through life, have.

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