Smoke and Mirrors

Where does religion come from? Sigmund Freud thinks he knows. His theory, entitled "the psychogenesis of religion" is to be found in Totem and Taboo (1913). According to Freud, every major religion venerates a father-figure. The reason for this involves "the Oedipal complex." This is what Freud means:

At some prehistoric time human beings lived in a tribe ruled by a chief. This chief was, literally, a father, having exclusive sexual rights over the women of his tribe. However, as the chief aged, and as his sons matured, conflict, fuelled by sexual frustration, grew in intensity. Eventually, the sons rebelled, overthrew their father, and killed him. Almost immediately the sons were overcome by remorse at what they had done. They created rituals in order to assuage their grief and guilt, and so religion was born.

Freud goes on to interpret individual religious experience on the basis of the Oedipal complex. For Freud, veneration of a father-figure is a childish response to a dominant human parent. Fear of punishment forces the child to subject his will to his father's, and then to project the characteristics of the father into an illusory spiritual realm. In effect, therefore, religion is simply the perpetuation of infantile behavior. The frightened child trusts that his father will protect him from the ogres under the bed. The timid adult trusts that his heavenly father will protect him from the very real ogres who inhabit our world. But this is little more than wishful thinking. A confident young adult moves away from his father's control and gains his independence. As he leaves behind the phobias of childhood, so he should also reject the delusion that is religion. He should grow up and deal with the real world, not hide away in a realm created by his own wishes.

For me, the most telling response to Freud's theories of the origin of religion is simply to point out that he is creating an hypothesis, not stating a fact. Freud has absolutely no evidence to support the theory of a prehistoric patricide; the Oedipal complex has no foundation. He has merely invented the event in order to give credibility to his theories, which in turn support his prejudices. This is eisegesis of the worst kind. Freud massages the evidence until it appears to support his conclusions. But it is all a game with smoke and mirrors. Freud is the illusionist, not the Christian.

And yet, how many atheists continue to use this argument? Belief is still condemned as infantile. Obsessional neuroses are blamed for being the hidden persuaders behind religious ritual. Believers are told that they are foolish children, reacting to trauma by repressing their instincts and their emotions. Christians continue to fool themselves by creating castles in the sky.

In truth, though, these criticisms tell us more about the repressed spiritual urges of those who reject Christianity than they do about the origins of religion. Atheists have created their own myth. There is no evidence for its truth, but they continue to advocate for the illusion because they cannot bear to think that they might be wrong. Sound familiar? Freud's psychoanalytical atheism is an hypothesis, nothing more. Christians have no reason to fear an illusion.