Sigmund Freud said that religion is an illusion that has no future. How did he, being an atheist, know religion is an illusion if he never had the religious experience himself?
How do people who have the religious experience know they are having one and are not deluding themselves they are having one? What are the authentic signs of an authentic religious experience? What are the signs of a fake religious experience?
Although the experience of religion is nearly universal, it does not take a universal form. This means that since there are religions contradicting each other, they cannot all be true, though all may contain some authentic religious truths in them. How do we know the religious experiences of some religions are authentic and the religious experiences of other religions are not authentic?
Or discuss any variations of the above? Thank you.
What Freud understood was neurosis. It has been some forty years since I read any of his works, but my impression is that he saw religion as a social phenomenon internalized in aid of the superego, whose purpose is the control of libidinal forces, ultimately polymorphously perverse desires, in order for the ego to negotiate reality. He spoke about eros and thanatos, the forces of life and destruction; these would be basic to all existence, I suppose. The evolution of the mind would emerge from these powers in nature. Again his focus was on neurosis and he related these forces back to psychological phenomena such as sado-masochistic relationships. One can try to psychoanalyze his reasons for his views about religion - payback I suppose, but I think in my cynicism that he was trying to make a name for himself in history by becoming the first (in his mind?) person to create a science of the mind. The first step in science, is the elimination of all unpredictable/unmeasureable/uncontrollable variables - you will note that “God” never will appear in a scientific dissertation. He started on a “neurological” system that would explain the workings of the mind, which was pretty well thought out, but he abandoned it in favor of studying the mind itself. His aim in therapy was to guide the patient away from their individual suffering and reunite the individual with the common misery.
Since we are physical, psychological and spiritual beings, religious experience, as part of human existence can be understood along any of these three dimensions. One could speak of dopamine, seratonin, norepinephrine, endorphin, etc, happening in the brain. As another example, monks in meditation show differences in P.E.T. scans compared to normals relaxing. One could also view the experience, itself in terms of mental images, feelings, thoughts. If one is trying to convey the nature of the experience to another person, it is done so in these terms. Witness near death experiences. For the person listening to the description, it is easy to assume that what is described, is the extent of what is happening. The person having had the religious experience knows otherwise. It goes beyond the psychological, and has to do with truths that are mysteries, like the experience of existence itself. If one is speaking of one’s being, and the other does not automatically know what one is talking about, how does one even begin to describe it in terms that are not psychological/philosophical. Religious experience, like being itself will remain as something in the realm of ideas and feelings.
I do not believe religions contradict one another any more that scripture contradicts itself, a common assertion by atheists.
My CS Lewis quote of the day: “There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there is never more than one.”
