Is Religion an Illusion?

[Charlemagne_III]

Those who believe religion is an illusion, that is to say, a spiritual relationship with a Higher Being is simply non-existent, first have to establish that the very idea of a Higher Being is illusory. Even though Freud attacked religion as illusory, he offered no argument that there is no Higher Being. He seemed to take it for granted that intelligent people would agree with him, and that religion is merely the dependency of the child on the father grown to the dependency of the adult on the supreme Father.

Yet many intelligent people have not agreed with him, and many intelligent people from Plato to Einstein, while not agreeing precisely as to who or what the Higher Being is, have asserted the existence of such a Being. Have they all been deluded? Have all those people of lesser intelligence who have recorded in their lives an experience with the living God also been deluded? How could Freud explain this persistently universal illusion? How could Freud explain the persistent appearance as well of the Devil in human affairs, even to the point of demonic possession and the apparent presence of the devil in human bodies that need to be exorcised and can only be exorcised by saintly priests? Did Freud in all the cases he studied never encounter the malevolent spirit of the devil as something that transcended ordinary human disease of a psychological nature? Did he never seek to investigate such cases, as Dr. Scott Peck did, and record his experiences of exorcism as Dr. Peck did in his People of the Lie?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Even though Freud attacked religion as illusory, he offered no argument that there is no Higher Being. . . .

Freud dealt with the mind, understood as subjective experience. Feelings and the general stuff of relationships would be all illusory, shaped by familial and societal forces.
Evil would be a primitive and archaic mental construct produced by the unconscious warning of impulses forbidden by the superego because they threatened the cohesion of the ego.
It could also be seen as symbolizing Thanatos, the death instinct - a force of nature that drove the organism to dissolution. In contrast Eros was the desire for unity and life.
He was very simplistic in his understanding of beauty and love. I don’t believe he ever addressed music.

In today’s society, Freud is so yesteryear. If he is mentioned at all, it is in the context of some sexually suggestive remark.
That there exists a book entitled: The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life is only because of the ongoing relevance of CS Lewis.
It seems to me that like everything else that is old, there is no place for Freud in secular society.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Just thinking of a quote from St. Margaret of Cortona. Christ speaking:

“I am concealing myself from you so that you can discover by yourself what you are without Me.”

This is therapeutic for those who deny Christ, that they figure out sooner or later the experience they have denied themselves.