Freud On Religion

For centuries the concept of religion has played a significant role in the development of human civilization. From the worship of the Greek gods to the practice of Roman Catholicism, humans have taken the time to temper themselves both spiritually and physically in order to attain some form of true happiness or enlightenment. The question then seems to arise, why do people practice religion, especially in today’s world where more are choosing to take the path of secularism? There may be those who practice a religion’s tenets only after having a spiritual experience, or those who simply follow religion out of obligation from growing up in the religious culture. However, the truth is that any individual who is asked why they are religious …show more content…
In 1930, Sigmund Freud published a book, Civilizations and its Discontents, in which he begins explaining that religion is an irrational illusion and within the text further stated, “-A feeling as of something limitless, unbounded – as it were, ‘oceanic’” (Freud 613). Despite not experiencing the sensation himself, Freud doesn’t deny others may have felt it and considers this feeling of limitlessness to be the groundwork upon which current religious systems were built. Freud then begins to question as to whether this sensation is truly the justification for religion or something completely separate. Deferring to his background in psychoanalysis to find an answer, Freud attributes this feeling of limitlessness to the human ego. To begin his argument Freud states, “This ego appears to us as something autonomous and unitary, marked off distinctly from everything else. That such an appearance is deceptive, and that on the contrary the ego is continued inwards, without any sharp delimitation” (Freud 614). By pointing out the boundless nature of the ego Freud makes a connection between it and the limitlessness sense, but now he must relate this fact to religion. To accomplish this Freud uses the example of an infant and its ego in the most