1. Religion as Wishful thinking
Simund Freud
Hui Ka Yu

2. The projection theory of belief in God
The most definitive statement of Freud’s views:
“The future of an illusion”
Published in 1927

3. “The future of an illusion”
‘Religious ideas have arisen from the same need as have all the other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushing superior force of nature.”

4. “The future of an illusion”
Religious beliefs are “illusion, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind…. As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection , for protection through love, which was provided by the father…. Thus the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life.”

5. Freud’s thinking
Atheism
Religion
= projection of our own unconscious desire
No reality in the idea of God
= one of the assumptions
= his personal opinion

6. Freud’s thinking
God
= father-figure
Afraid & trust his protection
Protection
= religious beliefs

7. Freud’s “structural theory”
Three areas of the personality: Id
the area of the human genetic endowment
the repository of the biologically determined instincts

8. Freud’s “structural theory”
Ego
the conscious mind
→ attempts to reconcile the instinctual demands of the id with the realities of the external environment

9. Freud’s “structural theory”
Super ego
part of the ego
→ develop during childhood as a sort of policeman
→ controls some harmful products of the id

10. Freud’s “structural theory”
Superego stays around into adulthood as some sort of god or authority image
→ limits the person’s freedom and filling life with guilt

11. Freud’s thinking
Person
→ faces the dangers of nature and the evils of society itself
→ feel painful and helpless
→ returns unconsciously to his own childhood

12. Freud’s thinking
→ invents an all-powerful father
→ the father fulfills his most insistent need and desires
→ emerges belief in a personal God
religion = projection of one’s psychology