Moral Responsibility
One of the critiques made by Freud of the development of religion is that the tenets, doctrines and system and beliefs that develop out of the evolution of each individual faith become the basis for societal codes of morality. Since all religion, according to Freud, are illusions stimulated by wish-fulfillment, these codes will inevitably become susceptible to the reason as facts displace faith. This make believers in any particular religion subject to an ethical crisis once they can no longer define their moral reasoning by a code which has been undermined.
Religion is a Psychological Disorder
Freud terms religion an obsessive neurosis manifested by all mankind. The book is constructed as a kind of Socratic dialogue that also work as an example of psychotherapy in which Freud treats a critic of his conclusions as a patient suffering from the disorder. The dialogue becomes a way to treat the neurotic symptoms of faith through the techniques of psychology to arrive at a theory of the unconscious primal drives which have led human begins all around the globe to independently develop their codified religions. Taking into account the widespread differences in constitutional circumstances of these developments, Freud’s diagnosis is that the collective neurotic disorder is located in one shared primal experience: the creation of God is the fulfillment of the unconscious desire for a cosmic father-figure capable of providing protection against worldly anxieties and providing answers to the mystery of death as an immortal and omnipotent supreme deity.
Religion as Anti-Intellectualism Impedance
A practical criticism of religion is that it has had the effect of impeding intellectual progress of mankind by denying, rejecting, censoring or destroying any knowledge or advancements which challenge its fundamental assertions. The psychological foundation of religion has its basis in patriarchal authority; an attack on the supremacy of one’s god is merely a cosmic re-enactment of an attack on one’s own father. The natural response to such a situation is anti-intellectual and emotion-driven: belief in the father precisely (and often only) because he is the father. The history of religion around the world is one of impulsive rejection of intellectual engagement with any circumstance that forces believers to question received instruction that have become the basis for belief.
