Do you Agree that Religion is an Illusion - Assignment Example

DO you agree that religion is an illusion? ANSWER: I do not agree that religion is an illusion despite the many critiques and limitations that religion has been encountering in the story of humanity. In this regard, the question specifically points to the analysis that Sigmund Freud has raised in his work The Future of an Illusion. Being such, this paper will be structured such that the first part will be a discussion of Freud’s claim ‘religion is an illusion’. The second part will be an elucidation of my position why I do not agree with the claim that ‘religion is an illusion. Finally the last part of the paper will be the conclusion. In the end, it is the hope of this paper that it may be able to give a clear justification of its position. FREUD’S DISCOURSE: RELIGION IS AN ILLUSION Sigmund Freud’s discourse traces a connection between civilization and religion as an illusion. As such, at the beginning of the book he raised a critique on civilization by claiming that civilization does not intend to effect the just distribution of wealth extracted from nature but that it intends to perpetuate the current distribution of wealth and the status of human interrelationship (Freud, 1989:4-5). In this context, Freud raises the concept that although civilization is plagued with problems because it seeks to curtail the satisfaction of human instinct, it is useful for humanity to create a communal relationship because it lessens the uncertainty, cruelty and control of Nature and Fate over human life. As such, it can be impugned that human civilization is a tool whose “principal task …, its actual raison dêtre, is to defend us against nature” (Freud, 1989:14). In this framework, the humanization of nature and fate is undertaken and is deemed instrumental in removing the people’s fear of nature and rob nature of its capacity to destroy and annihilate humanity. Thus, this process pave for the reenactment of one’s self as “a small child, in relation to ones parents. One had reason to fear them, and especially ones father; and yet one was sure of his protection against the dangers one knew” (Freud, 1989:16). Within this paradigm, man utilizes the gods with a threefold tasks: “they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelly of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them”(Freud, 1989:17). Being such, man’s continued helplessness is assuaged by the protection given to them by the gods. Moreover, since the medieval period, man’s relation with the gods has been transformed in the reenactment of the loving relationship between the son and the father. Thus, “the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life; the establishment of a moral world-order ensures the fulfilment of the demands of justice, which have so often remained unfulfilled in human civilization; and the prolongation of earthly existence in a future life provides the local and temporal framework in which these wish-fulfilments shall take place” (Freud, 1989: 29). In the condition of wish fulfillment, Freud (1989) defined illusion as not the same thing as an error; nor is it necessarily an error…characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes. In this respect they come near to psychiatric delusions…delusions, we emphasize as essential their being in contradiction with reality. Illusions need not necessarily be false—that is to say, unrealizable or in contradiction to reality…we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfilment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification (29-30) From this, he claims that “Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father” (Freud, 1989:42). Thus, for Freud (1989) religion is an illusion because: 1. it has no store for verification (30) 2. It is a form of human neurosis (42) 3. Religious truths are distorted and systematically disguised so that majority cannot know the truth (43) 4. It hides and masks the helplessness, insignificance and the reality of the hostile life (50). 5. Its claims are unverifiable. And 6 religion cannot authentically afford an explanation of the most delicate and intricate questions of man which pertains in the realm of the inaccessible (55). In this regard, by combining and holistically looking into the concept of civilization, of illusion, of religion, and of neurosis of children, Freud has asserted that ‘religion is an illusion’. MY PERSPECTIVE I do not agree with Freud’s claim that religion is an illusion because Illusion is not about wish-fulfillment but it is an escape from reality via creating an imaginary situation whose fulfillment is next to impossible if considered vis-à-vis the real-life context of the person. Indeed, illusion is not a delusion because in illusion one is aware that the illusion is a mere figment of imagination and the person is mentally equipped in delineating the ‘real’ from the ‘unreal’. Religion is not a universal obsessional human neurosis but is, too like science, a result of man’s inquiry into nature. Questions ask in religion differ with science in terms of the focus of the inquiry. With science, it’s the how, the why, the when and the what in nature thus providing a description and explanation of phenomenon. Whereas, religion seeks to understand the foundation with which all things come into being. Combining these views of religion and illusion it presents the idea that: 1. Religion is not an illusion because religion is not a figment of imagination whose reality is removed from the life context of the person. Its claims’ being unverifiable in the scientific way does not necessarily imply that its propositions are false, or invalid. 2. Religion affords a different and alternative approach to truth and understanding of reality. 3. Religion is not an illusion because of its perceptible effects in human behavior. In analogous manner, truths in astrophysics are known via its effects and not necessarily by the empirical evidences, which supports it. And 4.religion is not an illusion because it seeks to rationalize that which is incomprehensible to the human mind. Though the process is arduous and is filled with tendency for human error, what it manifest in pure form, the human person seeking understanding. Being such, I do not agree with Freud that ‘religion is an illusion’. CONCLUSION Freud’s claim that religion is an illusion is highly contestable. Though his explanation presents an alternative understanding of the role of religion in the story of humanity, it does not present the complete understanding or picture of what religion is. But it cannot be denied that his suppositions pose a challenge in taking a re-look with regards to humanity’ s perception, appreciation and understanding of religion regardless of the name of one’s God. In the end, though my position is also debatable what is integral in answering the question is that it affirms humanity – person seeking understanding, a person trying to apprehend life’s vicissitudes in the midst of death’s certainty. REFERENCE Freud, S. (1989). The Future of an Illusion. The Standard Edition. Intro by Peter Gay. Trans under the supervision of J. Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton. Read More