Describe and explain the main features of Freud and Jung 's teachings about the function of religion

Freud looked at many primitive societies to find out if the Oedipus complex was the cause of religious behaviour. He found that in societies where there was a single dominant male who had authority over the group many of the younger males grew jealous. Eventually they would group together a kill the dominant male. This resulted in ambivalent feelings about him, Hatred on one hand and respect and guilt on the other. As a result the dominant male or father figure became idolised by the group. This is sometimes referred to as the projection of a super-ego that was greater than the father himself.  Freud believed that when the mind suffers from guilt it creates idols. By praying or making sacrifices to these idols the mind can control the feelings of guilt by redirecting them onto the idol. He believed that as a longing for he idol grew so did its reputation eventually it took on a divine significance and became transformed into the God s of religion. An example would be of the Christian God who is held with the same ambivalence as the original father figure.

Freud found that the nature of society often conflicted with our most basic desires. Society depends upon structure and order; those who have responsibility to govern us must also have authority. The rules often conflict with the desires of each individual. His point was that religion gave people a reason to submit to authority. Religion explains our suffering in terms of a need to obey an omnipotent God, It promises a reward in the afterlife and make suffering more bearable.  He also believed we created religion in our minds to help overcome fear of natural forces such as death. Religion helps us overcome our feelings of defencelessness and panic by helping us believe that there is a father figure, God, who protects us.

Many have criticized Freud. Freud believed that we should overthrow religion. However, many argued that this would lead to anarchy and dismissed the idea. Also many believe that religion offers a stable source of comfort and familiarity and plays a valuable role in society. It is also proven that people didn’t live exclusively in male dominated groups therefore the idea of the fathers super ego couldn’t apply for his theories on the Oedipus complex. He also came across criticism for his narrow selection of evidence. His theories rely on the father figure, which the mind develops into the male God of Christianity of Judaism. He failed to take into account religions biased on female deities such as the Egyptian Isis cult or religions with no object of worship such as Buddhism. It is also unable to explain why many religions have more than one idol of worship.

Carl Jung rejected many of Freud’s conclusions, especially those concerning religion. Although he accepted that religion was a form of psychological phenomenon.  Jung believed that religion was a natural process that stems from the “archetypes” in the unconscious mind. He believed that overthrowing religion would lead to psychological problems and that religion does the job of harmonizing the psyche. Jung worked with patients that were suffering from schizophrenia. From his observations he concluded that religion as a type of neurosis was in no way dependent upon a sexual trauma. Jung worked out a further division of the unconscious mind, into the personal unconsciousness and the collective unconsciousness. The personal unconsciousness contains forgotten memories of the individual. Collective contains images common to all human beings and does not depend on the personal experience of the individual.  The collective unconsciousness contains the blueprints for a whole range of ideas and images. Each one of us is born with a tendency to visualize similar kinds of primordial images. Jung believed that the image of God is one of those primordial images. The collective unconsciousness means, therefore, that many of our ideas about God will be shared with other people.  Jung gave the name archetype to the part of the psyche that creates these images. He was saying that the mind contains structures which, when combined with the knowledge gained through our experiences, construct images common to most human beings. For example, every child is born with the disposition to feel hungry but not the knowledge of food to want a hamburger. Through our experiences of food combined with feelings of hunger this manifests itself into the desire for a particular type of food.

Jung claimed that our images of God were archetypal. In other words we are all born with the ability to generate images in our minds of God and of angels. The images we create of God are created because of our experiences; the disposition to create them is, however, innate.

Freud thought that religion was a form of neurotic illness and was dangerous. Jung however argued that it maintained the balance of the mind preventing neurosis from occurring. Jung believed that as we grow older we become more preoccupied with our selves, thanks to the archetype known as self. He believed we strive to be as perfect as our image of God and therefore religion was an important part of society. Freud and Jung both agree that it very possible that no God exists outside our minds. Since there is no empirical evidence to suggest otherwise the theories remain true. A point, however, that would disprove Jung’s theory is that there are many people that do not believe in a God therefore the idea of archetypes will not work.

Whatever your personal feelings there is no proof either way that God either exists or does not exist. However, psychology leads us to believe that it is possible for the idea of God to exist within our minds.