The future of an illusion
...instincts must be restrained. Yet, despite all of this sacrifice and restraint exercised, we are forever helpless in the face of nature. In the perpetual battle between humans and nature, sickness and death will always win in the end. Moving on, Freud notes that this unhappy reality does not sit well with many people. In fact, it destroys what many hold closest to their heart: a sense of ultimate protection by a father figure, which was often felt during childhood. Even as mature adults, many people long for that sense of security, despite knowledge that it does not exist. Freud notes that this is where the voice of religion enters, providing a childhood sense of security that can not be found elsewhere. Religious beliefs project an image of God that can provide us solace in the face of death, destroy the horror created by nature, and reward us for obeying the restrictions set by our society. Religious belief claims that "over each one of us there watches a benevolent providence which . . . will not suffer us to become a plaything of the overmighty and pitiless forces of nature." Freud goes on to say that even death loses its negative connotations, because we can be certain that our spirits will live on with God past the extent of our mortal lives. Freud seems to continually assert that we ought to believe because our ancestors did, which is not the case at all; people forge their own religious journey, and in most cases, discover their spiritual identity along the way. The appropriate word we can use to describe such religious belief is “illusion.” An illusion, Freud contends, is a belief whose primary characteristic is that we very strongly want it to be true. An illusion is something that one day could be true. I object to this claim by Freud, religion does not simply arise out of our emotional needs, rather it is based upon long-standing tradition. More importantly, if religion was ignored as a means of establishing morals, our society would become even more chaotic and violent. Rather confusingly, Freud claims that he is not calling belief in God a delusion; in fact, he insists otherwise: "To assess the truth-value of religious doctrines does not lie within the scope of the present enquiry. It is enough for us that we have recognized them as being, in their psychological nature, illusions." Therefore, religious teachings are not revelations revealed by God, nor are they calculated assumptions based on...