This week, I’d like to dive deeper into Freud’s idea that religion is a product of fear. Specifically, the concept of an unfounded fear and the delusional response through religion. The basis of these feelings lies in a fear of the unknown as well as a need for control. In modern medicine, this is typically referred to as an anxiety disorder, but Freud uses the more antiquated term of ‘neurosis’ which generally puts more emphasis on the loss of a grasp on reality. Since religion isn’t based on observable, impartial fact, its existence demonstrates this alternate reality.

In The Future of an Illusion, Freud writes, “I have tried to show that religious ideas have arisen from the same need as have all the other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushingly superior force of nature. To this a second motive was added-the urge to rectify the shortcomings of civilization which made themselves painfully felt” (Freud 21). The first part of this quote is interesting because it equates religion with other ‘achievements’ of civilization. Could we compare religion to agriculture or electric power? In this case, I think that’s exactly what he’s getting at. Those examples arise from a need for control, to control the food supply or to drive machinery. To control the quality of our existence. They also arise from fear – the fear of starvation, the fear of the dark, or the fear of loss of commerce. The latter of which could lead to suffering through loss of income or resources. These fears, too, drive the creation of religion. In the earliest forms of what we might call ‘religion’, people needed to explain what they couldn’t control – be it lightning or the sun. In regard to Freud’s shortcomings of civilization, there was a realistic fear of other people, even at the tribal stage of civilization, that also needed to be explained. I’d argue that the fear of others has only increased as ‘civilization’ has progressed. If there is a necessity to explain the sky and the ocean, things that can be observed and studied, there’s certainly a necessity to explain some of the perplexities of human behavior, like war, love, wisdom, even the construct of fate, itself. Through the creation of gods and, later, the consolidation of all of these concepts into a single God, ideas like natural occurrences or the behavior of others could be justified. Through the explanation – or blame – that it was the doing of the gods, people could alleviate some of their anxieties. Of course, these gods have no basis in observable reality, so they are part of the shared illusion. Freud points out, “Thus 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” (31).

When I mention in the introduction the idea of an unfounded fear, I’d like to qualify this by saying that, as with anxiety disorders, that it’s a fear based on more of a ‘what-if’ scenario than an immediate threat. This is significant in all of human history. How many inventions and laws and wars have been created based on this preemptive fear that something bad might happen? Certainly, early humans had good reason to fear other tribes, and maybe the same could be said for wolves. But when we look at a fear of the sun or a fear of the sea as a basis for the creation of gods, they are based in a need for explanation of the unknown. The reality of wolves or the warfare of other tribes are legitimate, but at the same time, may never happen. Just as my own anxieties about all of the bad things that will likely never come to light, it may never happen that the sun comes crashing down. Even today, when we look at the actions of different governments, they are largely based in fear. Islamophobia, homophobia, ‘woke’ education, are all based in this unfounded fear that something bad might happen.

Freud talks about the father-complex in relation to helplessness and a need for protection as a basis for religion (23). It’s this helplessness that is significant in the fear that leads to religion. The insecurity of not being able to control the sea or earthquakes or the crops could create crippling fear in early people – and in people today. The security they receive by putting their faith in God(s) allows them to carry on with their regular lives. It can’t be demonstrated that any gods actually offer them protection, but through their faith and obedience in a God, much as they might have for a father, they can get the same perceived security that they might expect from a father figure. Freud writes, “It can clearly be seen that the possession of these ideas protects him in two directions-against the dangers of nature and Fate, and against the injuries that threaten him from human society itself” (18). And there is a rational-yet-irrational fear of a human father, too. He could hurt us, but he might not, and since we don’t know, it’s better (read: safer) to remain obedient. To bring it back around to government, it’s like people expect politicians to be some kind of secondary father figure. If God isn’t going to protect them from the things they’re afraid of, big brother should. Like a father figure, political leaders demand obedience and can be unpredictable. And like a father figure (and a God), they can be benevolent or come down on a person with crushing punishment.

The concept of fear as a basis for not only religion, but human behavior, is valuable to me because it motivates me to step outside of my initial perceptions and question the motivations of others – and of myself. I’m acutely aware that my anxiety disorders have led me to delusional thinking, even if I haven’t ‘found’ religion because of them. When I see all of the chaos going on in the world right now, I should remember that it’s primarily based on what other people are afraid of. And while those fears might seem strange or irrational to me, my own fears may seem illogical to others. Freud writes, “And it tallies well with this that devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one” (44). In my quest to be an empathetic person, I should value the idea that other people have decided to participate in a shared neurosis, be it through religion or politics, whereas I’ve opted to create my own. And while I may see moral failure in the way they exhibit these neuroses, it doesn’t make us different when it comes to the root of our problem: the “cruelty of Fate” (18).

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. Translated by James Strachey, WW Norton & Company, 1961.