Humanities Homework Help

I’m working on a psychology discussion question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Sigmund Freud had a critical view of religion feeling that “religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis” or mental illness involving symptoms of stress such as depression and anxiety. Freud viewed religion as the unconscious mind’s need for wish fulfillment. Because people need to feel secure and absolve themselves of their own guilt, Freud believed that they choose to believe in God, who represents a powerful father-figure. Additionally, he felt that religion was simply an illusion.

Carl Jung, on the other hand, considered the human psyche to be by nature religious and made this a focus of his exploration. He posited the following: “This is certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is set up in his place. It is the medium from which the religious experience seems to flow. As to what the further cause of such an experience may be, the answer to this lies beyond the range of human knowledge. Knowledge of God is a transcendental problem.”