A lot of us grow up within a religion very passively. We are taught it by our parents or guardians, and most of us do not question it much, at least not until we are older. However, one way or another, we eventually accept some way to make sense of the world around us, why things happen and with what level of significance is it to our life. The most common way that humans on Earth have rationalized our creation and existence is through faith in a religion that makes the most sense to us. For some, that means a single god and his rules, for others it means a multitude of gods and goddesses and their bickering and power struggles. And still, for others there is no explanation necessary, and they are perfectly content with there being no other reason for life other than a pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction. This generalization brings me to Freud’s theory of religion.

Freud’s view of religion is all based on what he refers to as the “pleasure principle” (Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, pg. 729). Essentially, as a paraphrase from Freud’s “Civilization and its Discontents”, a human will do whatever is possible in order to obtain a sense of pleasure. Freud applies this to the creation of religion in several ways, indicating that religion is only created by humans to appeal to their particular brand of pleasure, as it were. As he is also notorious for his theories on sexual pleasure as a motive for many things in a human’s life, Freud also ties this to the creation of religious institutions, but I shall get in to that later.

Freud theorizes, first of all, that one cannot become satisfied with a religion or similar belief system without a sense of “eternity” (Freud, pg. 723). This sense is described as a feeling that everything is much bigger than what people perceive it to be, and that there is no true end to anything. In a way, there is a cycle of living souls that makes up our worldly existence. This theory is true of religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, which all believe in the existence of an afterlife, of which is determined by actions during your current life. This also applies heavily to religions such as Hinduism, which believe that our souls are condemned to a cycle of rebirth, so no one ever actually dies. Freud speculates that someone without this sense of eternity could never find satisfaction in following any particular religion, and so they choose to find pleasure elsewhere.

Furthermore about Freud’s “pleasure principle” is that some people are not simply looking to experience pleasure, but are rather seeking an escape from harm, or “unpleasure” (Freud, pg. 729). He also says that this desire to abstain from suffering can be stronger than the desire for personal pleasure (Freud, pg. 730). This desire can drive people toward many behaviors in order to relieve themselves from the “unpleasure”, one of which is religion. In many cases, religion gives people relief, knowing that they are being loved and that all their suffering will be taken care of by a powerful benevolent being. Keep in mind, though, that this suffering might not include earthly suffering at all, but rather refers to a potential suffering. This is the case in Christianity, where Christians believe that they are ultimately being watched by God, but feel that their salvation is more of a saving from the suffering in the afterlife that they would endure for their sin. Christians choose this belief system to escape the “unpleasure” of being overwhelmed by their natural defiance of righteousness.

The next thing Freud mentions ties in well with the practice of meditation. In faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, an important part of reaching a spiritual state of understanding is through looking inward and dwelling deeply on what makes you significant, or otherwise insignificant. Even in the monotheistic religions, one could equate silent prayer with meditating on the word of God. Either way, this quiet reflection is commonly used to develop a “oneness” with the universe and the rest of creation, rather than just an individual pursuit of happiness. However, Freud would have you know that this achievement of happiness is more superficial than it seems. Instead of happiness, you achieve a “quietness”, silencing thoughts and feelings of displeasure which can be considered distractions from your own self (Freud, pg. 731).

Some of what religion appears to be is an appellation to beauty. We admire all of God’s creation, His transient state of omnipotence, the epic tales of love and war which cover the holy books, and so on. Our sense of beauty, as Freud has it, comes from our own interpretation of our sexual pleasure. The way he puts it is that, since man derives the most pleasure from sex, it is only natural for him to decide it to be beautiful and other things like it to be beautiful, which is up to interpretation by him alone. This sense of beauty and love affects how a person would decide to believe in something, as beauty gives a mild amount of happiness (Freud, pg. 733).

Compared to most theories of religion, Freud’s seems much more cynical, giving no credit to the thought that religions and faiths may be genuine expressions of love and worship and an encouragement for the betterment of humanity as a whole. However, Freud approaches the idea of religion from a less humanistic view, seeing the practice of religion merely as a behavior which begs to be defined. He never uses the word “faith” when discussing his ideas, which is odd, as all religions are heavily based on faith, not just thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Were he to define the element in faith within his essay, religion would have been more thoroughly explained.

References: “Civilization and its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud