Recap

1. Recap • What is the id? • What is the ego? • What is the superego? • How do these three work together?

2. ID, ego & superego • Watch the following video clip on the Id, Ego and Superegoto see a representation of Freud’s psyche http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_KztSDMNus&feature=related

3. The Oedipus Complex • Freud’s Oedipus Complex is very important to his psychological view of religion • The Oedipus Complex is an analogy based on the Greek tragic play “Oedipus and the King”

4. Oedipus and the King • Oedipus and the King is a Greek tragedy. The basic story is as follows: • Oedipus is abandoned at birth due to a prophecy told that he will kill his father and have children with his mother • As an adult, Oedipus returns unknowingly to his own country • He kills the king in battle and takes his wife as his own • He then discovers that he has killed his own father and married his mother • In his despair he cuts out his own eyes

5. Lego Oedipus • Watch the Lego portrayal of Oedipus and the King http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtboBsgzMcA

6. Freud’s Oedipus complex • Freud believed that each small boy wants his mother for himself and so wants rid of his father • However the boy fears his father as he is bigger and stronger and so he can’t beat him • We feel we need the protection of our father • And so the boy joins him by identifying with him, introjecting his qualities of strength, wisdom etc.

7. How Freud relates this to Religion • Despite having taken in the father’s qualities of strength and wisdom etc we still run into difficulties and frustrations in the world and want someone stronger and wiser to protect and reward us • We project those same qualities taken from the father and create God “after our own image and likeness we now have the ultimate father-figure

8. So basically Freud is saying that God is a projected father-figure, based on early experiences of the real, and who like him is needed as a source of protection, but who is also the source of fear and guilt (we feel guilty because we want the mother to ourselves and want rid of the father) • According to the Oedipus Complex, everyone has to deal with the problems caused by the fact that we have complex childhood relationships with our parents. Religion is a way of working through these problems in a socially acceptable manner

9. Freud, sex and the Oedipus complex • Freud also relates the Oedipus Complex to sex, as is so common with Freud • According to Freud the sexual drive, or libido, is the body’s most basic urge and therefore is the one most capable of causing psychological problems within the development of the individual • The trauma behind neurotic behaviour results from problems in the sexual development of the child

10. In terms of the Oedipus Complex the sexual development of the child results in trauma because the suckling child was used to having the mother’s sole attention, when the libido is transferred to the sexual organ there’s an already present rival in the form of the father • The feelings of jealousy and hatred combine with the respect and fear previously felt for the father. So the result is that the father is viewed with ambivalence • The desire to possess the mother and the ambivalence towards the father is the Oedipus Complex

11. How this links to religion • The child represses the conflict deep into the unconscious mind • The mechanism of repression is only partially effective • While the repressed event or desire may appear to be long forgotten, the mind continues to struggle to prevent it from re-emerging into the conscious • As a result of the conflict the event is channelled out in form of neurotic symptoms. One of these symptoms is religion which is why Freud called religion the ‘universal obsessional neurosis of mankind

12. Evaluation • Do you think this is a good explanation for religious belief? Why/why not? • What are the strengths of this theory? • What are the weaknesses?

13. Strengths • We do describe God as a ‘father figure’ • We believe we are made in his image - this could just as easily be the other way round – formed by us projecting the qualities of the father onto a God • Freud carried out case studies to inform his theory

14. Weaknesses • Freud only studied a small sample of people in his research, usually women from sexually repressed societies • The Oedipus Complex does not explain women’s religion. Freud’s works are male orientated and often excluded women. If he is using this analogy to explain religious belief it is not clear why women as well as men are religious • It is too far-fetched and inaccurate when applied to all of society • What about religious believers who do not grow up with a father figure?