Freud's Theory Of Totemism

Freud believes that religions are "illusions" based on their incapability to provide sufficient proofs. That religious beliefs cannot be explained by their relation to the truth, but instead its function to society. Emile Durkheim theorized that religion provided social cohesion -maintaining the stability in society -and social control to maintain society in social solidarity, showing similarities to Freud 's ideology. Like Durkheim, Freud believed that religion served a purpose, however, -contrary to religious peoples -not for the sake of spirituality, but rather for the functionality towards society. The purpose of Christianity through Freud 's theory on the birth of religion based on the psycho-sexual development in society will be examined,

Freud explains the correlation between his picture of religion and his picture of the individual psycho-sexual development by drawing lines between father-son relationships and the looming figure of protection the individual finds necessary. In the mindset of a child, the mother who feeds the child becomes its first protector in a world of undefined dangers it has yet to

He constructs the basic idea of it, explaining that it is the relationship of worshipping the animals that can be seen on totems, and that religion then replaced God from animals to human form. In Totemism, animals were spiritual beings, a sacred deity. After the service was over, many of the Christians stayed to speak to one another individually in a more interpersonal relation. A few had noticed I was a new face in their tight-knit community and had come over to talk to me. As they spoke about the pastor 's lesson about Noah and the Ark, they soon realized I had no history and prior knowledge in this field and allowed me to ask questions about Christianity as a whole and their beliefs in particular as well. In the service, the pastor had mentioned at the end of his story of Noah that God had given Noah the animals; In Genesis 9:2-3: "the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the air and upon everything that creeps on the ground and the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you green plants, I give you everything." The older couple I had spoken to, conveyed their feelings of animals as food as a right of way for them as a gift from God. They do not necessarily find these animals to be sacred and repeated that God gave Noah animals as food so