Creating illusion
Claim
- Freud referred to religion as "the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity." Neurotics, as he defined them, maintain their grip on reality; they preserve a concept of the differences between their own internal worlds and the constraints of the environment. For Freud, religion was an illusion, a term he defined not -_ as it is ordinarily used to mean - as something that is not real, but rather by its relationship to people's wishes. An illusion, for Freud, was something people created to satisfy their wishes. It might or might not conform to external reality. In contrast, a delusion was always out of step with reality. Religion, he argued, is an illusion that stems from peoples' wishes to replace the protective father of their childhood with a supernatural guardian. People then use this illusion to explain the world's terrors.