ent wishes of mankind . . . Aswe already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the needforprotection-for protection through love-which was provided by the father . . . Thus thebenevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the danger of life. (p. 30)Although such historical speculations fail to impress most people, Freud's psychologicaltheories, appearing mostly in The Future of an Illusion, are a bit more credible. He made adeliberate point of refusing to grant religion any sort of privileged status among humanendeavors. He put religion squarely in the middle of the larger context of human cultureand thus made it as accessible to scientific investigation as any other human conduct.There were to be no sacred cows, no exemption from detailed analysis.A number of different psychological motives underlying religious impulses are discussedthroughout the book and briefly in other works. A principle component for Freud was thefeeling of helplessness, occurring in a number of different areas, namely external dangers,internal impulses, death, and society. As wish-fulfilling illusions, religious faith and godshad specific tasks: They must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate,particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferingswhich a civilized life in common has imposed on them. The first, of course, would be the feeling of helplessness before the awesome andunpredictable powers of nature - mortal dangers from the external world. We areconfronted in life by many uncontrollable dangers, from hurricanes to disease - a conditionwhich Feud likened to the situation children find themselves in. Children, however, look totheir parents to protect them from danger. Adults thus create gods for themselvesprecisely because they had similar "gods" in their homes as they grew up. Freud regardedthe link between the two to as "incontrovertible."...
