ly Father (Freud, 1928). According to Freud, religion reflects an attempt to fulfill our personal desires, and is an illusion. Freud strived to be objective, although by current standards the methods Freud used might have allowed his biases to influence his data; he still has an influence on psychology. However, this influence is on the decline, fewer than 10% of the American Psychological Association describe themselves as having psychoanalytic perspectives on religion (Gallup & Castelli, 1989). Most people throughout the history of the world have practiced some form of religion, and for many of them, religion has been a defining aspect of their identity. It is because of this that religion and psychology can meet. If psychologists neglect religious variables as components of research, then they may be neglecting what makes up a large part of people’s identities. In the same respect, if religious venues have been afraid of the effects of studying psychology, then they are probably forgetting that they are social creatures. Even one of the most eminent thinkers of our time, Albert Einstein, would agree that religion and psychology can work together. “Religion deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible, but science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion” (Einstein, 1945, p.10). Science encompasses psychology and even Albert Einstein agrees that there is a need for union between the two. “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”(Einstein, 1945, p.363). ...
