However, it should be recognized that this link served Freud, since the inclusion ofchildhood moved the issue to the home turf of Freud's psychoanalysis which focusedstrongly on childhood traumas to explain adult neuroses. Perhaps the greatest danger facing a person is their own eventual demise. Religion,however, typically promises the existence of an afterlife and hence that there is no genuinedeath. Not only is death not genuine, but the "true believer" can look forward towonderful rewards for their allegiance to the "true faith" as compensation for whatevertribulations they endured on earth. This was an important theme for Freud, as heconsidered civilization to be oppressive on human nature, engendering many forms ofneurosis. Although he considered it necessary for survival, it was at best a something toendure and not appreciate. Psychological Analysis: ObsessionsA final form of helplessness against which religion acts is, according to Freud, ourhelplessness before our own internal and uncontrollable desires. Freud made much of thesimilarities between religious rituals and obsessional rituals (for example, the compulsiveneed to wash your hands in a specific pattern every time), the latter of which functioned toprotect the ego from the emergence of fantasies, desires, and especially sexual impulseswhich were normally repressed. In the ritual, however, they gain some partial expressionand release. Freud saw "neurosis as an individual religion, religion as a universal obsessional neurosis."Drawing this parallel between the two, Freud called religion: ...the suppression, the renunciation, of certain instinctual impulses. These impulses,however, are not, as in the neuroses, exclusively components of the sexual instinct; theyare self-seeking, socially harmful instincts, though, even so, they are usually not without asexual component. Anyone who has noticed the Christian obsession with all matters sexual, and particularlywith the constant ...
