“Perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions ar...”
Work
In what is considered one of his greatest contributions to psychology, Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud describes his perspectives on the development and origins of religion - religion as an illusion, wishes that are the "fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind." He goes on to explain and illustrate, "what is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes."
Quotes
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Sigmund Freud
Canonical work source
“Perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions ar...”
“Thus we arrive at the singular conclusion that of all the information passed by our cultural assets it is precisely the elements which might be of the greatest importance to us and which hav...”
“No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.”
“Observe the difference between your attitude to illusions and mine. You have to defend the religious illusion with all your might. If it becomes discredited - and indeed the threat to it is...”
“It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking...”
“Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.”
“It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of all the regulations and precepts of civilization. Along with their pre...”
“We believe that it is possible for scientific work to gain some knowledge about the reality of the world, by means of which we can increase out power and in accordance with which we can arra...”
“Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.”