Freud and Religion as Neurosis A2 Introduction Religion as Product of Human Mind

Scheme of Work Freud and Challenge to Religion

3 lessons (2 of them double) to deliver the following content through stimulating starters and plenaries and through essay prep tasks. Covering Religious belief as a product of the human mind – Sigmund Freud: Religion as an illusion and/or a neurosis with reference to collective neurosis; primal horde; Oedipus complex; wish fulfilment and reaction against helplessness. Supportive evidence including reference to redirection of guilt complexes and reference to instinctive desires deriving from evolutionary basis (Charles Darwin). Challenges including lack of anthropological evidence for primal horde; no firm psychological evidence for universal Oedipus complex; evidence basis too narrow.