Jung, Freud and New Atheism A2 WJEC and EDUCAS

**A2 Philosophy of Religion: 3 Knowledge Organisers covering: **

Theme : Challenges to religious belief – Religious belief as a product of the human mind.

Organiser 1: A 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.

Organiser 2: Religious belief as a product of the human mind – Carl Jung: Religion necessary for personal growth with reference to: collective unconscious; individuation; archetypes; the God within.
Supportive evidence including recognition of religion as a source of comfort and promotion of positive personal and social mind sets arising from religious belief.
Challenges including lack of empirical evidence for Jungian concepts and reductionist views regarding religious belief arising from acceptance of Jung’s ideas.

Orgainser 3": Issues relating to rejection of religion: Atheism:
Rejection of belief in deities; the difference between agnosticism and atheism; the rise of New Atheism (antitheism); its main criticisms of religion: non-thinking; infantile worldview; impedes scientific progress.
Religious responses to the challenge of New Atheism: rejection by religious groups of New Atheist claims regarding incompatibility of science and religion; increase in fundamentalist religious activity relating to morality and community; increase in religious apologists in media.