In this blog post, I will examine the pathological situation of irreligion, disbelief — atheism, etc. — in the psychological dimension. There may be places in the article where I only use the word atheism, don’t worry, I’m talking about disbelief in general.
Psychoanalytic theory developed with his father Freud and progressed with Jung, Adler and others. Although Freud’s theories are subject to criticism by today’s psychology, paradoxically Freud’s theories shed light on modern psychology and are solid foundations. In other words, if it weren’t for Freud’s theories, the cliché “ let’s delve into your childhood “ wouldn’t even exist. Freud developed revolutionary psychological theories and still guide psychologists today.
The psychologist I went to told me, “ Freud paves the way for me a lot. When I look through Freud’s eyes, the cases I couldn’t solve are solved suddenly. “ he said.
Is Freud criticized, yes, but is he falsified, no!
Another issue is that this blog post is 100% valid, I do not claim to cover all non-theists, but I have to say that it covers a significant part of the population.
Finally, I would like to mention that this article is the product of my own original thoughts. In other words, I do not make any claims that it is completely scientific or empirical. It’s just a blog post where I combine and extract my own observations from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory.
It may seem overly generalizing, but let me say from the beginning, as I mentioned above, I do not claim that this is the reason for all atheism. I only act based on my own observations.
Now let’s look at the possible psychodynamics behind the state of disbelief .
Neurotic Atheism: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
1. The Unconscious and Defense Mechanisms
In Freud’s theory, the unconscious is the place where repressed desires, fears, memories and desires are located.
Issues related to religion and belief may also be under the influence of these unconscious processes.
A non-religious individual’s negative experiences with religion or conflicts with his or her parents during childhood may have been subconsciously suppressed.
This individual can prevent these conflicts from rising to the conscious level by using unconscious defense mechanisms (e.g. suppression, denial).
2. Oedipus Complex and Religion
While developing the concept of the Oedipus complex, Freud emphasized the complex feelings that children have towards their parents. While the child feels a rivalry towards his father, he feels love towards his mother. Religious figures and authorities can be seen as symbolic reflections of these dynamics. An irreligious individual may reject religious authority because of conflicts with authority figures (usually the father).
Sigmund Freud mentions that God, when explained as the manifestation of religious neuroses, is actually an extension of the father figure.
For children, parents are divine. So they are absolute ideals.
When a child grows up and becomes an adult, he wants the same security environment that he received as a child. What is this environment of trust?
In Lacan’s slice of the psychoanalytic theory cake, we see the concepts of imaginary and symbolic order. The imaginary order is the stage when the child establishes a symbiotic bond with the mother, lives in the fantasy world, and recognizes his own existence.
Later, this bond with the mother is broken by the “law of the father” and the child is introduced to the symbolic order. That is, social norms, laws, etc. encounters concepts. The father figure is the first representative of the social law, the superego in Freudian theory. It is the first authority.
If the father provides an environment of love and trust, the child establishes a healthy relationship with the father and adopts the father’s values. Later, in adulthood, when you want the environment of trust provided by your father, that is, the higher authority, the god figure comes into play. As an extension of the father figure, God provides an environment of trust for the person.
On the other hand, if there is a conflict with the father, the child may not adopt the father’s identity in a healthy way and may reject the father’s authority. Later, in adulthood, he may overgeneralize in such a way that he rejects the figure and authority of God, who is the representative of the father’s authority.
3. Superego Conflict
In Freud’s structural model, the superego represents moral values and social norms. An individual’s atheism may result from conflicts with the superego.
If the individual is in conflict with his superego, which represents religious values, he may consciously oppose these values. This may be part of an individual’s quest for independence and an effort to establish their own moral values.
If the phallic stage of psychosexual development is not completed in a healthy way, the person may return to the previous stage, the anal stage, and remain stuck there. If the anal phase is completed in a healthy way, the developed autonomous self-perception may manifest itself in adulthood, in conflict with the superego structure within the scope of the symbolic order, which should be formed in the phallic phase but is not formed in a healthy way.
4. Narcissism
Freud defines narcissism as an individual’s excessive love and admiration for himself.
Some psychoanalytic approaches suggest that disbelief may be the result of an individual’s overconfidence in his or her own thoughts and abilities.
These individuals can define their own existence and values without the need for external authority or divine power.
5. Unconscious Desires and Religious Rituals
Religious rituals and beliefs can direct an individual’s unconscious desires and fears.
According to Freud, religion is a defense mechanism developed by humans to cope with the fear of death and unconscious feelings of guilt.
A non-religious individual may deal with such unconscious fear and guilt feelings in different ways. For example, they may adopt philosophical or scientific approaches to confront their existential fears.
6. Childhood and Early Experiences
Freud argues that childhood experiences are critical to an individual’s psychosexual development. Early experiences with religion and beliefs can influence an individual’s future belief system. If there were traumatic experiences with religious authorities or rituals in childhood, this may contribute to an individual’s disbelief.
7. Science and Rationalism
Some psychoanalytic approaches explain disbelief with the individual’s belief in rationality and science.
Freud’s own works also define religion as an irrational defense mechanism that humans develop against rational thought.
Therefore, a non-religious individual may have developed a strong commitment to scientific thought and rationalism.
This does not mean that those with religious beliefs are irrational and unscientific. Only if a person has developed an excessive and pathological attachment to science can he use this as a reaction mechanism to religion or other beliefs.
8. Transformation and Identity in Adulthood
Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the formation of identity throughout the individual’s life-long process of change and development. Irreligion may be part of an individual’s search for identity and self-definition in adulthood. In this process, the individual creates his own identity by questioning and rejecting the religious values he learned in childhood.
As a result, from a psychoanalytic perspective, disbelief or atheism may result from a combination of many factors, such as the individual’s unconscious processes, childhood experiences, relationships with authority figures, defense mechanisms and the search for identity. Since each individual’s experience is different, the personal and unique aspects of these processes can be better understood through detailed analysis.
Psychodynamics Behind Overly Aggressive Attitude Towards Religion and Related Things — Extremely Aggressive Non-theism Individuals — Attitude of New Atheism
We see, especially among individuals with new atheism beliefs, that atheism, which is a fashion phenomenon, is more common among today’s young people than philosophical atheism, in line with tabloid discourses.
In line with tabloid atheism, facts such as facts and the philosophical dimension of the matter are ignored, and we can see a somewhat aggressive attitude on the part of some individuals — especially young people — in polylogues about religious belief. This aggressive attitude kills a healthy discussion environment.
Magazine atheists or trendy atheists, including those who have studied the philosophy of the matter and become atheists as a result of their own questioning, may display an aggressive, knowing attitude in conversations about religious issues or belief systems. This attitude aims to suppress the ideas of the theist person. This can happen by raising your voice, belittling, or making irrelevant accusations.
Personally, I see this behavior of these people as an attempt to protect themselves, their ego, as a result of their subconscious conflicts. Let’s elaborate on this subject further:
- Internal conflicts and repressed emotions: Aggressiveness displayed by an individual regarding religion may be a reflection of internal conflicts and repressed emotions. For example, the individual’s unconscious feelings of fear, guilt or anger regarding religion may surface as aggressive behavior.
- Existential pain: It is difficult to handle the inherent existential pain and make an existential leap without religion. A person must find the meaning of his own life in a comprehensive way. Without religious belief, the mechanisms that people develop against existential pain in their own perceptions may not be very strong. If it comes to his internal structure, which he has already barely established, even if not directly or indirectly from outside, and if he is not even a direct interlocutor, he may feel as if his own ego (ego) has been attacked and therefore he may exhibit an extremely aggressive attitude.
- Group belonging: People want to belong to a group. It corresponds to the adolescence stage of Erikson’s psychosocial development theory. In other words, adolescence… In this stage, people can establish group belonging on the axis of religious belief, as well as on the axis of non-religion. If a person feels extremely unprotected against religion and all related religious things, and if he has an inadequate sense of self, he wants to compensate for this inadequacy with group belonging; In this regard, he wants to protect his group, which is a means of compensating for his inadequacy, and may overreact.
- Need for independence and rebellion: Some individuals tend to question and reject religious or social norms. This may arise from unconscious conflicts associated with the paternal subject. Apart from this, other social interactions may also have been effective. These people may feel that religious authorities or rules deprive them of their freedom. Therefore, these individuals may exhibit an overly aggressive attitude towards anything associated with religious symbols or beliefs.
Conclusion
In this blog post, I tried to examine the psychopathological situation of disbelief from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory.
I already said at the beginning that this is a blog post that is a product of individual thoughts.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalytic theory, viewed religion as neurotic. Based on this, I wrote this blog post with the idea that just as religion can have a neurotic structure, atheism can also have a neurotic and pathological structure.
I hope you like. I tried to offer a different perspective. Thank you for reading.
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