THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF RELIGION IN FEUERBACH AND FREUD:

AN APPROACHING BY PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Abstract

This work aims to present the psychological explanation of religion according to Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 – 1872) and Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) through the concept of objectification of consciousness in Feuerbach and the concept of projection treated by Freud. We also highlight the influence of Feuerbach's thought on freudian interpretation of religion, given the theoretical approach of thinkers in understanding the religious psychopathological aspect. Feuerbach seeks to demonstrate in The Essence of Christianity (1841) and Predictions on the Essence of Religion (1851) that religion has its foundation in the objectification of an inverted natural consciousness of factual reality to a fanciful reality, such as the idea of the immaterial god, which has negative consequences for human coexistence. Freud, especially in his work the future of an illusion (1929/30) and Malaise in culture (1927) presents us with an analogous viewpoint, namely that in religion man projects his own consciousness into an "external consciousness", however, devoid of reality, that is, an illusion that aims at another reality, an immaterial "reality". Thus, for both thinkers, religion is characterized as a psychic pathology given the existence of belief in something inhuman.