Atheism as a form of neurosis ...
As matter of self-discovery, there may be some here who would be interested in such a thesis. Here are some randomly-chosen excerpts from an article on the subject. The link for the complete article, not insufferably long, is at the end. Good Sunday reading <gg>.
The human heart-no one can truly fathom it or know all its deceits, but at least it
is the proper task of the psychologist to try. Thus, to begin, I propose that neurotic
psychological barriers to belief in God are of great importance. What some of
these might be I will mention shortly. For believers, therefore, it is important to
keep in mind that psychological motives and pressures that one is often unaware
of, often lie behind unbelief.
Now, in postulating a universal Oedipus complex as the origin of all our neuroses,
Freud inadvertently developed a straightforward rationale for understanding the
wish-fulfilling origin of rejecting God. After all, the Oedipus complex is
unconscious, it is established in childhood and, above all, its dominant motive is
hatred of the father and the desire for him not to exist, especially as represented
by the desire to overthrow or kill the father. Freud regularly described God as a
psychological equivalent to the father, and so a natural expression of Oedipal
motivation would be powerful, unconscious desires for the nonexistence of God.
Therefore, in the Freudian framework, atheism is an illusion caused by the
Oedipal desire to kill the father and replace him with oneself. To act as if God
does not exist is an obvious, not so subtle disguise for a wish to kill Him, much the
same way as in a dream, the image of a parent going away or disappearing can
represent such a wish: "God is dead" is simply an undisguised Oedipal
wish-fulfillment.
Besides abuse, rejection, or cowardice, one way in which a father can be
seriously defective is simply by not being there. Many children, of course,
interpret death of their father as a kind of betrayal or an act of desertion. In this
respect it is remarkable that the pattern of a dead father is so common in the lives
of many prominent atheists.
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