God, Freud and Religion

God, Freud and Religion PDF Author: Dianna T. Kenny
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317649656
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Choice Essential Read Did God create man or did man create God? In this book, Dianna Kenny examines religious belief through a variety of perspectives – psychoanalytic, cognitive, neuropsychological, sociological, historical and psychiatric – to provide a coherent account of why people might believe in God. She argues that psychoanalytic theory provides a fertile and creative approach to the study of religion that attempts to integrate religious belief with our innate human nature and developmental histories that have unfolded in the context of our socialization and cultural experiences. Freud argued that religion is so compelling because it solves the problems of our existence. It explains the origin of the universe, offers solace and protection from evil, and provides a blueprint about how we should live our lives, with just rewards for the righteous and due punishments for sinners and transgressors. Science, on the other hand, offers no such explanations about the universe or the meaning of our lives and no comfort for the unanswered longings of the human race. Is religion a form of wish-fulfilment, a collective delusion to which we cling as we try to fathom our place and purpose in the drama of cosmology? Can there be morality without faith? Are science and religion radically incompatible? What are the roots of fundamentalism and terror theology? These are some of the questions addressed in God, Freud and Religion, a book that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychotherapists, students of psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and theology and all those with an interest in religion and human behaviour. Dianna Kenny is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of over 200 publications, including six books.

God, Freud and Religion

God, Freud and Religion PDF Author: Dianna T. Kenny
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317649656
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
Choice Essential Read Did God create man or did man create God? In this book, Dianna Kenny examines religious belief through a variety of perspectives – psychoanalytic, cognitive, neuropsychological, sociological, historical and psychiatric – to provide a coherent account of why people might believe in God. She argues that psychoanalytic theory provides a fertile and creative approach to the study of religion that attempts to integrate religious belief with our innate human nature and developmental histories that have unfolded in the context of our socialization and cultural experiences. Freud argued that religion is so compelling because it solves the problems of our existence. It explains the origin of the universe, offers solace and protection from evil, and provides a blueprint about how we should live our lives, with just rewards for the righteous and due punishments for sinners and transgressors. Science, on the other hand, offers no such explanations about the universe or the meaning of our lives and no comfort for the unanswered longings of the human race. Is religion a form of wish-fulfilment, a collective delusion to which we cling as we try to fathom our place and purpose in the drama of cosmology? Can there be morality without faith? Are science and religion radically incompatible? What are the roots of fundamentalism and terror theology? These are some of the questions addressed in God, Freud and Religion, a book that will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychotherapists, students of psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and theology and all those with an interest in religion and human behaviour. Dianna Kenny is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of over 200 publications, including six books.

The Death of Sigmund Freud

The Death of Sigmund Freud PDF Author: Mark Edmundson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780747592983
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
When Hitler invaded Vienna in the winter of 1938, Sigmund Freud, old and desperately ill, was among the city's 175,000 Jews dreading Nazi occupation. Here Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud's oddly converging lives, then zeroes in on the last two years of Freud's life, during which he was rescued and brought to London. Edmundson probes Freud's ideas about secular death and the rise of fascism and fundamentalism, and grapples with the demise of psychoanalysis after Freud's death now that religious fundamentalism is once again shaping world events.

Psychoanalysis, Fascism, Fundamentalism

Psychoanalysis, Fascism, Fundamentalism PDF Author: Julia Borossa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This is a study of the contribution of psychoanalysis to an understanding of social and political issues.

Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction

Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction PDF Author: Lesley Murdin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429778430
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction: The Certainty Principle examines the role of, and need for, certainty in mental life, addressing questions raised by fundamentalism and extremism and exploring its relation to human nature. Murdin proposes a new synthesis in which certainty itself can be a cause of suffering and part of a defensive manoeuvre, and considers how the need for certainty can be managed in a positive way, rather than creating fear and extreme emotional responses. Illustrated throughout with examples from psychotherapy practice, literature and international politics, this book considers how the quest for certainty dominates much of human thinking. Murdin examines personal relationships, including politics and religion, where assumptions are taken for granted but function to hide fears and doubts, and argues that fundamentalist elements can generate harm in anyone but can be mitigated with understanding and work in therapy. Psychoanalytic Insights into Fundamentalism and Conviction helps to identify the underlying convictions that are causing mental harm. It is essential reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and counsellors in practice and in training, and will be of interest to readers interested in fundamentalist states of mind.

The Question of God

The Question of God PDF Author: Armand Nicholi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743247856
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Compares and contrasts the beliefs of two famous thinkers, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, on topics ranging from the existence of God and morality to pain and suffering.

Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism

Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism PDF Author: León Rozitchner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004471588
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
Offering an in-depth interpretation of Sigmund Freud’s so-called “collective” or “social” works, León Rozitchner shows how the Left should consider the ways in which capitalism inscribes its power in the subject as the site for the verification of history.

Ordeal Of Civility

Ordeal Of Civility PDF Author: John Murray Cuddihy
Publisher: New York : Basic Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description


On Freud's The Future of an Illusion

On Freud's The Future of an Illusion PDF Author: Mary Kay O'Neil
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429902670
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
"The Future of an Illusion" reveals Freud's reflections about religion as well as his hope that in the future science will go beyond religion, and reason will replace faith in God. The discussion with an imaginary critic revealed his internal debate, mirroring the debate about this subject in the outside world. However, it also enlightens his way of thinking: deconstructing and constructing at the same time. This volume considers Freudian ideas and their implications today, while focusing on the contradictions and gaps in Freud's proposals. The question of the coexistence between religion and psychoanalysis, as well as the place of ideals, belief, illusion, and imagination - and, no less important, the benevolent and destructive aspects of religion - also come into play.

Between Relativism and Fundamentalism

Between Relativism and Fundamentalism PDF Author: Peter L. Berger
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802863876
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Our contemporary culture is dominated by two extremes relativism and fundamentalism. Neither is desirable: relativism claims that all questions of truth are irrelevant, whereas fundamentalism insists on sole possession of absolute truth. Internationally renowned sociologist of religion Peter Berger has gathered a group of scholars to consider how, from out of different traditions, one can define a middle position between both extremes. / After an extensive introductory overview by Berger, three essays ( sociological descriptions ) give an objective picture of how relativism and fundamentalism play out in today s world. In the second part ( theological directions ) authors from several different Christian traditions and one conservative Jewish tradition flesh out a normative middle ground that is neither relativist they affirm specific truth claims nor fundamentalist their affirmations include tolerance of the claims of others.

FUNDAMENTALISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

FUNDAMENTALISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS PDF Author: Werner Bohleber
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 8897479138
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The collection "Mediterranean Id-entities" is devoted to publish books in order to investigate the role of Mediterranean cultures from a psychoanalytic point of view, in front of the anthropological transformations concerning human societies and social institutions in the contemporary world. This book has the hard task to cover an interdisciplinary area in which psychoanalysis has to deal with fundamentalism as a social phenomenon and therefore with 'bordering' disciplines (such as religion history, transcultural studies, cultural anthropology) often with epistemologies that for origin and history appear to be incomparable to it. Lene Auestad intends to integrate the psychological analysis of the subject with its social embedding. She investigates the importance of the social unconscious and its effects on the prejudiced intentions of the individual apart from its own active interpretations. She highlights the importance the psychoanalytical approach provides in understanding the unspoken, unconscious contents of the social phenomena and how much the socially critical approach is able to enrich the analytical view which merely focuses on the subject regarding the effects of the social consensus. While Auestad's scrutiny aims at the social convention's role as an agent affecting the individual's deeds and thinking, Linden West's contribution draws on 'psycho-social' understandings, combining psychoanalysis and critical theory, as well as the work of John Dewey, to interrogate Islamic fundamentalist groups in a post-industrial city. It explores processes of self-recognition in groups and paranoid-schizoid modes of functioning, in which unwanted parts of self and of culture are split off and projected on to the other. The world is correspondingly divided into good and bad, pure and impure. John Dewey makes a crucial distinction between processes of democratic education and closed groups, which is what fundamentalist groups are, by reference to the quality of relationship to the other, and to experiential and narrative openness. However, it is also suggested that fundamentalism is ordinary, in that each of us can feel out of our depth, at times, and we may grab at ideas promising truth and nothing but the truth, which is ultimately illusion. Except not everyone reaches for a Kalashnikov, which is where individual biographies matter for subtler understanding of difference within commonalities. Fundamentalism has increasingly become a part of the political discourse in Western countries and is to a large degree associated with Islamic Jihadism. Fundamentalism has, however, been a concern in all religions, and Werner Bohleber in this book discusses its connections with violence in monotheistic religions. Fundamentalism is also a concern in professional organisations and in this book Sverre Varvin discusses the relation between fundaments for a science and fundamentalism in psychoanalysis. This is related to general trends of fundamentalism in religious and political contexts. A central question is how adherence to fundamentals, understood at basic principles for a profession or a religious-political movement, may develop into fundamentalism and how this may develop into more violent forms. Psychoanalytic understanding of mass psychology and unconscious processes at group levels are developed in this book by each of the outstanding authors in order to understand present Islamic and other forms of fundamentalist movements in the European context.