Psychoanalysis has traditionally had little use for religion and religious feelings. Freud was a secular Jew and Psychoanalysis attempted to offer the beginnings of a scientific understanding of the human mind. Freud hoped to be able to eventually directly connect the mind with the brain and thought that once we could learn enough about the workings of the brain, the union of psychology and neurophysiology would be inevitable. One hundred years after the publication of his seminal works, we know a great deal more about the brain, how it is organized and how it functions but while many fundamental concepts, like repression and unconscious thought, have gained a great deal of support from neurophysiology, we are no closer to understanding such basic psychological concepts as the nature of consciousness or affects.
As one might expect, the reputation of psychoanalysis does not encourage deeply religious individuals to imagine this treatment would be respectful of their beliefs, and are generally reluctant to take part. In my work with patients I have been humbled by the power of religious belief in the relatively rare patient who comes for psychological help and, in this most secular of cities (New York) still has strong religious convictions. Often patients who are deeply religious have a better capacity to withstand the vicissitudes of hardships better than those who do not. I am not citing any scientific studies when I write this, just commenting on my own experience as a (secular) therapist.
The occasion of Pope John Paul's final illness and death has kindled my curiosity. In a series of earlier posts I wondered if there doesn't exist some deeply felt need for an individual to believe in something greater than themselves. In W(h)ither Religion, I asked three questions:
First, does it matter that a society evolves beyond a belief in God?
Second, is there an inherent need, psychologically and unconsciously, for God to exist in one form or another?
Third, is there any way to tell when one's beliefs have taken on the character of religious belief as opposed to reality based belief systems?
I discussed these questions in that post and the following two posts (Political Religion and Political Deification) and concluded:
Thus, in the absence of God, we create him out of our ideas.
In my last few posts I have been wondering about unintended consequences and I believe the unintended consequences of becoming a post-religious, secular society, may inevitably include the fall of such a society. I am prepared to be bashed by various secular friends and colleagues for proposing such an outlandish seeming idea but I am becoming more and more convinced it is correct. I will offer one fairly simple, reasonably irrefutable point today and add to my argument as time goes on. First of all, a disclaimer: I am not supporting any particular religion, though I would argue that our Judeo-Christian heritage seems to have served us well, and I am not suggesting we need to have a theocracy (thou I am sure I will be accused of just such a thing). I am suggesting that a culture in which most of the inhabitants are more religious than secular will survive and thrive better than one in which the secular outweighs the religious.
As an example, in the American Jewish community, the Orthodox are the most religious, the Conservative less strictly follow the religious rules, and the Reform movement are the most secular. In an observation that should surprise no one, it is fact that the Orthodox most closely follow the biblical injunction to "be fruitful and multiply" and have the largest families. The most religious Jews have the most babies. I suspect that this observation (generalization) could be made for Protestants and Catholics as well. There are undoubtedly many reasons why the religious have more children than the secular but one point is implicit: having children gives one a much greater stake in supporting a society's viability, and this has important implications.
More to follow...
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