Running Head: INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION 1
Introduction to Religion
Students Name
University Affiliation
, INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION 2
Psychological Approaches to Religion
Psychology is a combination of two words psyche which is soul, spirit or mind and
logos referring to science or study of. The study of psychology aims at finding out every
aspect of human experience and behavior. Psychology of religion tries to expound the cause
effect of correlation of religious experiences and consciousness so as to predict behaviors
Taylor (1990). Psychological approaches are diverse. However, they are unified in trying to
explain religion by studying the mind, experience, perception, and the consciousness of the
individual. Sigmund Freud in his study of psychological approaches to religion, came up with
the theory where he depicts religion as illusory. Further, he describes religious belief as
illusion based on the idea extracted from human desires without basis in reality. Thus, we call
a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation and in
doing so we disregard its relations to reality just as the illusion itself sets no store by
verification Connolly (1990).
Carl Jung on his study to the approaches to religion, he depicts religion as imperfect
therapy where he debates that religion merges objectives that resemble and that the psyche is
constituted of a number of interacting systems which are segregated Mitchell & Plate (2007).
Ego, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious are the three approaches he addresses.
The descriptive approaches of Freud and Jung are contradictory from one another. Some of
their dissimilarities include; the unconscious mind. This is one of their central disagreement.
Freud argues that the unconscious mind is the center of human being’s thoughts, traumatic
memories, and the key driver of sex and aggression. He perceives the unconscious mind as
the storage tank for all human desires. Freud separated the human mind into three parts; the
id, the ego and the super ego. The id drives our desire for sex and is not bound to morality
instead, it seeks to satisfy human pleasure, and the ego is man’s form of conscious memories
and thoughts that enables him or her to deal with the world’s reality. The super ego
Introduction to Religion
Students Name
University Affiliation
, INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION 2
Psychological Approaches to Religion
Psychology is a combination of two words psyche which is soul, spirit or mind and
logos referring to science or study of. The study of psychology aims at finding out every
aspect of human experience and behavior. Psychology of religion tries to expound the cause
effect of correlation of religious experiences and consciousness so as to predict behaviors
Taylor (1990). Psychological approaches are diverse. However, they are unified in trying to
explain religion by studying the mind, experience, perception, and the consciousness of the
individual. Sigmund Freud in his study of psychological approaches to religion, came up with
the theory where he depicts religion as illusory. Further, he describes religious belief as
illusion based on the idea extracted from human desires without basis in reality. Thus, we call
a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation and in
doing so we disregard its relations to reality just as the illusion itself sets no store by
verification Connolly (1990).
Carl Jung on his study to the approaches to religion, he depicts religion as imperfect
therapy where he debates that religion merges objectives that resemble and that the psyche is
constituted of a number of interacting systems which are segregated Mitchell & Plate (2007).
Ego, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious are the three approaches he addresses.
The descriptive approaches of Freud and Jung are contradictory from one another. Some of
their dissimilarities include; the unconscious mind. This is one of their central disagreement.
Freud argues that the unconscious mind is the center of human being’s thoughts, traumatic
memories, and the key driver of sex and aggression. He perceives the unconscious mind as
the storage tank for all human desires. Freud separated the human mind into three parts; the
id, the ego and the super ego. The id drives our desire for sex and is not bound to morality
instead, it seeks to satisfy human pleasure, and the ego is man’s form of conscious memories
and thoughts that enables him or her to deal with the world’s reality. The super ego
