Is God Something we Invent to Comfort Ourselves With?

When a person projects that means what they are saying about God or another person is really about themselves.  As God is not going to argue with you or correct you on the spot God is a bigger target for projecting onto than anything else.

 

One terrible example is how human beings in the middle of terrible evil claim they can bring good out of it and God is treated like a powerful man who does the same thing.  The believers "solve" the problem of a good God letting terrible things happen to those whom he supposedly loves by talking about human work!  The good we bring out of evil happens more in spite of us than because of us for we err and have grey motives.  We exaggerate our role too.  Appallingly, if somebody is saved from a massacre or a terrible country they feel grateful to God which means by extension they are grateful to those who saved them and maybe let others get savaged by the wolves.

 

Another hideous example is how forgiveness is about leaving the past in the past which means you need real healing of the situation in the present.  The one who hurt you needs to give you a sincere apology and make amends where possible.  But human nature being human nature, you need a supernatural person, a force, a God to do the healing to make sure the healing is real and worth the effort.  But the evidence is that most forgiveness does not heal and makes the situation worse and the victim is hurt again.  We make this about ourselves by evading the painful truth and blinding ourselves to how our mercy has led to new and further harms. We project what we want a God to do unto the situation.

 

We may complain about how people mostly want black and white certainty in moral and political matters. And in religious too. But the fact is that if you say it is very difficult to get at the truth or work out what is best that is another black and white. No matter what black and white camp you are in you like it for you feel you don’t have to rethink it for you have the answers. X is clear can be as black or white as X is unclear. You are still being definite but in different ways. If fundamentalist means rigid and closed everybody is closed in something.  These things provide other reasons why things you say are not about you such as God and religion actually are about you.  A lot of what you affirm is about what you want to be true for you are guessing more than you let on.

 

Christians argue that even if everybody's faith in God was wishful thinking that casts doubt on their motives and makes it about what they want to believe about God not God. They say that does not show there is no God. True but given what Jesus said by their fruits you know them this bad fruit would indicate that there is no God. It does not prove his non-existence but it makes it unreasonable to believe he is real. No God would invite faith if that fantasy friend structure was all he could expect.

You have feelings, outlooks and attitudes. When you think any others have them just because you have them that is projection. It’s a habit for everybody to some degree. The bad side of that habit is that you will start feeling you have done bad things and start attributing the same bad attitudes and deeds to others.  Another bad side is that you end up with a God who matches what you think he should be.  So he is about what you decree about him not what he decrees about you.  You may condone him hurting babies for that is what you would do.  It could be that you want babies to be hurt for you think that means your baby will be left alone.

 

Nobody seems to really love God very much.  A loving relationship with God can only be possible if there is give and take on God's side and yours. God and you both have to become vulnerable.  God cannot really give for he cannot be hurt or made vulnerable.  So it is no wonder that believers are more in love with their ideas of God than God.  It is really just about them.

Religion regards God as a person who has made all things and who is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-love. It says that atheists debunk a caricature of God and not God. Religion arrogantly accuses atheists of not knowing what God means while boasting that it does know. Oh the arrogance! Humans are prone to error and prejudice so what gives religion the right to boast that its vision of God is accurate and not a caricature? No wonder psychiatrists think that God is based on wishful thinking.   And if God does not exist, then though atheists might caricature religion's perception of God, they cannot be said to be caricaturing God.

 

A person who knows deep down the person they are in a relationship with is bad or at least not good, projects this knowledge on to those who warn them.  They deal with that by trying to tell themselves and them that they don't really know the other person.  What religion is doing in trying to gaslight atheists who condemn God and/or the ideas about God is the same thing and a clear sign of projection.

Freud said that the worship of God and belief in God is not about whether there is such a being or not but about comforting ourselves - it is an attempt at wish-fulfilment. This the Projection Theory.

 

Observation shows that what people think of each other and God stems largely from how they think of themselves.
 
Christians say that Freud's view presumes that there is no God whereas the right thing to do is to look at the evidence first and then make up one's mind. Christians reject the thought "The worship of God and belief in him is us trying to comfort ourselves with this notion (it's a wish projection) which means the notion is false."
 
The reply is that the Projection Theory so far is not necessarily saying there is no God. It is only addressing the psychological attractions of worship and belief. Even if there is a God, you may still be worshipping a God that is your own invention or projection.
 
Freud also said that God was based on your own father. You invent a father in the Heavens modelled on your own father.
 
I would prefer if he had said that God was a projection modelled on your father or mother or both. Though God is described as male, many Christians go on as if they were safe in God's arms and womb and are attracted by the feminine emotions they attribute to God.
 
Freud did however notice that religious people acted the same way as neurotics. He saw religious ritualism as showing that religion was a form of obsessional neurosis.
 
Christians say that Freud's theory was just his prejudice because he never psychoanalysed any believer in God and found the psychological causes. Apparently no such psychoanalysis has ever been attempted.
 
Freud became a psychoanalyst just because he was an atheist so it was more than just a prejudice. All the psychoanalysis he undertook confirmed him in his atheism. He did not need to attempt psychoanalysis specifically to find out the causes of belief in God. Indeed why would he have done that and discredited his profession? He was against religion and considered it dangerous but he didn't want to go so far as to treat everybody who believes as being on a par with manic depressives or schizophrenics.
 
Christians say the projection theory cuts both ways. If Christians for example might be kidding themselves that there is a God because they want a father figure atheists could be kidding themselves that there is no God for they don't want to believe that they have to answer for their actions to a deity. They want rid of moral constraints.  Perhaps some atheists had bad fathers and hate God because they see God as a father figure. Certainly it may be unkind for religion to make out that God is father.

 

Morality is about why an action is wrong as in unjust or loving.  Focus on the why.  If you reject moral constraints you end up with new moral constraints.  To throw off the rules of morality is to get a new rule - "ignore the rules."  Why can't the atheist be seen as a person making an attempt to be moral by being free from rules that supposedly came from God?  This is not a projection thing.  The new rule to ignore rules is not really necessarily easier.  It is about independence not projection.  If you think you might know as much about the moral thing as God or suspect that God-ideas are too much about what the believers want God to be and not God then being atheist to be free is not projection.
 
Christians say that the reason we desire God is because there is a God. This when studied carefully is an admission that Freud was right.
 
An excellent proof that Freud was right is from prayer. People feel good about praying for prayer is based on trust in God and it feeds that sense of trust. Trust is a feeling that the bad will pass and better days will come. But evil by definition is uncontrollable. If God allows evil for a greater purpose as religion says, it follows that he may have to put up with evil forever.  But they are too sure that the particular evil they are trying to combat prayerfully will go away.  This amounts to watering it down in your own head to feel better.
 
Also if one prays for something and doesn't get it, the failure will be blamed not on God but on the person's alleged lack of faith. Jesus said that prayers made without faith are not replied to by God. This is like how psychics also blame their failures on lack of faith. The person shows a wish to distort the evidence that prayer does nothing special. If prayer is the basis of his faith in God, then his faith is a projection of his own desires.
 
Having to do something or believe something in order to be okay with God or right with him invariably makes you superior to those who do differently. You will look down on them. God is the supreme good so those who do not believe or worry about God are therefore evil and inferior to you the believer. Belief in God invariably makes you proud even if that pride takes the form of displays of humility. You become not humble but "humble". Belief in God is not about God but about you.
 
The believers in God complain that there is no proof or good evidence for Freud's theory. But is there any for their insistence that he is wrong? No.
 
We must accept Freud's theory of God as being wish fulfilment as being a good one and of being better than any alternative view.
 
Also, trust in God and religion is all about trust in the good and honest intentions of those who set up beliefs about God and who set up religion. Faith is not really put in God or in religion but in the intentions of those who claim to reveal and explain and verify them.

 

John exists. To believe in John means you sense him as a person instead of sensing him just as an object or thing. To believe in him as an object is to believe in him as an object but not really in him. You need to believe in John as a person to really believe. To believe in John as an object is to believe in the wrong John. It is to give yourself the wrong perception of him and excluding him from being perceived as he really is.

Apply the point I am trying to make to God. Belief in God as a something or an entity is misplaced because of the perception issue and means believing in the wrong God. Even a God like God is not God. It is not enough. Only God's grace then can give you a perception of God that elevates you to the real God. 

 

Another reason a God like God that is not God is not good enough, is that God is about faith not belief. Faith is like belief but is about finding and exploring a relationship with God and is probably best understood as meaning loyalty that is forged by a very close mutual relationship. Belief is impersonal but faith is personal and about love and relationship. To objectify God and believe in that is not to believe in God at all. You must see him as the supreme love and connect. Belief in God then can be atheistic in its own way.

 

Belief in God as infinite tender love is supposed to help fix what is wrong with human nature which is why idolatry even an accurate image of God can be an idol is so corrupting and needs opposition and challenge.

Belief in God is good for nothing unless it is a part of faith. Belief in God in a sense is not even really possible without being a part of faith. Belief in God as in object is too degrading to God to be called proper belief.  God and relationship go together.

To consider true belief in God which means faith then demands a bias. God is that which is true but which is too good to be true which automatically means bias.

 

When you consider how bare belief in God turns God into an idol and even faith risks too much bias which is also idolatry but not as bad it is wise to assume the believer is not adoring or promoting God but a projection.  They are projecting their darker needs and selfish ones and not just their noble ones on to a God figure.

If you say you get your morals only from God when in fact you get them from deciding that God is right meaning you get them from yourself and can’t be honest about it that is projection. You are projecting what is from yourself onto God. Also if God is about honesty he cannot validate your lie so your moralising is about you not him. That is a separate projection.

To believe your moral feelings and perceptions are from God means that you will behave as if the opposite of that belief cannot be true. To believe a means you reject non-a.  There is arrogance and that will lead to you being tempted to harm those who do not take morals from a God.  That is hardly a good thing.

 

We find then that people have an incurable habit of projecting and when you examine their moral claims about their faith in God and faith in prayer and the contradictions involved you see that there is deliberate projection involved as well.