Freud's Future of an Illusion In his book The Future of an Illusion, Freud (1928) struggled to create a theory that distinguished morality from religion in a that people were still able to distinguish right from wrong even if they did not believe in a God. According to Freud, humans belonged to civilization to control nature and regulate human relationships. However, Freud argued that humans have often paid a high price for civilization; this price, according to him, was a neurosis. As a result, humans began to look for some kind of compensation to deal with neurosis. Freud's theory held that religion often evolved as compensation. Freud suggested that religion and ethics, up to this point, have acted to maintain civilization. However, Freud also proposed that humans were defenseless against the forces of nature and therefore "needed" something to protect them. . Therefore, he concluded that religion was born out of powerlessness and was therefore harmful to the individual. Based on this theory of religion, Freud proposed the need to consider a way to support morality outside of religion. As is generally known, the central Freudian criticism of belief in God is that such belief is unreliable due to its psychological origin. That is, God is a projection of our intense, unconscious desires; It is a wish fulfillment derived from childhood needs for protection and security. Since these desires are largely unconscious, any denial of such an interpretation must be given little credence. It should be noted that in developing this type of criticism, Freud elevated the ad hominem argument to one of broad influence. It is in The Future of an Illusion (1927, 1961) that Freud makes his position clearer:... in the middle of the paper... thought. In both religion and science, it is not that the source determines the value of an idea: a great idea can have a non-rational source, and a mediocre idea can have a rational source. The key is how much influence that source continues to have on the idea in question. Scientists can and do come across revolutionary ideas intuitively, but their intuition and wishful thinking should remain disciplined. Ideas should be open to rational criticism, demonstration and verification. Beliefs, however strong, must be able to be refined, modified and even abandoned if necessary. Scientific thinking can therefore be differentiated from religious thinking, since religion rarely, if ever, allows such an atmosphere to prevail. Works Cited Freud, S. (1927/1961). The future of an illusion. New York: Norton.