Freud established his view of religion in his books Totem and Taboo and The Future of an Illusion. He was fond of allegories and compared man's need for God with a child's need for a father. He says, "And thus a store of ideas is created, born from man's need to make his helplessness tolerable and built up from the material of memories of helplessness of his own childhood and the childhood of the human race" (Future of an Illusion-18).

He adds that like a child, we felt a need for protection, thus we created a divine father, and established a moral world-order to ensure the fulfillment of the demands of justice (

I feel that Freud, Dysart, and Smart all have valid points. Freud had great influence on secular ideology and the psychology of religion. Yet Freud's logic concerning God as a father figure has a problem when it is applied to a religion such as Theravada Buddhism which has no godhead. And Smart does not believe as Freud did that man will out grow religion because there will always be the questions that science cannot answer. I agree with Smart that man will always have religion but I believe that it's impact will be lessened as science improves because, as we have seen, it is constantly providing answers to questions we thought we could never answer.

I believe that Ninian Smart does well to discus this issue at the end of his book on worldviews. Smart states that man cannot live without religion as long as the necessity of facing death, suffering, and the spiritual experience exist. Science, for all it can do for mankind, cannot open one up to the numinous or mystical, he says. Science is a self correcting process. A theory that may have been held for generations may be totally disintegrated by a single profound discovery. Thus, people need something that they can hold onto and the knowledge that what exists today will be there tomorrow and that is where religion comes into play.

Smart argues that we will never be able to experience the numinous with science, but when I go outside with my Newtonian telescope and look at the stars, planets, and galaxies I think that I may have what could be called a numinous experience. I am in awe of how vast the universe is and how great is the power of nature. But perhaps it is a religious experience after all s

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Approximate Word count = 1130
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)