Is Christianity Just Wishful Thinking?

Depths of Pentecost ^ | May 5, 2018 | Philip Cottraux

[pcottraux]

Sources:

-Cherry, Kendra. “Freud and Religion: What Did Freud Believe?” verywellmind.com. Last updated March 26, 2018. Accessed May 5, 2018. https://www.verywellmind.com/freud-religion-2795858

-Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. Macmillan Publishing Company. Copyright renewed 1980. First Touchstone Edition, 1996. Page 85.

-Morgan, Timothy. Thank God for Atheists: How the Greatest Skeptics Led Me to Faith. Eugene, Oregon. Harvest House Publishers, 2015, page 157.

[pcottraux]

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge: Hosea 4:6.

This is the official ping list for Depths of Pentecost: I’m a Christian blogger who writes weekly Bible lessons. Topics range from Bible studies, apologetics, theology, history, and occasionally current events. Every now and then I upload sermons or classes onto YouTube.

Let me know if you’d like to added to the Depths of Pentecost ping list. New posts are up every Saturday.

You can also subscribe by entering your email in the subscription box on the home page, read all my past blogs on the Archives page, or follow me on:

Twitter: @DepthsPentecost

YouTube: Depths of Pentecost

Instagram: @DepthsofPentecost

Thanks for reading/watching, and God bless!

[reasonisfaith]

Ideas on wish fulfillment were among Freud’s more simple minded.

[reasonisfaith]

Sigmund apparently didn’t grasp the fact that wish fulfillment works both ways.

His wish was to be his own ruler.

[reasonisfaith]

If you pretend God doesn’t exist, you can fulfill your wish to create your own rules.

Commonly, this has to do with rules about sexual behavior.

[Nifster]

Allowing a cocain addicted adulterer to ever effect ones faith is a sad state for any human

[Vision]

No.

[reasonisfaith]

Freud’s ideology was founded on his premise that God doesn’t exist. From this flawed premise proceeded all his ideas about religion.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking Freud was some brilliant thinker who was able to derive a particular wisdom about God’s existence.

Here’s the Freudian thought process on the matter:

1) I want to make my own rules (the product of Sigmund’s id)

2) If I convince myself God doesn’t exist, I can convince myself God’s moral law doesn’t exist (this occurs in Sigmund’s superego)

3) If God’s moral law doesn’t exist, I can construct my own morality (here Sigmund’s ego receives the integration of his id and his superego)

[reasonisfaith]

Meanwhile, Sigmund is lying to himself.

[reasonisfaith]

And to top it off, Sigmund stole the idea of id-ego-superego from the Biblical concept of body-mind-spirit.

[chesley]

Please add me to your list

[boatbums]

What is interesting about "Utopia":

In 1516, English humanist Sir Thomas More published a book titled Utopia. It compared social and economic conditions in Europe with those of an ideal society on an imaginary island located off the coast of the Americas. More wanted to imply that the perfect conditions on his fictional island could never really exist, so he called it Utopia, a name he created by combining the Greek words ou (meaning "no, not") and topos (meaning "place," a root used in our word topography). The earliest generic use of utopia was for an imaginary and indefinitely remote place. The current use of utopia, referring to an ideal place or society, was inspired by More's description of Utopia's perfection. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/utopia)

Utopia then is either an ideal place of perfection or an ideal place that can never possibly exist.

I appreciate your view that the resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything. St. Paul correctly stated that if there is no resurrection and if we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable, the most miserable (I Cor. 15:19). BUT...now Christ IS risen! The world without Jesus Christ offers nothing but temporary pleasure. Our souls are meant for eternity.

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself” [This is from page 75 of Blaise Pascal’s Pensees (New York; Penguin Books, 1966).]

[MortMan]

Each individual needs to ask themselves whether the risk of it being true is worth taking...

[mjp]

Freud’s conclusion is that ultimately, Christianity is wishful thinking.

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is a fact of history.There is no wishful thinking about it.

[ClearCase_guy]

If I were to wish for something, I would wish for something Easier and more Guaranteed. Christianity is neither.

[metmom]

Mere Christianity is a fantastic book.

[faithhopecharity]

Thank you. Comments: just because faith can provide comfort in this life or an “answer” to its mortality — does not mean these bebefits are false or illudory, or even mere coping mechanisms. Rather, these results of religious faith may be additional Benefits or even side- effects, if you will, of an underlying true message. The analysis’ logic is flawed by failing to reach or even address this possibility.

[ealgeone]

Christianity is guaranteed for the believer in Christ.

[Zeneta]

My journey to Christ as my Savior.

I was raised by Christian parents but the Bible was never taught or even discussed.

I was raised to figure things out for myself with love and varying degrees of forgiveness.

It was later in life that a personal crisis, and serendipity, Charles Stanley’s sermon collided in my mind.

Suddenly everything made sense and at the same time nothing made sense.

I went to a great Bible Church every week and quickly discovered that my belief required me to “Spread the Word”.

WOW.

I need to do some homework.

I spent the next 4 or 5 years studying. Reading the Bible, reading Christian Apologist, reading and watching countless videos of their debates.

Prior to my “Crises” I had watched and actually bought this 6 VHS tape set of Joseph Campbell on Mythology. Extremely well done with a final conclusion that “I am my own God”. It’s pure Buddhism that never found any traction even before my Re-Birth but became critical in my Affirmation of Christ.

IMHO, it all comes down to Darwinian evolution or Creation.

When I read and listened to the Darwinist, their “Science” and “Reason” didn’t add up. The math alone didn’t add up, never-mind their conclusions about human nature and Free will.

Back to the Buddhist and “Spirituality”.

IMHO, Buddhism is based on the “uncertainty” found in “Theoretical Physics”. A belief in a possibility without certainty.

If Freud demands certainty then he need only look at himself.

I did.

The Darwinist attempt to destroy all meaning of mind. Including their own minds.

The Buddhist/Humanist take the other extreme. There is no right or wrong and in a world of uncertainty everything is possible.

I came to Christ, once again, through the process of elimination.

I wasn’t “Told” what to believe.

I didn’t “Need” anything.

God has Created Man with an extraordinary ability, the ability to consider all the evidence, to thoughtfully self reflect and come to Him by Faith.

[Hugin]

“Some have taken it as far as to suggest that most of his theories were made up.”

Of course they are “made up”. All theories are made up by someone. Then you test them to see if they are right. That’s how science works.