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Jan. 29, 2005 Freud, whom I consider something of a crackpot, as I discuss in my article "Freud and Moses", regarded Judaism as a neurosis, and undoubtedly felt much the same about Christianity. Despite my generally negative view of the father of psychoanalysis, I would be inclined to agree with his diagnosis of those mental disorders in the case of those individuals who actually believe in Judaism or Christianity. But true believers are very few in my opinion. Basically, almost everyone who claims being a Christian is putting on a charade. Take the case of my former wife's brother-in-law, Richard, who held a Ph. D. in political science and was a professor at a university in Illinois. He had no children by his first wife, who died when Richard was about 50. He married my sister- in-law, who soon bore him two sons. All along, he had shown absolutely no religious feelings and was, apparently, an agnostic. When the elder boy was about 5, suddenly Richard got religion. He converted to Presbyterianism, took lessons, did reading, and, presto, he was a Sunday school instructor at the local Presbyterian church. Thinking this phenomenon over for years, I'm convinced that what motivated him was the fear that when his children entered school, many of the other children, at the instance of their parents, would shun them. In other words his children would be ostracized. Rather than have his sons have to put up with that kind of discrimination, Richard would just convert. Naturally, he would never admit this to me, knowing I was an atheist. In fact, quite the contrary, he tried drag me into Christianity too. Anyway, I don't believe that Richard suddenly acquired faith. He merely started playing what he considered a harmless little game of deception for the benefit of his sons' being socially acceptable. In other words, he was not neurotic. He was hypocritical. He was a canny deceiver, doing what he thought best. Perhaps he was right, under the circumstances. Another case was my own mother. As I recall, she said she had been a Lutheran before she met my father, who was a Roman Catholic. In order to marry him, she converted to Catholicism. Surely this change of heart was not the result of soul- searching in which God's will alone was fervently sought to be fulfilled. This was merely a formality. But once she made the change, she always acted as if she had complete and total faith in Catholicism. The very fact that she was so adamant and unswerving in her faith, as she professed it, was evidence to me that she was disingenuous. If she had been really committed to finding the way, she'd have had doubts now and then, as truth-seekers always must. This is not to criticize her as a mother. She was a fine mother, and had to put up with a great deal of`privation and hardship to bring ne and my brother up. But that doesn't mean that all of her ideas were 100% correct, nor does it rule out the possibility of her harboring a harmless little secret, which was that she didn't really believe as sincerely as she pretended. Why didn't she and my father just chuck religion? My father would have lost face among all his relatives, and my parents were in their town. I know how narrow and conservative they were, and how they talked behind each others' backs. So the real impetus to religion in these United States is peer pressure. It's not a quest for enlightenment or beatitude. You've probably seen pictures of mosques with thousands kneeling out in front in the most servile way imaginable. Ir's pretty much the same in the United States. How many Americans are willing to say, "I'm not going to play this stupid little game called Christianity any longer."? ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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