ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud calls upon H. Heine, one of his "fellow unbelievers" in the course of a long debate with the minister he affectionately calls his "dear Man of God". The Future of an Illusion —the illusion of religious belief—written when Freud knew he had a terminal illness, testifies to the fact that even in the face of death he did not succumb to the consolation offered by faith or by belief in anything but a natural end. To understand the religious representations of the modern world, Freud describes one of its stages of development, which could correspond to the "form taken by our present-day white Christian civilization". Half-serious and half-ironic, Freud commented that the Americans who conducted the "monkey trial", "have alone shown themselves consistent". Despite the discomfort and pain caused by his jaw prosthesis, Freud continued to live a more or less normal life.
