ABSTRACT
Freud presented arguments from a number of perspectives historical, anthropological, genetic, epiphenomenological, philosophical, and psychological in support of his objections to religion, the most oft-cited being that religion is a form of wishful thinking derived from infantile neurosis, at the heart of which are our feelings of helplessness and our longing for a loving and powerful father. He maintained that religion is a social construction that was an inevitable but delusionary by-product of the collectivization and civilization of humans that served multiple purposes for rulers and followers alike. Religious doctrines have to be discarded nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction which religion offers to both is all too palpable. Some antagonists to Freud's position on religion commit the genetic fallacy in order to discredit his arguments. The genetic fallacy states that the truth or falsity of a proposition can be ascertained by specifying its origins.
