ABSTRACT
Freud structured The Future of an Illusion as if it were addressed to a hypothetical adversary who argues against his assertions. Freud viewed religious precepts and edifices as nothing more than neurotic relics. he drew an analogy between religion and obsessional neurosis, arguing that believers' acceptance of a universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one. Freud distinguishes the different purposes of this work compared with those of Future of an Illusion. As Egypt's influence spread in the coming millennia, it was politically propitious to offer a universalistic and monotheistic religion to Egypt's dominions just as Pharaoh became the sole ruler of the ancient world, so too the sole Egyptian god became the exclusive deity of his empire. Freud argued that a monotheistic god served the purpose of Egyptian imperialism, while, for the Greeks, by contrast, the disintegration of their polytheistic religion resulted in developments along humanistic lines, including the birth of the discipline of philosophy.
