ARGUMENTS AGAINST GOD AND RELIGION — Part II The Psychological Argument

The Hebrew picture of an all-powerful deity who could only be placated by complete submission and protestations of devotion, no matter how unjust his acts might appear, was a direct outgrowth of this general Semitic family situation. Another product of the exaggerated superego to which it gave rise was the elaborate system of taboos relating to every aspect of behaviour. One system of this sort has been recorded and confided in the Laws of Moses. All Semitic tribes had similar series of regulation differing only in content. Such codes provided those who kept them with a sense of security, comparable to that of the good child who is able to remember everything that his father ever told him not to do and carefully abstains from doing it. The Hebrew Yahveh was a portrait of the Semitic father with his patriarchal authoritarian qualities abstracted and exaggerated. Such a judicial concept which believes in God being a political authority has occupied a central place not only in Judaism, but is also incorporated in the religious concepts of Christianity and Islam as well. Analysis of the Psychological Argument Against God and Religion The psychological argument holds that far from being a reality, the concept of God and the life hereafter is a myth, a mere fiction, a stretching of the human personality and human wishes to the cosmic scale. What possible basis can there be for this claim? Moreover, if we were indeed to claim that human personality and human wishes did, in fact, exist on a cosmic plane, it is doubtful if anyone would have sufficient factual data to refute this claim. The unconscious mind stores only experiences whereas Prophets proclaimed great unknown truths. Talking of scales, let us see what is happening at the atomic and sub-atomic level, where we are dealing with infinitesimally small distances. According to the Bohr atomic model, the atom possesses an internal structure similar to our solar system, with electrons revolving around a nucleus in discrete and stable orbits, in the same way that planets revolve around the sun. How vastly different are the scales; for in the solar system, distances are measured in millions of miles. Yet, in spite of the scales being so different as to boggle the imagination, the systems are similar. Would it be any wonder then if the consciousness, which we as human beings experience existed on a cosmic scale but