Paul Vitz and The Psychology of Atheism

I teach a Biblical Worldview class to 11th and 12th graders at Grace Preparatory School. Currently we are doing four classes on the subject of Psychology. The class is meant to introduce the students to a variety of disciplines and help them understand how the teaching of the Bible prepares us to assess the area of study and provides a foundation for succesfully understanding importants areas of knowledge. As I was preparing for the classes I came across an article that I had read previously and was reminded of how much I was fascinated by it when I first read it. In short, Paul Vitz creatively turns some of Freud's more popular psychoanalytic theories back on Freud himself, especially for the sake of analyzing his mmotives for rejecting God. Here is a taste of the fun to be had if you read the entire article.

Nevertheless, Freud is quite right to worry that a belief can be an illusion because it derives from powerful wishes- from unconscious, childish needs. The irony is that he clearly did provide a very powerful, new way to understand the neurotic basis of atheism.

Read the rest of the article here.