Heart of a Heartless World Religion as Ideology

Three people stand out as having contributed more than any others to revolutionaizing ideas of human nature and human social life in the nineteenth and early twentieth century: Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Each of them started out in a feild of study that was to lay the foundations for a range of new scientific disciplines, and through so doing, they radically changed ideas of what it is to be human.

Both Marxist social theory and Freudian psychology claim to provide deep insights into the nature of religious belief, but in fact, all three shared a fundamentally materialist approach. The Marxist social theory sought to explain the origin and development of religion in economic and political life, while Freudian psychology focused upon the role of the family and of unconcious mental forces.

This book provides an accessible introduction to these ideas. It shows how Marxism and psychoanalysis can cast light upon major currents of religious thinking from stone age times through to the modern world.

Topics covered include the religious beliefs of hunter-gathers, shamanism, goddess worship in Neolithic times, religion and ecology, religion and the origin of the State, Jesus as magician or social revoluntionary, the psychology and politics of celibacy and mythico-religious dimensions of modern physics.

Table of Contents


PREFACE / Religion as Ideology
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE / Materialism, Psychoanalysis and Religion
Part One Religion as Ideology
Part Two The Progressive Role of Religious Ideas
Part Three God and Heaven
Part Four The Devil and Hell
Part Five Implications

CHAPTER TWO / Animism and the Magic Amongst Hunter/Gatherers
Part One Social Sciences
Part Two General Features of Hunting/Gathering Societies
Part Three Belief Systems
Part Four The Psychoanalytic Perspective

CHAPTER THREE/ Hunter/Gatherers cont.
Part One Paranoid Schizoid Thought
Part Two Freudian Preoccupations
Part Three Kleinian Considerations
Part Four Social Divisions
Part Five The Mbuti People
Part Six The Inuit People

CHAPTER FOUR / Returning to the Goddess
Part One Mythology
Part Two Primitive Communism
Part Three Archaeological Considerations

CHAPTER FIVE / The Goddess cont.
Part One Psychological Considerations
Part Two Ecological Considerations
Part Three Other Candidates

CHAPTER SIX / Class, State and Religion
Part One Materialism and Politics
Part Two State, Ideology and Religion

CHAPTER SEVEN / State and Religion in Ancient Egypt
Part One Water Control and the Origin of the State
Part Two Subsequent Developments

CHAPTER EIGHT / The Politics of Early Christianity
Part One Contemporary Evidence of Class Relations
Part Two The Superstructure
Part Three Jesus the Magician
Part Four Jesus the Revolutionary
Part Five Problems with Both Interpretations
Part Six Personal Politics
Part Seven Jesus as Radical Egalitarian and Humanist

CHAPTER NINE / Christianity cont.
Part One The Problem of Evil
Part Two Christianity, Child Assault and Psychopathology
Part Three The Childhood of Jesus
Part Four Christianity and Childhood Today

CHAPTER TEN / Catholicism, Oedipus and Sexual Guilt
Part One Hatred of the Body
Part Two Socio-Political Considerations
Part Three The Politics of Celibacy

CHAPTER ELEVEN / Catholicism cont.
Part One Augustine's Neurosis
Part Two The Oedipus Complex
Part Three Evidence Part Four Catholicism and Sexual Guilt

CHAPTER TWELVE / Protestantism and Obsessional Neurosis
Part One Anality, Obsession and Aggression
Part Two Anality and Religion

CHAPTER THIRTEEN / Protestantism cont.
Part One Material Forces in the Protestant Reformation
Part Two Psychanalytic Considerations

CHAPTER FOURTEEN / Womb Envy, Creation and the Copenhagen Interpretation
Part One Creation and Explanation
Part Two Quantum Mechanics
Part Three The Copenhagen Interpretation Part Four Alternatives

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES
INDEX