Sigmund Freud vs. Carl Jung

For the record, the Pope allowed Galileo to publish his solar centric idea, but asked him to clearly state it was a hypothesis only - since Galileo did not actually have the mathematics and physics to support his hypothesis.

Unfortunately, Galileo simply did not have the discipline to control his acerbic personality, and used the opportunity to make indirect mockery of the Pope in his publication.


Obviously in hindsight the persecution of Galileo was inexcusable. But his persecution lay within the politics of the counter reformation rather than in a supposedly anti-science, anti-knowlege agenda of the church
 
Cypress said:
The fact that when this topic comes up, a reference to Galileo is always made shows us just how infrequent the Church's outright persecution of science and natural philosophy was.

Christianity was the main patron of science, natural philosophy, and universities in Europe for one thousand years.

There is no denying that there was periodic conflict between scholarship and the church occurred. But the Galileo affair is far more nuanced than most people realize.

Galileo's theory was rejected because it was a hypothesis without any substantial proof. The Vatican was willing to consider alternatives to the Aristotelian geocentric universe. But they were not going to accept any old hypothesis which came along.

Galileo had a hypothesis, but he did not have a mechanism, the mathematics, or satisfactory physical explanation. The Vatican had their own scientists - the Jesuits - look at Galileo's hypothesis and found it was not substantiated by physics as it was understood at the time. First, this was before we understood the laws of inertia. So it did not make sense based on the physics of the day that the earth could be spinning at thousands of miles per hour, without throwing people off balance, or even into outer space.

We had to wait for Newton's first law of mechanics to see in hindsight that what Galileo hypothesized could make sense.

Second, based on the state of scientific knowlege at the time, we did not know the stars were vast light years in distance from us. The expectation at the time is that if Galileo's hypothesis were correct, they would observe stellar parallax.

They did not observe stellar parallax.

We had to wait 100 years for Newton's first law, and his law of gravitation to have the mathematics and physics to substantiate Galileo's hypothesis.

As for Galileo's persecution after his second trial, that was more political than religious in nature. Galileo had an offensive personality, he offended many powerful people, and his persecution was caught up in the politics of the counter reformation.

Sidebar: Monks and Priests of the 19th and 20th centuries made important, even seminal scientific contributions.


I agree with you that the modem GOP and their fundamentalist base are hostile to science
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Sorry, but you now appear to be an apologist for the atrocities of the Catholic church, so we are on opposite sides on this one. Religious dogma even today kills tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. How many people in African nations would be alive today if not for the ignorant and evil Catholic 'life is sacred' position? A million? Two million? That isn't okay in my book. How recent do you want me to be? Religious dogma is about to strip abortion rights from millions of women. I'm not okay with that either. Good institutions don't kill millions of people. Evil institutions do. There is not enough time for me to list the horrific atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity, and they continue to this dsy. Pretending they don't is willfully ignoring the reality.

As for religion being a friend of science.... I offer you Intelligent Design, the worst threat to a science based view of evolution in history. We are free from the yoke of the church today only because we had the foresight to prevent it. If religion had it's way, we'd lock up the global warming scientists and the those studying evolution because their views are the antithesis of the views of the church. Religious dogma needs ignorance to maintain their stronghold.
 
A great thread by Cypress.
How many here are conscious of their shadow?
How many here are still working through childhood trauma?
 
Concart said:
Sorry, but you now appear to be an apologist for the atrocities of the Catholic church, so we are on opposite sides on this one. Religious dogma even today kills tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. How many people in African nations would be alive today if not for the ignorant and evil Catholic 'life is sacred' position? A million? Two million? That isn't okay in my book. How recent do you want me to be? Religious dogma is about to strip abortion rights from millions of women. I'm not okay with that either. Good institutions don't kill millions of people. Evil institutions do. There is not enough time for me to list the horrific atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity, and they continue to this dsy. Pretending they don't is willfully ignoring the reality.

As for religion being a friend of science.... I offer you Intelligent Design, the worst threat to a science based view of evolution in history. We are free from the yoke of the church today only because we had the foresight to prevent it. If religion had it's way, we'd lock up the global warming scientists and the those studying evolution because their views are the antithesis of the views of the church. Religious dogma needs ignorance to maintain their stronghold.
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You would be surprised at how much the bible thumpers on this forum abhor me because I show utter disdain for Christian fundamentalism.

I do not think it makes me an apologist to write the actual historical record of Galileo, Christianity, , Science.

If I were a Christian apologist, I sure have an odd way of showing it. I have started many multiple threads offering complementary discussion of atheism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, Daoism, etc.

The crimes committed by Church leaders are numerous, and perhaps just as bloody as the crimes committed by state-sponsored atheism.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...-Regimes-the-worst-ones&p=4336554#post4336554

I believe agnostic secular pluralism is the most appropriate society.

The type of religious fundamentalism you and I disagree with is particular to the United States and specifically particular to American Protestantism.

American Protestants make up maybe 5 percent of world Christianity.

The fact that I do not stereotype world Christianity based on the actions of American conservative Protestants hardly makes me a mindless Christian apologist.
 
goat said:
That's my point. The origins of christianity goes back 700 years before Jesus. I grew up with the American militant Jesus and it was Freud who convinced me that I'm not alone. I could count all the atheist I knew on one hand but met about 50 atheist my first week on the net.

Kinder, gentler is how well we deal with the world as it is, instead of the world we're programmed to believe in. Very few people I know in the real world actually live in the real world.
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And I in turn grew up with a Sunday school mom and the gentle, forgiving, loving Jesus. This new Republican Jesus is a stranger. I sometimes think perhaps it's better that she left this world young so she didn't have to see how He was weaponized by modern American conservatives.

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Cypress said:
Their respective theories of religion...

Sigmund Freud's theory of religion was based on a model of psychiatric pathology: religion as neurosis. He attacked religion on several fronts. He noted that religious rituals mirrored the ritual behavior of disturbed patients. Like a neurosis, religion thus represented a sort of safety valve that was perhaps useful for relieving pressure but not as good as getting to and resolving the real problems of life Religion, by displacing real human needs and fears
onto unreal, symbolic entities, was a form of alienation that prevented people from coming to grips with their real problems and frustrations. People were better off without it, just as his patients were better off without their neuroses.

Carl Gustav Jung began his career in psychiatry as one of Freud’s most promising disciples. As Jung began to reflect more independently on human psychology and its pathologies, however, he found himself increasingly convinced that religion, far from being the chronic impediment that Freud believed it to be, was also potentially a source of health, balance, and connection for people; in fact, it was a necessary component of mental health. Religion, he said, was the sense that we were connected to a reality larger than our individual selves. We might call this larger reality by many names, but it represented a kind of synchronicity, a larger web of significations, a collective unconscious that was inbuilt into the human psyche. Its contents included archetypes, universal symbolic representations that helped people to organize and give meaning to their existence. In tandem with rational, discursive thought, symbols and archetypes enabled people to approach the world in a balanced, meaningful way.



Source credit:Professor Charles B. Jones
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I'll stick with my Marx quote.
 
Concart said:
Yes, they were Catholic monks and priests, because not do so would have been heresy. That's what I mean when I say carrot and stick. Copernicus was not persecuted when alive, but after his death, his book was banned. Galileo was persecuted for his scientific observations. and his writings were also banned. I completely disagree that religion has been a friend of science. The exact opposite is true. Science does not care about religion. Religion is based on belief in the supernatural. But religion fears science. It loathes science. You can find the exceptions, but that is the rule.

The anti science position taken by the Trump cult is taken for exactly that reason; it conflicts with their Dear Leader. Their worship of Trump and their dogma are as close to a religion as you can get.
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You can see that in the language that they use against non-believers.

Militant Xtian to non-Xtian: "You are going to BURN IN HELL if you don't accept Jesus as your savior!" Militant Trumpanzee to non-Trumper: "You are a traitor who hates America and we're going to clean out you commie libtards!"

Science and vaccines -- even the pandemic itself -- must be rejected because their glorious leader doesn't believe in it. The election must be rejected because the glorious leader doesn't accept the results. His crass and amoral behaviors must be ignored because to see them is to see what the unwashed see, and we can't have that.
 
goat said:
A great thread by Cypress.
How many here are conscious of their shadow?
How many here are still working through childhood trauma?
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He comes up with some good discussions.

I suspect that religion-induced childhood trauma is a lot more rare than Dr. Phil and such would have you believe.
 
Cypress said:
Yes, opium of the masses is one of the more memorable quotes about religion.
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True. Like most memorable quotes that stay in the public consciousness, there's an element of true in the quote.
You know, just like in the quote "Never trust an atheist". ;)
 
Dutch Uncle said:
True. Like most memorable quotes that stay in the public consciousness, there's an element of true in the quote.
You know, just like in the quote "Never trust an atheist". ;)
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Both Freud and Jung were atheist, with Jung being a little more complicated.
 
goat said:
Both Freud and Jung were atheist, with Jung being a little more complicated.
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The question raised here by Freud and Jung is not whether the gods and spirits are literally true.

They are speaking to a more interesting question:
Is religion as a sociological phenomena detrimental to humanity? Or, on balance, is it beneficial and serve a useful purpose?
 
Cypress said:
The question raised here by Freud and Jung is not whether the gods and spirits are literally true.

They are speaking to a more interesting question:
Is religion as a sociological phenomena detrimental to humanity? Or, on balance, is it beneficial and serve a useful purpose?
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Like most scientists, I think they took the Pascal's Wager view to some extent. They were also smart enough to recognize, regardless if there was a supernatural world/afterlife, that life on Earth was physical and, therefore, observable. They could observe and apply corrective procedures where needed.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Like most scientists, I think they took the Pascal's Wager view to some extent. They were also smart enough to recognize, regardless if there was a supernatural world/afterlife, that life on Earth was physical and, therefore, observable. They could observe and apply corrective procedures where needed.
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Well said, chap.
 
Cypress said:
The question raised here by Freud and Jung is not whether the gods and spirits are literally true.

They are speaking to a more interesting question:
Is religion as a sociological phenomena detrimental to humanity? Or, on balance, is it beneficial and serve a useful purpose?
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Your OP shows that Jung believes religion is beneficial. My argument is Freud was justified in his attacks on religion. The way we interpret religion is what makes it dangerous. I doubt we can avoid a civil war directly caused by religion.
 
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