... is religion in all of its diverse and manifold expression. Sigmund Freud reacted against religion in its formal expression (E.g. Church, liturgy, the belief that God lives in the heavens etc.), but at the same time he sought to internalise key religious concepts and then relate them to the human psyche. Unlike modern non-realists who see value in religion as a means for promoting certain social and moral values in society, Freud is more akin with the likes of Karl Marx who saw religion as an immediate expression of some deeper human problem which needed to be 'cured'. Although Freud was Jewish he never practiced his religion and in fact he believed that all religion was an illusion which had developed to suppress certain neurotic symptoms in humans. He writes: '[Religion] must exorcise the terrors of nature, [Religion] must reconcile men to the cruelty of fate, particularly as it is shown ...

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