Middle East

The essential idea of this book is that Marxism and psychoanalyze constitute complementary approaches for the study of the human nature. The psychoanalyze puts the accent over the subjective factors, the needs and the forces that pushes man to activities, while Marxism examines the exterior social situation, through

which these activities are expressed. This chapter examines that complementary from the point of view of religion and morality, complementary that doesn’t manifest elsewhere with such evident fashion.

I would like first of all to emphasize one point. It is that the description of the psychological and social factors that influence the religious thinking can not tell us if the affirmation of religion relative to god, the creation, the future life (after death), etc. are right or wrong. In other words, explaining the reasons for a belief doesn’t inform us about the validity and legitimacy of the belief itself. I admit voluntarily to this. We discuss here only the social and psychological aspects of religion. If exists particular religious believes and particular methods to prove them are questions out of the domain of our study. Our objective is to study the reasons for which certain people have religious convictions and the relation between these convictions and the general context of the social life.

When a large number of people live and work together, particularly in circumstances where the inequality of the privileged and money constitute potential sources of tension, it is necessary to find ways to fix their relationships. This could be achieved whether by force, or governmental exercise of power and authority, or with education and methods of persuasion leading people to accept as natural and indisputable certain rule of conduct. The religion is in big part a mean to achieve uniformity in the social behavior. It obtains this result by the establishment of certain rules of conduct, from certain notions of what to do or not to do, and it ensures its application by the evocation of super-human sanction. In other words, religions obtain their most important social effect by saying: “you have to behave this way and manner because it is this way that god wishes u to behave. If you obey, you will be rewarded later. If not, a terrible punishment awaits you.” This appears to be the fundamental social role of religion: making people accept rule of conduct in the name of super-human

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