Response 2: Freud

Freud's statement that the only human purpose is to reproduce does not mean that life is meaningless, but that humans are driven, much like animals, not by higher spiritual motivations as theorized in Judaism and Christianity. Even the idea of God comes from the primal, id-driven need for security in a cruel world, the type of security one desires from one's idealized parents. This not only deflates the importance of God, but also one's parents, as it suggests that one's parents are never entirely good enough to provide...

It also suggests that the need for God is childish as well as primitive, a desire to remain in an infantile state when a person has all of his or her needs fulfilled without real effort. Often, humans feel helpless in the face of their problems, and it is easy to look to a Higher Power to solve those problems. This seems like an incomplete view of the very multifaceted and complex beliefs surrounding the divine around the world, as it focuses only on the controlling function of God, and a patriarchal image of the divine.