"While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them
is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be
altogether disregarded. Religion is an attempt to get control over the
sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which
we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological
necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them
the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days
of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches
us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion
seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human
society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to
them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place
in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a
parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through
on his way from childhood to maturity."
[Sigmund Freud, "Moses and Monotheism", 1932]