Sexuality - a sin?

In 1938, Freud writes: “The key last reason for all inhibitions of intellect and work seems to be inhibition of childhood masturbation. Maybe, however, it goes deeper…” At this point one could definitely quote fear of hell as the deepest reason. It is “God’s” actual ruthless punishment of unrepented or confessed masturbation which the Catholic Church again declared a free ride to eternal hell only in 1975. Freud actually did have an inkling of the Sacco-Syndrome. He realises in the end that the “super-ego often unfolds a harshness for which the real parents have often not set an example”, and he had a hunch which I call the “Freudian hunch”:

that the moral dimension is not acquired but has been implanted by a higher body…..” Here, the atheist is exposed as a believer: He claims Oedipus, in spite of actually being guilt-free, feels guilty anyway and therefore punishes himself. So Freud ends up in the mental sewer of sin, God of revenge, fear of hell and ecclesiogenous masochism with his Oedipus after all. Oedipus castrates and punishes himself in order to prevent having to go to hell, instead of being happy to have had such pleasant and fruitful hours in bed with his attractive mother. Instead, he dazzles himself, hoping that in doing so, God would punish him less severely. Convinced that he has “sinned” badly twice, he overrates the appropriateness of the sentence for this sacrifice. As the eye is a very sensitive organ, he chooses his eyes. If we found ourselves in a similar situation, we would, if absolutely unavoidable, rather brand-mark our bottom. Incidentally, the Koran is also familiar with sensitivity of the eyes: Non-believers enter eternal fire “eyes first”. Not until after that does the back get put onto the permanent grill (see Sure 4, “Women” (“Die Weiber”).

His father did not castrate poor Oedipus because he was not able to! He was already dead. He had died as a result of the accident mentioned above. Does one fear the dead because they might carry out a penis amputation – or more likely the God who is declared to be alive and terrible? Freud was once more hot on the heels of understanding the Sacco-Syndrome, the diseases caused by insidious religious beliefs or superstition (see my book of the same name). It is more simple and scientifically correct to replace the term “fear of castration” with “fear of hell”. Then one is on the right track with the greatest fear of boys and girls (in almost all religions). Religions were, as we know, primarily thought up in order to satisfy the human need to feel protected in this cruel world. This basic need is abused by leading clerics by making extreme threats, because they believe that they have themselves and their Church to feed. Great things are always very easy, as is the theory of relativity. It is actually in principle totally straightforward. What the cleric actually believes, must, however, become a subject of investigation.

“Forbidden” masturbation rightly plays an important part in classic psychoanalysis, see Leo Rangell. Being caught at filial love with the mother (or - in today’s language – the effort to beat the father in the succession of generations) or in the process of masturbating is, on the one hand harmless (the father will not and may not even castrate him or apply any other such form of violence), on the other hand, however, extremely dangerous: The other part of the super-ego, our God-Ego or Church-Ego, is on bad terms with sex. The clerics instil remorse in the believers who are dependent on them in confession and forgiveness to the extreme point of threatening with hell and purgatory. That works very well. Earning hard cash through achieving power is the aim. Human beings however do not need a living God to form a conscience, after all, the old Greeks had a conscience without Zeus ever having lived. On the other hand, baptized believers were responsible for Auschwitz.

Save us from the fire of hell >