Inventing God

In this controversial book philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills argues that God does not exist; and more provocatively that God cannot exist as anything but an idea. Put concisely God is a psychological creation signifying ultimate ideality. Mills argues that the idea or conception of God is the manifestation of humanityâs denial and response to natural deprivation; a self-relation to an internalized idealized object the idealization of imagined value. After demonstrating the lack of any empirical evidence and the logical impossibility of God Mills explains the psychological motivations underlying humanityâs need to invent a supreme being. In a highly nuanced analysis of unconscious processes informing the psychology of belief and institutionalized social ideology he concludes that belief in God is the failure to accept our impending death and mourn natural absence for the delusion of divine presence. As an alternative to theistic faith he offers a secular spirituality that emphasizes the quality of lived experience the primacy of feeling and value inquiry ethical self-consciousness aesthetic and ecological sensibility and authentic relationality toward self other and world as the pursuit of a beautiful soul in search of the numinous. Inventing God will be of interest to academics scholars lay audiences and students of religious studies the humanities philosophy and psychoanalysis among other disciplines. It will also appeal to psychotherapists psychoanalysts and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis. . Language: English