Who and What is GOD?

God, the beliefs could originate not in an attempt to explain the world, but in a very deep unconscious wish that human beings have. This wish goes back in history to the emergence of the human race, and in each individual, to their earliest infancy. The wish is for consolation and reassurance. when we are infants, we are completely helpless and dependent and need protection. Both motives come together in the thought that there is a God, a protector, a means by which we can control nature (for early religions) or feel safe in the face of danger and uncertainty. Our relationship to God takes on the intimacy and intensity of our relationship to our parents. Just as religious beliefs are based on wishes, so religious experiences are as well.

Freud’s account is the claim that the type of thinking that produces the concept GOD is not directed towards truth or reality. But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that God does exist. If God exists and human beings need a relationship with God to be fulfilled, then we would of course have a strong wish for such a relationship. Our wish for contact with God would be realistic – if we are made by God, then a relationship with God would be one of our deepest desires. In other words, the wish Freud identifies may not be the result only of our vulnerability in the face of nature and as infants; it could be a response to our needy spiritual nature. This alternative account situates the origin of GOD in human psychology, but explains human psychology in terms of creation by God. 

Karl Marx, however, was more cynical  about religion, he argued that what created the need for religion was tension within the society, in particular between those who had power – especially economic power – and those who did not. Those who do not have power, he argued, are ‘alienated’ from their own lives.

Explaining the origins of religious practices and beliefs is not yet to explain the origins of GOD, because even if human societies work better with religious belief, this is not to say that the concept or belief in God must be part of that religious belief, and Durkheim recognized this. Some religions don’t believe in God.