The illusive irony
Freud argues that because of the way the human mind tends to make sense to itself, the act of religious belief is highly ironic, because if it were purely an irony of the human mind's experience, the human has no other method by which to analyze its own ideas. The truth may seem perfectly obvious to one person, but because each mind trusts its own opinions, there is no reason to suspect, says Freud, that there would be any valid truth value to such beliefs.
The projection of desire
How does Freud deal with the consistent belief throughout human history in a personal God? He says that it is through projection of desire that a person could come away from reality with such a view. He says that this could happen through the projection of the Oedipal complex onto reality and its mysteries. The desire for love drives religious belief, but to Freud, it seems dramatic and sad. He suggests that this view is intentionally obscured by desire for wish-fulfillment.
The irony of death
Freud remarks that death is the constant of human experience, and yet, through religion, ideas are alleged about death that mitigate the true horror of it. This isn't just one irony; it is a field of irony. That humans die is ironic, because through dramatic irony, the horrors of death are largely removed from daily life, and also because the nature of death is perplexing and unimaginable. The horror of death is certainly a religious phenomenon, but Freud says that many use religion to stay willfully ignorant about death, even when religion alleges to help one face death more comfortably.
Morality and irony
Freud demonstrates that the outpouring of moral ideas from religion are typically ironic, because they typically require a religious person to deny their own natural appetites for power, sex, money, and pleasure. The force of religious morality seems to go against those urges, protecting those who are unable to succeed as successfully as others in these pursuits. Perhaps Freud is drawing from the thoughts of Nietzsche who observed the same phenomenon.
The technical limits of thought
There are interesting passages where Freud tries to concede some arguments back to the religious thinkers. He says that, technically speaking, he is as limited as they are in the question of belief and religion. He can't tell them for sure that there is no God, because that is outside the domain of human experience, but he can tell them, for instance, that religion seems to operate by exploiting psychological maladaptations. He can argue that God in modern times is basically a catchall for what humans don't understand. However, as Jung would observe, it could be that the shape of religious experience is designed to suggest God's existence by design; the whole question is outside the domain of logic, though, since it surpasses the mind quite literally.
