Did your absentee father make you an atheist?

[rug]

Kimberly Winston | Jan 13, 2014

(RNS) A once-popular book that links atheism with shoddy fathering is getting a second life with a new publisher, thanks, in part, to the rise of nonbelief in the United States.

“Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism” by Catholic psychologist Paul C.Vitz posits that “intense atheists” throughout history — Nietzsche, Voltaire and Madalyn Murray O’Hair — had absent or rotten fathers. This, he argues, damaged their ability to form a relationship with a heavenly father.

- snip -

“Some atheists try to equate atheism with rationality. Vitz’s book shows that atheism, like many belief systems, has significant irrational elements.”

- snip -

But atheists are less enthusiastic. “I have a spectacular relationship with my father and consider him to be the most admirable man I’ve ever known,” wrote JT Eberhard, an atheist blogger for Patheos. Many of the comments on his review are unprintable.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/01/13/absentee-father-make-atheist/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/11/christian-claims-atheism-is-a-result-of-a-tense-relationship-with-ones-father/

[Schema Thing]

1. Yes. Mom called him by some funny name, "Jay Hovah" or somesuch...

but He was never around.

[uriel1972]

2. Hmmm my father is an atheist, my mother is an atheist...

I have lived with my father for more years than I have not. I don't think his absence or presence had much to do with it.

Positing all atheism as a rejection of a "Father Figure" is shoddy, but not unexpected. Which is not to say this might not be behind some atheism, but it is a stretch, a looooooooooong, loooooooooong stretch to label all atheists as father haters.

What about polytheists, did they have many multiples of parents growing up?

[rug]

3. They're the result of unfortunate encounters with parrots.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Nope, my dad was the greatest! We had a wonderful relationship.

[cbayer]

5. Bunk, imo.

There are as many reasons for begin an atheist and there are for being a theist.

Trying to simplify this into some kind of pat psychological formula is ridiculous, imo.

[dimbear]

6. Many scholars have noted the rather abrupt disappearance of Joseph from the gospels.

Perhaps his being MIA explains .............wait a minute.

[dimbear]

7. Let's not overlook philosopher Karl Marx. Descended as he was from a long line of rabbis,

home-schooled by his doting lawyer father, nevertheless he showed some flair.

[rug]

8. Yes,Das Kapital is three volumes about God.

[OriginalGeek]

9. I don;t know if I know the answer.

We were mild-mannered Methodists before my mom and dad divorced when I was around 10. I remember going to church but don't remember it being a huge part of life. When my mom remarried and turned super-fundie Baptists we started going to church most every day of the week for one thing or another - services 3 times a week (twice on Sunday), visitation, youth groups for me and my brothers, etc...

I still got to see my real (sane) dad fairly often and spent summers with him and my (sane) grandparents. It was somewhere during 4 years of Independent, fundamentalist, Bible-believin' Baptist high school that I started questioning and eventually dropping faith. I've been an atheist for a lot longer than than I was a christian now.

So I may not have gotten to see my dad every day but I knew he was available and I had a great relationship with him. I miss him every day since he died several years ago. He was "mildly" religious until the end but not fundamentalist about it. I'm an atheist because I don;t believe in any gods. I don't think it was my dad's fault.

[rug]

10. A parent is always with us.

Even though it's been years, my condolences.

Personally, I'm skeptical of these Neo-Freudian studies.

[OriginalGeek]

12. Thank you Rug

And yeah, I'm pretty skeptical too. I suspect "Catholic psychologist Paul C.Vitz" had an agenda...

[AtheistCrusader]

11. My dad was an asshole and a catholic.

Also a wife beater and a drunk.

Has nothing to do with my lack of faith in the supernatural.

[Brettongarcia]

13. Conservative Catholic "psychologists" like to blame anti-religion, on missing or abusive fathers

But if you say that not having a good literal father, turns you against "The Father," then so what?

Should we really conclude - as Catholic "psychologists" claim - that any rebellion against God the Father is simply and only the fluke of a poor psychology? This seems like a rather nasty ad-hominem way of attacking skeptics and atheists.

Maybe instead we should say the data suggests that "God the Father" is not quite an adequate way of characterizing god or ultimate truth; many people don't relate to it (cf. Mary Daley, "Beyond God the Father&quot .


So how about say, "Mother Nature" as an alternative?