|
Post by The Lazy One on Mar 15, 2009 16:50:30 GMT -5
www.boundless.org/2000/departments/isms/a0000223.htmlPersonally, I think it's bullshit. I get along very well with my dad, which is a lot more than most people my age can say. Also, the article makes the mistake of mentioning Hitler as an atheist, which I think we all know he wasn't. I guess the thing that irks me the most about this is that some of my mom's fundie friends who know I'm an atheist have asked my mother, "Do Lazy and her dad get along well?" Uh, yeah, actually, we do. And they are quite rude for insinuating that we don't. One of them actually mentioned Faith of the Fatherless as basis for suggesting that my dad and I go to counseling to "straighten our issues out. Maybe it will help Lazy come back to Christ!" (more or less a direct quote) If these idiots would focus for a minute, they'd realize that there's no problem between me and my father. I just wish that these ignorant idiots would stop publishing stuff like this that's a boldfaced lie. Not all atheists have abusive/missing/distant/etc dads.
|
|
|
Post by cagnazzo on Mar 15, 2009 17:02:50 GMT -5
My dad's basically an atheist. He doesn't talk about it, but... I'm pretty sure he's a hardcore materialist, given the philosophical conversations I've had with him.
Somehow I think rebelling against him/having a bad relationship would have made me more likely to be a Christian.
|
|
|
Post by malicious_bloke on Mar 15, 2009 17:09:24 GMT -5
Somehow I think rebelling against him/having a bad relationship would have made me more likely to be a Christian. Or maybe you would have run away to join the ocelots? ?
|
|
|
Post by Hades on Mar 15, 2009 17:12:22 GMT -5
Yeah... that's definitely bullshit. Unfortunately, I do have a bad relationship with my father, but that has nothing to do with my conversion to Atheism. I became an Atheist because I actually scrutinized my Christian beliefs and came to the realization that the whole biblical story just makes no fucking sense. I have 2 Atheist friends, and they both come from 2 parent homes.
|
|
|
Post by The Lazy One on Mar 15, 2009 17:15:38 GMT -5
Yeah... that's definitely bullshit. Unfortunately, I do have a bad relationship with my father, but that has nothing to do with my conversion to Atheism. I became an Atheist because I actually scrutinized my Christian beliefs and came to the realization that the whole biblical story just makes no fucking sense. I have 2 Atheist friends, and they both come from 2 parent homes. See, that's what makes me mad. Like no Christian has ever had a bad relationship with a parent before. Blaming atheism only makes things difficult for both of the people involved. I'm sorry if I offended you with this thread...
|
|
|
Post by Sandafluffoid on Mar 15, 2009 17:20:41 GMT -5
I get on absolutely fine with my dad, and he's an ardent atheist as well. we also both got on fine with my grandfather, even though he was a racist, xenophobic, hippy-hating, homophobic fundy.
|
|
|
Post by Hades on Mar 15, 2009 17:25:20 GMT -5
Yeah... that's definitely bullshit. Unfortunately, I do have a bad relationship with my father, but that has nothing to do with my conversion to Atheism. I became an Atheist because I actually scrutinized my Christian beliefs and came to the realization that the whole biblical story just makes no fucking sense. I have 2 Atheist friends, and they both come from 2 parent homes. See, that's what makes me mad. Like no Christian has ever had a bad relationship with a parent before. Blaming atheism only makes things difficult for both of the people involved. I'm sorry if I offended you with this thread... Don't worry about it, I'm cool with my family issues. It's not really something I'm sensitive about because it's been that way forever, it's not like it's a recent thing. But I agree with you on the hypocrisy of Christians. They do that kind of crap all the time. Act like there's never been a Christian in the history of the world who has ever done anything less-than Christ-like. And when they're confronted with an example... they whip out the good ol' "They weren't a TRUE Christian" fallacy.
|
|
|
Post by The Lazy One on Mar 15, 2009 17:32:11 GMT -5
Don't worry about it, I'm cool with my family issues. It's not really something I'm sensitive about because it's been that way forever, it's not like it's a recent thing. But I agree with you on the hypocrisy of Christians. They do that kind of crap all the time. Act like there's never been a Christian in the history of the world who has ever done anything less-than Christ-like. And when they're confronted with an example... they whip out the good ol' "They weren't a TRUE Christian" fallacy. One example I've seen very recently was when a young married couple at my mom's church decided to get a divorce. Their marriage had not worked out, and from what I understood they were in a large amount of debt due to the wife's not working and buying all kinds of random crap. One woman said (very loudly, mind you) that it was such a shame that Christians these days thought that it was OK to divorce for trivial issues, while this woman herself divorced her husband because he was unable to give her a child. Like that's any better... I know it's not exactly the same, but I think that there is some Bible verse that says something like "take the log out of your eye before trying to remove the splinter from someone else's." I just think that more people need to realize that...
|
|
|
Post by Lady Renae on Mar 15, 2009 17:41:01 GMT -5
I got along better with my dad than anyone else in my entire fucking family. I actually finally gave up on religion when I was LIVING WITH HIM, and do you know what he did? He supported me. Because he's my dad. That's called "being a dad". Fundie bullshit is called "being an ass". *stupid thing deleted by self upon realization that it was stupid*
|
|
|
Post by Hades on Mar 15, 2009 17:41:46 GMT -5
I know what you mean. I remember my mom telling me how terrible the Catholic church was with her during the divorce process. She's not allowed to go back to church or receive communion until she and my dad go through this whole year long process of crap. Part of which includes telling the head of the church why the marriage didn't work, and he'll decide whether or not the divorce was justified lol. I'm really starting to loathe religion and everything about it.
|
|
|
Post by devilschaplain2 on Mar 15, 2009 18:04:01 GMT -5
Ooooh, time to mock someone mercilessly: "How long was it after you started college that you heard that first attack on your faith? Unless you attend a religiously-oriented school, it probably didn't take long."This person obviously never set foot on a college campus. Hmm, maybe when the author says "attack on your faith" she means the fact that colleges don't teach stultifying pseudoscience like Intelligent Design or geocentrism... "Maybe it happened in your Freshman English Lit class, where the professor--so careful to respect the beliefs of every other student (including the one who thinks he's Elvis reincarnated)--made a point of ridiculing belief in the Christian God."Oh yeah, I've heard that so often.... "Or maybe it happened in Biology 101, where the professor contemptuously dismissed anyone stupid enough to believe a bunch of creationist myths."Ha! Who called it? "If you took a class in Women's Studies, you likely heard that Christianity is a patriarchal religion designed to oppress any woman fool enough to join it."Actually we have healthy discussions on the subject, and Christianity isn't the only religion that comes up (like Islam, the "religion of peace"). Also, our professor is very neutral on the subject so as to be fair. "Of course, not all attacks on faith come from professors. You might have tried to witness to your new roommate--only to have him dismiss your faith as a 'crutch' for the weak."Maybe you were being a douchebag to your new roomate, mocking his/her sexual orientation or proselytizing too much... "If you think these attacks appear to be more common on campus than off, you're right. Atheists do tend to congregate there."Yes, we seem to congregate there. I've once seen a whole flock of atheists and an entire herd of agnostics on my campus....Actually my campus is very Catholic. "And the reason they reject the Judeo-Christian God with such passion is the subject of a fascinating new book by Paul Vitz."Oh, do tell. "Vitz is a psychologist, and until he was in his late thirties, he was an atheist himself (He's now a Roman Catholic)."*cough* Bullshit!"In his book, Faith of the Fatherless (Spence, 1999) Vitz says he began to wonder why America--a country that was essentially an atheist-free zone until the late nineteenth century"Atheist-Free Zone? There weren't atheists in America pre-19th Century? "--has become one in which 'the presumption of atheism' defines public life."80% of Americans are religious, just so ya know.... "'The rejection of God in our schools is just one small example of the triumph of atheism,' Vitz notes. Atheists have been wildly successful in promoting the assumption 'that belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational, immature needs and wishes, whereas atheism or skepticism flows from a rational, grown-up, no-nonsense view of things as they really are.'"What do you mean by "rejection of God in our schools"? Is this that bullshit about not being allowed to pray, when in actuality the Supreme Court just struck down mandatory prayer and prayers led by teachers/officials/etc.? Or is this more "Ben Stein: Expelled" nonsense? "Even though well over 90 percent of us tell the pollsters we believe in God,"80% was the most recent poll done. The amount of atheists/agnostics/non-religious is growing.....one of us....one of us....one of us.... "'references to God in public discourse have become extremely uncommon; we have become a nation of public and practical atheists,' Vitz says. 'This social condition has been well described by Richard John Neuhaus as the 'naked public square.'"Secular doesn't mean atheist, jack-off....and we've always been a secular nation. "Serious references to God in scholarly writing is considered 'taboo,' Vitz says. In fact, he adds, bringing God up in any way 'would bring the legitimacy of one's scholarship into question.'"I call bullshit on that....unless you're trying to push Idiotic Design/Creationism, and you're personally screwing with the facts and evidence to accomplish your religious goal. "'That such a rejection of God should have triumphed is quite remarkable--even bizarre' in a country that is seriously religious,' Vitz says. How did atheists become so good at controlling publicly 'acceptable' views about God--especially on college campuses?"We didn't. The end. "Atheists, of course, have long considered belief in God nothing more than infantile wish fulfillment. They disdain religion as an illusion we poor schmucks made up to satisfy unconscious needs."Oh stop, you're making me blush "But, Vitz wondered, what if the shoe's on the other foot? Suppose it's the atheists who are engaging in unconscious wish fulfillment?"I don't suppose you're going to follow that statement with actual evidence for God(s)? "What he found is nothing less than astonishing. After studying the lives of more than a dozen of the world's most influential atheists, Vitz discovered that they all had one thing in common: Defective relationships with their fathers."Thank you Sigmund Fraud. "By defective, Vitz means the fathers were dead, abusive, weak, or abandoned their children." Hmmm, my dad is dead/abusive/weak/abandoned me, and now I realize that there's no evidence for a make-believe space-giant.
"For example, Freidrich Nietzsche, a philosopher whose writings influenced everyone from Adolph Hitler to the Columbine killers, lost his father when he was not quite five years old." Or Hitler, who lost his mother and was extremely close to her while his father was an alcoholic dick. Didn't he grow up to be a religious fanatic? And Osama bin Laden was the black sheep of his family and got along horribly with his father. Hmmm...you know what all of this means?.....That's right, absolutely nothing!
"It is not hard, Vitz says, 'to view Nietzsche's rejection of God and Christianity as a rejection of the weakness of his father.'" It's also not hard to make shit up and hope your legions of fundamentalist followers will buy your new book, I suspect.
"Bertrand Russell was famous for his rejection of Christianity; he lost his father when he was a young child, and was raised by a rigidly puritanical grandmother." I've read what Bertrand Russell had to say about religion and God, and he made very well thought-out and rational arguments, and he didn't mention his father or grandmother.
Let's see....blah blah blah, Hobbes, Sartre, Voltaire....
"Perhaps the most interesting background of an atheist is that of Sigmund Freud." Oh come ON, that guy was a coke-head who wanted to fuck his own mother, now that hardly seems fair...
"Of course, not all atheists become philosophers or psychiatrists. Some of them become politicians." Gee, I wonder who she's going to name next? Hmmm....maybe Hitler, Stalin and Mao?
"Among the most infamous are Hitler, Stalin, and Mao," I'll take Predictable Morons for $400. Hitler was a theist, maybe not a Catholic or even a Christian, but he was definately a theist who believed in a weird combination of Lutheran and Pagan beliefs.
"But wait a second. What if the kind of behavior WE view as bad fathering (dying, abandoning and abusing kids) was just typical fathering in those days?" Dying was typical fathering?....
"It seems that every theist enjoyed a strong, loving relationship with his father--or, if the father was dead, with a father substitute. These theists made their reputations in part through their battles against atheism." Yes, that's right folks, in Fundieland, you can actually make an argument that abusing your children leads to atheism and atheism leads to incest and mass murder! Logic? Fuck logic! Up is white and black is east in Fundieland!
"Burke was an outspoken critic of the French Revolution, in part because of its hostility to religion, Vitz notes. ' Atheism Burke wrote, "is against not only our reason, but our instincts.'" Any of this getting to whether or not there's evidence for a God?
"In other words, many atheists believe there is no God because that's what they WANT to believe." Yeah, because we just don't want to be held accountable blah blah blah.
"In effect, they've converted their atheism into an idol, and they bow down to worship it." Yes, oh great "Atheism", hallowed be thy name. Atheism is not a person or an object. It is the rejection of an idea.
"A constant temptation for ALL human beings, Vitz warns, is the desire to interpret God in our own terms. If we're not careful, we end up, as C.S. Lewis put it, 'worshipping an imaginary God.'" Um...yeah, wouldn't want that to happen, now would we? ;D
"And that brings us back to our original question: Why can't the average college student walk across the campus without someone dissing his or her faith?" Way to beg the question, dipshit.
"According to Vitz, it's because intense atheists 'tend, to a remarkable degree, to be found in a narrow range of social and economic strata: in the university and intellectual world and in certain professions.'" Stupid intellectual atheists.....
"Vitz does not speculate on why this is, but I will" Oh boy....
"It appears that these angry atheists want to position themselves in such a way that they will have every opportunity to 'evangelize' as many people out of their faith as possible." Yes, like when we......and...um...when we.....drat, I've got nothin'.
"And they don't stop there. Vitz says atheists also 'make up a significant part of the governing class.'" We do?! Holy hell, I never knew that! When I first read that statement I though you pulled it out of your ass and tried to make people think an evil minority was plotting to take over the U.S.
"These folks seem intent on ruling religion out of bounds in any and all public settings, from the public schools, where vicious battles are regularly waged over whether 6-year-olds may whisper a prayer over their peanut butter sandwiches, to the town square, where fights erupt every Christmas over whether city fathers may erect creches on public property." Yeah, we love to just bully those poor widdle kiddies who pway over their PB&J sandwhiches...Seriously? The Establishment Clause, motherfucker, do you KNOW IT?
"It should be noted here that Madalyn Murray O'Hair — the spiritual mother, so to speak, of all these skirmishes" There were Supreme Court cases which dealt with the Establishment Clause long before Madalyn Murray O'Hair's case, you know. -Commonwealth v. Kneeland (1838) ended blasphemy laws in the U.S. -Engel v. Vitale (1961) struck down official school prayers. -McGowan v. Maryland (1961) laws with religious origins are constitutional if they have a secular purpose. -Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) reaffirmed that the Constitution prohibits religious tests for holding public office.
"Yes, we ought to fight the efforts of atheists to turn the college campus and public square into a religion-free zone. But we must also compassionately consider a tragic circumstances that may be contributing to their hatred of their Heavenly father: The loss of a loving earthly dad." Atheism does not mean a hatred of God. I can't hate what doesn't exist. I still have a father, he never abandoned me or beat me or anything like that. I declare an Epic Fail.
|
|
|
Post by Sigmaleph on Mar 15, 2009 18:06:46 GMT -5
Whaaaat? 12 people is enough to make a general statement about a group of millions?
For the record, I have a great relationship with my dad.
|
|
|
Post by the sandman on Mar 15, 2009 18:16:14 GMT -5
A few choice bits...
I have 3 university degrees. One from a religious institution, one from a very liberal public university, and one from a university whit no discernable political culture that I could detect.
I have never once heard, seen, or heard of any professor deliberately ridiculing belief in the Christian God for any reason, much less out of some kind of misguided "respect" for other belifs. This is one of the problems with fundamentalist Christianity, the delusion of ever-present persecution simply because they are not being catered to; the insanity that any respect given any other belief structure is de facto an attack on their own.
Possibly because a literalist belief in creationism does indicate a certain level of stupidity. Or at least willful ignorance, which is pretty much the same thing.
That's actually a pretty fair observation of fundamentalist Christianity. Or fundamentalist Judaism, or fundamentalist Islam, or...come to think of it, most fundamentalist religions are patriarchal.
And as an afterthought... I'm not an atheist, but my father was. He was also an utter bastard, but the author never interviewed me...
|
|
|
Post by MozMode on Mar 15, 2009 18:23:15 GMT -5
Whaaaat? 12 people is enough to make a general statement about a group of millions? For the record, I have a great relationship with my dad. You know whats completely blows that insane piece out of the water? My Dad is a Youth Minister for a Catholic Church. My family was disfunctional, just like everyone else's was. I actually had a WORSE relationship with my father when I was a practicing Catholic. At the age of 20-21, I started questioning my beliefs, not because of my family or anything like that. What I did was actually read the bible and figured out its all horseshit. Old, archaic, muddied horseshit. And now that I've been living as an Atheist for about a year, I've had the best relationship I've ever had with my Dad. We've gotten closer actually than we've ever been. Go figure.
|
|
|
Post by dasfuchs on Mar 16, 2009 5:05:22 GMT -5
My old man was a hardcore churcher, as was my grandmother. Not really fundie, but yeah, they were quite wrapped up in it, my old man being the pastor of the congregation he attends. My step dad is, I think, agnostic. He never really went to church, neither did my mother, and they never really talked much about religion except "don't listen to your grandmother, she's getting fruitier with age"
Anyways, my pop was a good guy, always did his best to take care of me and my mother, though there were a few moments i remember where his temper showed, but i've come to realize it was that bull headedness trait that i have as well. After some 12 years of not seeing him, I met him again when i turned 18. He has his moments of fury still and would irrationally rant or tirade and pin blame on me or his wife now. My Step dad, well, he did his best in his eyes, though I think it pushed me farther from him as a result. i could never really bond with the guy (because he felt i was too wimpy and needed to 'toughen me up' through what I considered scary and abusive behavior), so i got labeled as the 'momma's boy' in childhood since she was the only one i could get close to.
My change to atheism didn't result as parenting, it resulted from seeing past the small world my family had me locked in to see other things. i'd say i was fairly agnostic till I went to the Netherlands and Belgium and that exposed me to alot of different cultures. i came back a bit smarter and now kinda in between atheist and agnostic, though i fully think an all powerful controlling god is non existant. I still have some thoughts on a spiritual side, but I base my life around rational thought and knowledge
|
|