Paperstreet

-Tyler Durden

As children, our biggest authority figure is our father. (especially for boys) If you have no father figure as a child, how can you believe in God? Or, will you believe in God to compensate the lack of the authority figure as a child?

I would like to know, if you grew up as a child with little time with your dad, or no dad at all, and what your beliefs about god are.

BTW this is my first post and would like to say what a great place this is.

Philosoft

Glad you could make it, Mr. Street. Allow me to direct your post to a more apropos location - General Religious Discussions.

~Philosoft - Philosophy moderator

spurly

I grew up with a Father who modeled to me the incredible love of God. He was extremely patient, full of grace and mercy. I never once heard him lift his voice or lose his temper.

He treated everyone he met like they were special creations of God - because that is what they were. Love oozed, and still oozes, out of his every pore. He taught me to be generous to those in need. Most importantly he pointed me to the Father of all Mankind and introduced me to an incredible relationship with Him.

So yes, my Father was an incredible influence in my life and the lives of my brothers for good and for God.

Kevin

Talulah

Kevin,

Well, your father seems a swell guy, but he is nothing like the God he taught you to worship.


I had a lot of time with my father, unfortunately. He wasn't 'absent' but I sure wished he would make himself scarce.

lpetrich

And what of the mother? Is the female sex somehow irrelevant?

-RRH-

I get along quite well with my father, and he's a pretty nice guy. He's an atheist, if you were looking for an explanation.

Probably the most religious people among my circle of friends also had the worst fathers.

braces_for_impact

I have never met my father. My mother however, was an authority figure and did get me involved in Christianity when she did. I went to Christian schools, bible study, other functions, etc.

Now my mom is a kind of theist, the "Universe is God" types, and I am an atheist. My grandfather was a Christian and a firm bible believer, and very genuinely nice guy. He was the closest thing I had to a father.

I recall some religious rubbish "study" about this earlier somewhere...

Edited to add...Oh Yeah, from what I've heard, I believe my father was catholic.

emotional

My relationship with my father has always been strained. To me, he is too often the stern, matter-of-fact "man of power" who pressures me into doing something with my life and tells me in what a pitiable state I am. But during my walks with him, I've seen another side: he is humorous, light-hearted and praising. It just shows how little I know about my father.

As for God, this is quite a mixed bag too. For the most part of my life I have regarded the concept of God with ridicule. For two years I tried to suspend disbelief and form a relationship with God through formal religious worship (I was a fundamentalist). When that failed, I pushed God again to the realm of ridicule. Nowadays I still don't know God, but I take it for granted that He, as Anima Magna (Great Soul), must exist, for if He does not, then there is no life after death, and if there is no life after death, then my life is a life of constant fear.

One part of me disbelieves in God completely, and the other part of me feels very bad because of that. Every time I curse God, I feel as if I had murdered my father.

ju'iblex

says who? personally, my mother is the one i've always been scared shitless of

non-sequitur, lacking one supposed authority figure does not make you incapable of submitting to another supposed authority. youre also assuming everyone believes the male as the supreme ruler, not to mention completely disregarding the role of the mother in the parent/child power play.

on the other hand you have a completely patriarchal system which we live in now, Xianity was founded in, and which it continues to propogate, but that will never make up for a logical fallacy.
considering the proposition doesnt stand up, this is pretty much irrelevant.
i dont believe in god, given, but my father and i have a decent relationship. we dont speak often, but thats the way our entire family works. i was left to choose between anglican and well, agnostic, and some East orthodox and ended up choosing none. i would say i have had a pretty well educated and diverse childhood which has left me pretty open-minded. and i can say it is this childhood which has led me to also take everything with a grain of salt and look deeper at things before accepting them as truth.

VonEvilstein

My Dad is just about the most antireligious person I have ever met, with a special place in his dissapproval reserved for Catholicism (he was raised CofE). That is, my Dad used to be the most antireligious person I'd ever met, until I started doing some serious thinking of my own, shortly after I came to this site.

However, apart from his hatred of the RCC, he didn't really discuss any of his views on religion with me. He is an atheist, I presume, for much the same reason I am. He, too, I think, secretly believes religious folks are only a short, sweet step away from being full-on certifiably whacko. But he did do his best to teach me critical and analytical thinking.

So maybe that's we we've both ended up having much the same take on these things.