Stephen T-B

(Shafts of light sometimes illuminate Infidels, and – for me – Emotional’s post was one of them.)

HaysooChreesto!

My dad was ill tempered, highly intimidating, highly intelligent, and the dinner table was an exercise in terrorism. My teenage years were filled with constant conflict between my father and I. It wasn't until I grew up and let all the old shit go that I was able to develop a good relationship with him. So now we get along pretty well.

What does this have to do with my atheism? Not a damn thing. My dad never went to church but my mom took us often enough so as a child and early teen I was a believer. My dad has had very little influence over my life and my beliefs.

beth

My dad was gay and I simply never fit into his lifestyle or my mom was just a homo-phobe and wouldn't let him around me. I never knew him. She lied to us and told us that her first husband was our dad. When she divorced him (at eight), it scarred me. I never saw my dad again. I then immediately attached myself to her new man and called him daddy immediately. But he wasn't fatherly. He was rather wimpy. I spent my childhood attaching myself to men who would be father figures to me. I gave up hope on god, and decided he was a figment of my mother's mind.

After a near-death experience at seventeen, I was convinced there was a God, and I became a Christian. I never felt that god loved me. I only saw god as rejecting me. I worshipped Jesus, but I could not worship Jehova. I loved him, but I always felt scorn and disaproval.(I realize this is a product of my own mind.) After a while, i saw no reason or benefit to believe anymore. Believing was more harmful to me than disbelief.

Paperstreet

No... hmm... how do I say this without being sexist?
For a boy, it is really hard to know what it is to be a man without seeing what it really is about. Without seeing what it is about to be a man, never knowing what a man is, subconscience may have a hard time believing a person of ultimate authority exists.

For a girl, it cant feel good knowing the primary source of protection isn't there to do his job. (evolutionarily speaking)

Of course the woman plays a tremendous, (probably more then the man), role in the development of a child, but the prescence and attention a father has is something that cannot be duplicated, except through another "Father".


I do have a father. But he is not really a "father". He is more of the guy who lives with me and pays the bills. My mom calls the shots. You can say I don't have a father figure, because honestly, I have never seen him assert his authority. He is a slave to my mom. Her way or the highway. His confidence was/is so low, he really has no choice how he lives his life. He has no friends, because my mom would most likely disapprove. Her friends or no friends. It is very sad to have a yes-man as a father, not so much for me, but for him. Do I know what a man is? Well I know what a movie star is. I know what a tv dad is. But I dont know what a man is. I got my haircut at a salon, for nearly 2 years, because I didn't know better. Hell, my dad even made some of the appointments. My mom chose the punishments, even if my dad didn't agree. When she wasnt there, my dad would still say no TV, or no video games, only because he was afraid to feel my mothers wrath. If my dad was wearing the pants in the household, and my mom was the housewife, would I feel different? Hell yes. Because I would at least know what a man is.

Anyways, I am agnostic and was just curious about how much impact fathers had on determining beliefs.

Selsaral

IMHO, the presence or lack of presence of a father has a dramatic influence on how a child will develop (particular in regards to their social charisma), but has very little impact on whether the child will be a theist or not.

In my specific situation, my father was extremely poor at being a father. When he wasn't screaming at me, he was entirely ignoring me, and I stopped living with him when I was 11. He was a paleontology professor and hardcore atheist. But he was far too negligent to bother instilling me with any atheism....he never mentioned the subject at all. I happen to be a hardcore atheist too, but as I said before, I don't think the negligence of my father was the cause. I would agree a father raising a child with a specific ideology would definitely impact that child's belief system, but I understood this discussion to be about how the existence or lack of existence of the father (as an authority figure) would impact a child's philosophical development.

Rhea

Wow. You have some serious problems there. Sorry to hear that.

To be a man, you do not have to be "in charge"
To be a man, you do not have to get your hair cut at a barber.
To be a man you do not have to be a bully.
To be a man you do not have to be solely responsible for family protection.


It seems that you think men have to be in charge and be physical and bullies. I am sorry things seem that way to you. That is not how the world works.

That's not what makes a man.

And going after the god of the bible as a "manly" figure certainly plays into your expectations, but it's not the way the world works.

Men are good for a lot more than brainless beef.
I hope you become more than you think men are good for.




PS, my husband has made appointments for our son to get his hair cut at a Salon because the barber keeps doing it to short. My husband has also taken shears in hand and cut my hair himself when the family needs to save money. We learned together how to cut hair from a book. Manly? In my opinion, exquisitely so.

ju'iblex

so really what we're saying here is its harder to play to social stereotypes and assumptions when we lack the 'typical' nuclear family structure. I fail to see <not only why you would be wanting this > but how this in any way apart from social pressure would contribute to a belief/non-belief in God. I also fail to see in a world like this with changing values and in some respects the abandoning of previous assumptions about the human nature, how this works at all.

Paperstreet

That all is definetly true. But to be a man, you cannot allow your son to NOT become a man. I probably would have grown up being a mamas boy, who couldn't survive without mommy if I wasn't tired of the bulls--t she pulls sometimes. To have a healthy relationship, a man and a woman have to have an equal say in the relationship. WHen raising a child they have to have an equal say in what is best for him/her also, allowing room for personal experience to assist also. I am assuming my father knows more about what it is to grow up as a boy then my mom, so he should step in and talk to me about things once and a while. I learned about sex from my mom. My dad didn't even try. My dad wouldn't have even tried if he had to. Thats not what I call being a man.

When I was younger and my parents were saving some money, my mother cut my hair. She could have been more capable, who knows, but I sure as hell dont remember my dad running to help.

Anyways, back to the belief issue. I am not saying that people follow their fathers religion/beliefs more, but the lack of a father, i have heard, can lead to not believing in another kind of "Father".

Biff the unclean

I am not saying that people follow their fathers religion/beliefs more, but the lack of a father, i have heard, can lead to not believing in another kind of "Father".

That's just silly Paperstreet.
If you have a perfectly good and serviceable human father then you would have no need to invent an invisible friend of a father. The only possible use a person could have to fantasize about some "spiritual" incorporeal daddy in the sky would be if their actual father were inadequate. Good-old-every-day-love-ya Dad makes imaginary Dad completely superfluous.

Demigawd

Count me as evidence for this theory. My parents divorced when I was very young. Visits with my father were few-and-far-between, and his partying-swinger life-style was mightily frowned upon by my mother. So, since I grew up in the rural southern environment of my mother, I had no acceptable masculine role-model other than the fire-and-brimstone righteous Jesus of fundy fame.