Atheists make bad fathers?

Shrykull · Post by **Shrykull** » 2002-12-29 06:51pm

http://www.boundless.org/2000/departmen ... 00223.html

yes, they think Stalin and Hitler were atheists too.

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2002-12-29 07:01pm

Ahhhh!!!!!! So Hitler was a "bad" man because his father didn't nurtured him enogh , heh? What a nice argument...

Stupid...

On the subject, my parents are non-religious (I'm purposely avoiding the word atheism), and I end up being a very straight up guy. I don't do drugs, I don't smoke and I don't drink (a lot). They did a good job raising me, and religion didn't enter in the equation.
They teached me about family, respect and morals... No need for a book.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2002-12-29 07:02pm

Morons. He (the page's author) should have his children taken away from him to be educated in the ways of logic.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2002-12-29 07:21pm

If I had a nickle for every fundie, I could build a whole sector fleet of Lego ISDs.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-12-29 07:35pm

Stalin was an atheist, was he not?

And, atheists can be bad fathers. Anyone can be a bad father. To claim that is limited strictly to atheists or that atheists tend to be worse fathers than theists is ludicrous.

Eleas · Post by **Eleas** » 2002-12-29 07:36pm

Shrykull wrote:http://www.boundless.org/2000/departmen ... 00223.html

yes, they think Stalin and Hitler were atheists too.

Wow. The Negative IQ Club strikes yet again.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-29 07:42pm

Yes, Stalin was an atheist. He was not, however, a secular humanist atheist. He was a communist atheist.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2002-12-29 08:52pm

Well that article was bull shit.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2002-12-29 09:28pm

My father was an atheist and I'm ok, though here I'm consorting with other evil atheists, and by being atheistic somehow I'm promoting devil worship. (I didn't get that either, the guy who said that was an idiot) I also may or may not be corrupting people.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2002-12-29 09:42pm

I think that those parents that believe in the Biblical doctrine of child-beating are far worse parents than just about any atheist. I especially like this hasty generalization:

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.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-30 02:41am

Notice the faulty logic in the following:

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.

If 12 members of group A exhibit characteristic X, then he assumes that:

1) all members of group A exhibit characteristic X (hasty generalization fallacy; hundreds of millions of atheists in the world and he generalizes from a sample size of 12).

2) all members of group B do not exhibit characteristic X (leap in logic; if a characteristic is common in group A, it does not follow that it must be absent from group B).

Psychologists are very good at labelling relationships dysfunctional. I have no doubt that a psychologist could examine any parent/child relationship and find something dysfunctional in it. It is a neat rhetorical trick to simply assume that theists need not be subjected to this microscope while atheists should.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2002-12-30 03:20am

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.

Wong made some very good point. I wanted to add that I don't see how this supports his case, unless their fathers were also athiests.

Post by **weemadando** » 2002-12-30 05:37am

What I love is that they completely misrepresent the situations of every single one of the "atheists". Not to mention misinterpreting the teachers of all the philosophers and other scholars mentioned.

Freud with an Oepidus complex? Not damn likely. Oepidus complex indicates a jealousy towards the father and the need to gain acceptance above and beyond him from the mother figure. You don't find much further than that than Freud himself.

Tosho · Post by **Tosho** » 2002-12-30 06:11am

Wasn't Voltaire a deist?

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2002-12-30 10:22am

Though it's already being soundly mocked and logically refuted, here's my two cents:

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. By defective, Vitz means the fathers were dead, abusive, weak, or abandoned their children.

And this never happens with theist's children. What, never? No, never!

I guess he would say that I was bound (fated) to become an atheist. For the first number of years of my life, I had no father. But during my teen years, and even to this day, I have a tremendously wonderful (and religious) father figure to lean upon. And yet, I've discovered I've no need for God in my life. (Or rather, that there may not be a god at all - and most certainly not one as described in the Bible.)

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2002-12-30 10:33am

Actually, he might have a point since religious people tend to trust authorities far more than atheists.... which also makes religious people easy to manipulate.

However, he ignores that the Old Testament presents God as being a woefully strict parent..... what a double standard.

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Atheists make bad fathers?

Atheists make bad fathers?

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