Author Topic: Research shows fatherlessness in boys linked to atheism? (Read 737 times)

ProtectorofOrder · « **on:** April 27, 2015, 09:08:57 AM »

Now I'm not sure where to put this whether in the forum about catholics living in the modern world or here but here's the article extract:

"But now a psychologist is arguing that it is atheists who suffer from psychological defects—and his evidence is compelling.

In his new book, Faith of the Fatherless, New York University psychology professor Paul Vitz reminds us that atheists have always argued that religious belief arises from psychological factors instead of the nature of reality. But after he became a Christian himself, Vitz began to wonder if psychological factors could explain a predisposition to REJECT God.

Vitz studied the childhoods of more than a dozen prominent atheists. He became convinced that their rejection of God is linked directly to a defective relationship with their earthly fathers. By defective, Vitz means the father died, abused his child, or abandoned him.

For example, Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher famous for saying "God is dead," lost his father when he was just four years old. Vitz writes that Nietzsche had "a strong, intellectually macho reaction against a dead, very Christian father" whom he perceived as weak and sickly.

The English writer Samuel Butler had a clergyman father who brutally beat him; Vitz writes that Butler revolted against both the beatings and his father's piety.

Sigmund Freud despised his weak father, whom he claimed was a pervert. Freud placed father hatred at the center of his psychology—something Vitz believes expressed his unconscious hostility towards his own father.

French existentialist John Paul Sartre lost his father when he was a baby. His mother remarried when Sartre was twelve, giving him a stepfather he resented. Not long afterward Sartre concluded, "You know what? God doesn't exist."

And then we have the political atheists, whose defective relationships with their fathers ultimately affected millions. Joseph Stalin hated his father, who beat him unmercifully. "It is not difficult," Vitz writes, "to understand why communism, with its explicit rejection of God and all other higher authorities... had great appeal for [Stalin]."

Adolf Hitler also received terrible beatings from his father, who died when Adolf was fourteen. And the father of China's Mao Zedong was a tyrant who taught his son "his first appreciation of revolution and rebellion in his own family setting."

America's most famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, despised her father; her son William reports that O'Hair once tried to kill the old man with a butcher knife.

After studying these "major historical rejecters" of God, Vitz concludes that "we find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case."

Of course, no matter what our family background is, each of us is still ultimately responsible for the decisions we make. But Vitz's remarkable book shows that when we witness to atheists, we must compassionately take into account the likelihood that they have painful memories of their fathers.

I hope you'll listen to the rest of this BreakPoint mini-series based on Paul Vitz' book, Faith of the Fatherless. You'll learn more about how our relationship with our earthly fathers affects—for good or ill—our relationship with our heavenly Father."

Keep in mind this was a copy and paste incase any of you have some divided beliefs over one of the claims, so you can find the article here: https://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/4650-faith-of-the-fatherless

Do you believe fatherlessness is responsible for the cause of atheism? Give your analysis/explanation if you like here. We can all learn something from this. How we handle this problem? It might have something to do with the growing atheism in a lot of younger boys/men who come from broken families.

How can we fix the problem in men and boys who grew up without a father or through a bad father? It is said in the generation born in the second half of the 90s that fatherlessness may be quite common. With many fatherless boys/men they either become ruthless and terribly angry people when exposed to the world who lack self control or they become passive. Several really ruthless and bloodthirsty atheist dictators in history are known to have had a fatherless childhood or bad father.

Many boys and young men who were fatherless are also said to tend to be more inclined to join criminal gangs, be involved in crime. Also more prone to drug and alcohol addiction.

BTNYC · « **Reply #1 on:** April 27, 2015, 09:34:18 AM »

The family is the nucleus of society, and is the first hierarchical order in all of human history, established by Almighty God Himself, inscribed into the very Natural Law.

As such, the father, as head of the household, is a figure of God Himself - the Source of all authority. This should be obvious especially to us Catholics - we call priests "Father," we call the Pope the "Holy Father;" and the First Person of the Blessed Trinity is not merely "the Head" or "the First," but The Father - the Father par excellence whence all fatherhood and paternal authority is derived.

The enemies of the Church themselves recognize this in their own wicked way. Freud twisted this self-evident truth into the notion that God is a mere psychological / sociogigcal construct that amounts to little more than a primitive, childish memory of one's father, and the sound of his authoritative voice ringing in the ears throughout one's life (and the life of man as a whole). This, incidentally, is proof of the diabolism of these materialist hucksters - they, like their father the devil - take the truth, invert it, and sell it back to us.

Likewise, the sodomite "marriage" agenda; feminism; divorce; pornography; the general mockery of men in popular culture - all of these are, to one degree or another, attacks on fatherhood, and an attack on fatherhood is always an attack on Almighty God Himself. It's only natural that all manner of evils should result from these attacks, the first and foremost being that abominable, unnatural rejection of God Almighty, fount of all Fatherhood - atheism.

BTNYC · « **Reply #2 on:** April 27, 2015, 09:41:14 AM »

As to how to fix it...

How does one fix a ceiling on the verge of collapse in a house whose structure is unsound down to its very foundations?

Other than a direct intervention by God Himself, the only power on earth capable of fixing this problem is an invigorated, powerful Catholic Church. The problems within the Church need to be addressed before any larger societal ill can be addressed. We need a definitive defeat of the Modernist heresy, we need a functioning and vigorous Catholic pope and hierarchy, an end to the fabricated charade that is the Novus Ordo, and a restoration of Catholic Tradition, Liturgy and Orthodoxy all over the world.

When that happens (and only when that happens) then we can formulate a plan of triage for tackling this and all the rest of the evils that plague what was once Christendom. Step one would be - remove the Jєωιѕн presence from every Christian nation. The rest would be relatively easy.

But barring all such miraculous events... the only realistic outcome we can expect from a "house" in such a state of disrepair is total collapse.

God's Will be done.

Matthew · « **Reply #3 on:** April 27, 2015, 10:42:34 AM »

I know a man who was raised Trad Catholic from age 9 - 18. Age 9 is when his grandparents started raising him. His mother had various "issues", and his father was absent and even unknown (both to him and his mother!)

This man fell into sins of the sixth/ninth, and a few years later he publicly embraced atheism. The sins in question were discussed publicly (by himself) on his MySpace page.

So he is evidence of the article above, as well as Our Lady of Fatima's testimony about how many souls are lost because of sins of the flesh.

It's very sad.

Croixalist · « **Reply #4 on:** April 27, 2015, 10:54:45 AM »

Fatherhood, physical and spiritual, has been the main target of the demonic from the very beginning. Looking a little deeper, we find that even masculinity is fiercely hated. Boys grow up being unfavorably compared to their female counterparts in school, usually by female teachers, and in the great majority of marriages that end in divorce, the woman almost always gets the kids.

By the time most children hear about God the Father, they are trained to associate fathers with violence, rigidity, sexism, primitive thinking, abusive sɛҳuąƖity, and needless punishment. So naturally the whole concept of a Christian God is oppressive and must be countered with the rights of women (over men) and the effeminate.

Like everything else when it comes to conversions, it will take a miracle and hidden grace within the heart of the individual to effect a change. Sometimes I wonder if the Apostles would even bother with the majority of these spiteful brainwashed miscreants. One thing is for sure, they'd make infinitely more headway than the Church of Nice.