“Our fathers were our models for God…”
May 8, 2008
“[...] what does that tell you about God?”
Well, it doesn’t tell me much about God, but I love that quote (bonus points to anyone who knows that it came from Fight Club). What it does make me think about is our idols of God, about which it might say a great deal. I’ve been thinking about this because the Derrida post I made a couple of days ago and the ensuing comments. To what extent do we try to make God either a replacement for, or an extension of, our human fathers? In what ways does this help or hinder us?
Perhaps this all sounds like clever psychology, but I bring this up because I have a feeling that, if many of us are brutally honest, this is something that we might see in our own understandings of God. Or not. What do you think?
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There was a book written a while ago where the author argues that atheism, in the case of the major atheist figures of the Western tradition, can be explained by the fact that atheists all seem to have had bad relationships with their fathers (this books was mostly intended simply to reverse the charge of those who argue belief in God is ‘wish-fulfillment’). The fact that he could find such a high correlation leads me to believe you are correct, though I’m not sure if I could describe exactly how my conception of God reflects my knowledge of my earthly father…
On the other hand, this is not necessarily a bad or misleading thing; if the creation reflects its Creator, wouldn’t one expect to find knowledge of God from the thing which is named after him?
It means God was the North Bay streaker.
LOL! Then I fear for us all.
Our relationship with our fathers affects our understanding of God. That might be true, but it is irrelevant to the question of whether there is one God or one Goddess or multiple gods and goddesses or no gods or goddesses. Even if it’s true that atheists have bad relationships with their fathers that doesn’t mean their position is false. If you say to an atheist “you reject god just because of your bad relationship with your father” that sounds like a convenient way of avoiding the issue of what evidence is there that there is only one god and your god is it or him or her. Another thing is why wouldn’t our relationship with our mothers reflect our understanding of god?
Keith,
I see no reason why our image of our mothers wouldn’t, but the quote was my jumping-off point for this whole discussion.
“Our fathers were our models for God, if they bailed, what does that tell you about God?”
Probably my favorite quote. And it does bring up your point of how we perceive God is relative to how we perceive our fathers. The truth is both points could be argued. An atheist could argue that people believe in God in an effort to fulfill the father role that likely wasn’t fulfilled by our human fathers, but a believer could argue that atheists don’t believe in God because their relationship with their father has caused them to lash out in the form of distrust and disbelief as a way of defending themselves from being hurt.
I think the argument of polytheism vs monotheism isn’t really applicable to this quote, or discussion.
The general message, however, means that whether god exists or not, whether or not we believe, we need to stop getting our hopes up and relying on others to make our lives better.
I believe that the quote is true in many ways. My own personal take on it is that weather we know it or not we immediately associate the thought of a powerful and/or authoritative male figures to our father. Therefore our fathers must take care to be the best representation of god they can be. As a child learning to make our own choices, as far as spiritual things go, a father will dramatically affect our choices. It becomes much easier to understand the relationship Christians have with God when we had a loving relationship with our own fathers. So, in conclusion, this statement, however anti-christian it might have been intended to be, is only a true statement from someone who happens not to be christian. Our father are, indeed, our models for god.
The Rest of the Quote is, “God has abandoned you and most likely hates you.”
This pretty well sums up the more Nihilist end of Deism where I sit, even though I have reasonably normal relationship with my father…
Its also based on an idea that Jung had.
He elaborates that the reason that the Lutheran view of God as as stern figure who is quick to punish is that that is how Martin Luther’s own father acted…