(August 29, 2015 at 2:46 am)excitedpenguin Wrote:

(August 29, 2015 at 2:12 am)KevinM1 Wrote: EP, did you not read Sal's first post?  He moved out and is currently, temporarily living with his grandmother.  He wants to find a job in order to actually be on his own, but has knee and back problems in addition to colitis, and panic attacks which stem directly from his father's bullshit, so he knows his options are limited.  And, finally, this thread's stated purpose is for him to vent.  To express his frustrations so he DOESN'T wallow in them in real life.

So, it's not like Sal hasn't taken steps to address his situation.  Furthermore, stepping back and becoming emotionally detached from a situation is far easier said than done, to the point where that 'advice' (a term which can only be used in the loosest sense in this case) as well as your assessment that he's blowing things out of proportion are trite, callous, and miss the mark completely.

Everyone is different.  They have different thresholds regarding how much pain - physical or emotional - they can handle.  Telling someone to simply toughen up is purely dismissive, and if that's how you're going to be, perhaps you should simply remain silent, because you're not helping.

I don't agree that everyone is very different in this regard. Toughening up can never hurt. Being a pussy might though and disastrously so. This world wasn't made for crybabies, like it or not. Now I am sympathetic but I am actually trying to help him. He's either not telling the whole truth here or he likes his current situation. That's my take on it, like it or not. As I said though, I come from a good place and truly understand what he's going through. I went through this kind of thing and know what it's like. I have far more to help him with than any of you do, apparently. All he needs to do is take my advice.

(August 29, 2015 at 10:48 am)KevinM1 Wrote:

(August 29, 2015 at 2:46 am)excitedpenguin Wrote: I don't agree that everyone is very different in this regard. Toughening up can never hurt. Being a pussy might though and disastrously so. This world wasn't made for crybabies, like it or not. Now I am sympathetic but I am actually trying to help him. He's either not telling the whole truth here or he likes his current situation. That's my take on it, like it or not. As I said though, I come from a good place and truly understand what he's going through. I went through this kind of thing and know what it's like. I have far more to help him with than any of you do, apparently. All he needs to do is take my advice.

It's funny when you're an idiot, I can see how that can be so.

Sorry I lost my temper and called you names. It's unrelated to the forums or to this thread.

In fact I was just arguing with my dad over him lying to me and not admitting it when confronted with it. Lol...

My father is an atheist and left my mom when I was a baby and never paid a dime to my mom in the form of child support.  My dad was the worst father on the planet.  Should I assume that all atheists are bad parents?  The complexity of the human brain and spirit is extremely powerful.  Some people are willing to sacrifice anything to help provide a better life for their children while other people could not care less if they never met their own children.  No set of religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs) has the ability to fix this problem.  It is the human ability to have faith that separates us from every other living creature in the universe.  Have faith your father has a deep love for your well being but is unable to respect your individual beliefs.  Your situation is not unique to the human condition.  Try to forgive your father for his inability to understand and respect your point of view.  Personally, I believe in God but I question if hell really exists. 

For example, if you don't believe in some type of creator then you either believe that all matter has existed forever with no beginning or all matter was magically created from nothing with no creator.  I tend to believe there was some type of higher power that led to the creation of all matter.

I also believe this higher power has the ability to judge our soul in a way that we will never understand.  For example, how would our creator judge the soul of man that was raised by a crazy mother or father and had no other positive influences in their life as a child.  Would it be a surprise to learn this child grew up with a dark soul?  Or what about a child that had a very loving mother and father but the child grew up to be a serial killer?  Maybe God will judge the child that grew up without good parents differently than the child that had good parents.  This is just one small example.  But, I believe there is a creator and I also believe this creator has the ability to look into each of our souls independently.  I would like to believe that a place like hell does not really exist but there are some forms of evil present in the human form that cannot be explained. 

Anyway, please try to forgive your father.  I would give anything to have the opportunity to have a relationship with my father...even if he was an atheist who didn't respect my faith.  Don't blame religion for your father's faults...he just cares about you more than you can comprehend and he doesn't know how to deal with your belief system because he may believe it will negatively effect your soul.  Hopefully your father can become faithful that his God will judge your spirit kindly regardless of your faith.  I think God judges us at a deeper level than that.

Thanks guys! If he wants to troll people that are in pain, that's him, I'm not going to let it get to me. I have been getting better, but I'm sure he'll ignore that too, and only pick out the negativity he wants to hear, that's fine (and ignore every other positive things I said, responding to other people's posts)

From some of the first days he's arrived here, I remember him fighting with senior members, so I'm sure he's similar to the dick I'm used to dealing with. I doubt anyone takes him seriously on here, but thanks everyone else for offering words of kindness, care, and common sense. I know I've tried to be there for people that posted some of their problems on here, even to some people responding to me on this thread, and didn't bring up what I was going through, I only offered suggestions, not egotistical things to bring the person down. But, not everyone can be good. I'll just ignore the douche bag.

(August 29, 2015 at 12:51 pm)deep thinker Wrote: My father is an atheist and left my mom when I was a baby and never paid a dime to my mom in the form of child support.  My dad was the worst father on the planet.  Should I assume that all atheists are bad parents?  The complexity of the human brain and spirit is extremely powerful.  Some people are willing to sacrifice anything to help provide a better life for their children while other people could not care less if they never met their own children.  No set of religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs) has the ability to fix this problem.  It is the human ability to have faith that separates us from every other living creature in the universe.  Have faith your father has a deep love for your well being but is unable to respect your individual beliefs.  Your situation is not unique to the human condition.  Try to forgive your father for his inability to understand and respect your point of view.  Personally, I believe in God but I question if hell really exists. 

For example, if you don't believe in some type of creator then you either believe that all matter has existed forever with no beginning or all matter was magically created from nothing with no creator.  I tend to believe there was some type of higher power that led to the creation of all matter.

I also believe this higher power has the ability to judge our soul in a way that we will never understand.  For example, how would our creator judge the soul of man that was raised by a crazy mother or father and had no other positive influences in their life as a child.  Would it be a surprise to learn this child grew up with a dark soul?  Or what about a child that had a very loving mother and father but the child grew up to be a serial killer?  Maybe God will judge the child that grew up without good parents differently than the child that had good parents.  This is just one small example.  But, I believe there is a creator and I also believe this creator has the ability to look into each of our souls independently.  I would like to believe that a place like hell does not really exist but there are some forms of evil present in the human form that cannot be explained. 

Anyway, please try to forgive your father.  I would give anything to have the opportunity to have a relationship with my father...even if he was an atheist who didn't respect my faith.  Don't blame religion for your father's faults...he just cares about you more than you can comprehend and he doesn't know how to deal with your belief system because he may believe it will negatively effect your soul.  Hopefully your father can become faithful that his God will judge your spirit kindly regardless of your faith.  I think God judges us at a deeper level than that.

Thanks for taking the time for a well thought-out response along with some of the others on here. I can appreciate a different perspective on things here. No, you shouldn’t assume that all atheists are bad parents, in the same way that I know all christians aren’t bad parents.

“No set of religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs) has the ability to fix this problem.” To me, you’re admitting that your god or religion isn’t powerful enough, or doesn’t care enough to mend these things. Not trying to argue, because you do seem to question some other things that you’re supposed to be believing in, like hell. I encourage you to continue to question those things with objectivity and as much honesty possible.

I can try to forgive him eventually, but if you lived my life the past 15+ years, you’d probably wouldn’t forgive and then move back in with him, especially considering how he’s affected my health. I forgiven him thousands of times, and temporarily had to leave the house a few times for a few days, and he goes right back to the way he was, not listening to the things that bother the shit out of me. He actually doesn’t care enough to change, he likes to say, “This is how god made me.” I then hold back my rebuttal of, “Maybe, I should go out and start killing people, and blame that on god too”, but I try not to say smart things back to him like that, and just be humble for the most part. When I’ve held things in so much, that just one or two things escapes that he’s been doing for the past 6 months, he loses his shit, so he can’t be reasoned with. It’s been tried an innumerable amount of times. Whether he loves me or not, I couldn’t care less about anymore. I care about getting treated like he actually loves me, and doesn’t want to hurt me.

Logically, when you have a creator, you have to think how this creator came about. You get yourself into an infinite regression of, “who created the creator and who designed the designer?” I’d be willing to throw in with something like, energy can’t be created or destroyed, and side with the universe being eternal if the evidence goes that way. I simply say I don’t know, and that the idea of god is a man-made tale, whether a god exists or not. It definitely hasn’t been proven, let alone, any evidence for this spiritual being in the sky, so I can’t believe in it. I’m not willing to go much further on this subject, because I don’t want to make any arguments from ignorance, so I simply say, “I don’t know, and I see no reason to believe in any of these claims made by man, because I see no evidence for the claims, and in fact, I see quite a lot of evidence that contradicts the qualities that man has attached to this god.” As far as religion, I don’t know how anyone can believe in that, if they honestly question it. It is quite ridiculous, honestly, but if the person is kind, and non-judgmental about it, then believe whatever you want.

I appreciate all the other kind words. It truly seems that you want to see a relationship get mended here. It seems since you don’t have a relationship with your father, and you really want to know what that’s like, and you want me to preserve that part of my life. However, if you have read how he is in general (I could go into detail telling so many  horrible stories, but you get the idea), I don’t think you’d want a ‘relationship’ like mine. If you had a father like mine, you’d wish you didn’t have one either, or you’d be wishing for a different one. It would be nice if there could be some sort of understanding between us, but that’s just not going to happen. I could try to have a relationship over the phone with him eventually when I’m ready, but if I went back.. that means he wins, and gets to be himself again. He needs to see that I’m an adult, and I’m not going to take his shit anymore. I’m going to establish dominance, if I do start talking to him on the phone, I will hang up on his ass as soon as he says something wrong. But, in his narcissistic mind, he wouldn’t put it together that he did anything wrong. His brain automatically justifies every situation into him never being wrong.. I can’t think of any other way that he would see what he is doing anything wrong, by just hanging up on him. If that actually did happen, I feel, from much experience, that he would think I’m the one being an asshole, and he’ll tell everyone on his side of the family how evil I am (something that doesn't bother me in the slightest, because they couldn't care less about having a relationship with me), so I’m afraid it’s practically a lose-lose situation. It would be a win for me to cut him out for now, because I need to take care of myself for once, and not just endure a life of suffering under his rule.

(August 29, 2015 at 3:46 pm)Salacious B. Crumb Wrote:

(August 29, 2015 at 12:51 pm)deep thinker Wrote: My father is an atheist and left my mom when I was a baby and never paid a dime to my mom in the form of child support.  My dad was the worst father on the planet.  Should I assume that all atheists are bad parents?  The complexity of the human brain and spirit is extremely powerful.  Some people are willing to sacrifice anything to help provide a better life for their children while other people could not care less if they never met their own children.  No set of religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs) has the ability to fix this problem.  It is the human ability to have faith that separates us from every other living creature in the universe.  Have faith your father has a deep love for your well being but is unable to respect your individual beliefs.  Your situation is not unique to the human condition.  Try to forgive your father for his inability to understand and respect your point of view.  Personally, I believe in God but I question if hell really exists. 

For example, if you don't believe in some type of creator then you either believe that all matter has existed forever with no beginning or all matter was magically created from nothing with no creator.  I tend to believe there was some type of higher power that led to the creation of all matter.

I also believe this higher power has the ability to judge our soul in a way that we will never understand.  For example, how would our creator judge the soul of man that was raised by a crazy mother or father and had no other positive influences in their life as a child.  Would it be a surprise to learn this child grew up with a dark soul?  Or what about a child that had a very loving mother and father but the child grew up to be a serial killer?  Maybe God will judge the child that grew up without good parents differently than the child that had good parents.  This is just one small example.  But, I believe there is a creator and I also believe this creator has the ability to look into each of our souls independently.  I would like to believe that a place like hell does not really exist but there are some forms of evil present in the human form that cannot be explained. 

Anyway, please try to forgive your father.  I would give anything to have the opportunity to have a relationship with my father...even if he was an atheist who didn't respect my faith.  Don't blame religion for your father's faults...he just cares about you more than you can comprehend and he doesn't know how to deal with your belief system because he may believe it will negatively effect your soul.  Hopefully your father can become faithful that his God will judge your spirit kindly regardless of your faith.  I think God judges us at a deeper level than that.

Thanks for taking the time for a well thought-out response along with some of the others on here. I can appreciate a different perspective on things here. No, you shouldn’t assume that all atheists are bad parents, in the same way that I know all christians aren’t bad parents.

“No set of religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs) has the ability to fix this problem.” To me, you’re admitting that your god or religion isn’t powerful enough, or doesn’t care enough to mend these things. Not trying to argue, because you do seem to question some other things that you’re supposed to be believing in, like hell. I encourage you to continue to question those things with objectivity and as much honesty possible.

I can try to forgive him eventually, but if you lived my life the past 15+ years, you’d probably wouldn’t forgive and then move back in with him, especially considering how he’s affected my health. I forgiven him thousands of times, and temporarily had to leave the house a few times for a few days, and he goes right back to the way he was, not listening to the things that bother the shit out of me. He actually doesn’t care enough to change, he likes to say, “This is how god made me.” I then hold back my rebuttal of, “Maybe, I should go out and start killing people, and blame that on god too”, but I try not to say smart things back to him like that, and just be humble for the most part. When I’ve held things in so much, that just one or two things escapes that he’s been doing for the past 6 months, he loses his shit, so he can’t be reasoned with. It’s been tried an innumerable amount of times. Whether he loves me or not, I couldn’t care less about anymore. I care about getting treated like he actually loves me, and doesn’t want to hurt me.

Logically, when you have a creator, you have to think how this creator came about. You get yourself into an infinite regression of, “who created the creator and who designed the designer?” I’d be willing to throw in with something like, energy can’t be created or destroyed, and side with the universe being eternal if the evidence goes that way. I simply say I don’t know, and that the idea of god is a man-made tale, whether a god exists or not. It definitely hasn’t been proven, let alone, any evidence for this spiritual being in the sky, so I can’t believe in it. I’m not willing to go much further on this subject, because I don’t want to make any arguments from ignorance, so I simply say, “I don’t know, and I see no reason to believe in any of these claims made by man, because I see no evidence for the claims, and in fact, I see quite a lot of evidence that contradicts the qualities that man has attached to this god.” As far as religion, I don’t know how anyone can believe in that, if they honestly question it. It is quite ridiculous, honestly, but if the person is kind, and non-judgmental about it, then believe whatever you want.

I appreciate all the other kind words. It truly seems that you want to see a relationship get mended here. It seems since you don’t have a relationship with your father, and you really want to know what that’s like, and you want me to preserve that part of my life. However, if you have read how he is in general (I could go into detail telling so many  horrible stories, but you get the idea), I don’t think you’d want a ‘relationship’ like mine. If you had a father like mine, you’d wish you didn’t have one either, or you’d be wishing for a different one. It would be nice if there could be some sort of understanding between us, but that’s just not going to happen. I could try to have a relationship over the phone with him eventually when I’m ready, but if I went back.. that means he wins, and gets to be himself again. He needs to see that I’m an adult, and I’m not going to take his shit anymore. I’m going to establish dominance, if I do start talking to him on the phone, I will hang up on his ass as soon as he says something wrong. But, in his narcissistic mind, he wouldn’t put it together that he did anything wrong. His brain automatically justifies every situation into him never being wrong.. I can’t think of any other way that he would see what he is doing anything wrong, by just hanging up on him. If that actually did happen, I feel, from much experience, that he would think I’m the one being an asshole, and he’ll tell everyone on his side of the family how evil I am (something that doesn't bother me in the slightest, because they couldn't care less about having a relationship with me), so I’m afraid it’s practically a lose-lose situation. It would be a win for me to cut him out for now, because I need to take care of myself for once, and not just endure a life of suffering under his rule.

I also appreciate your ability to respect my beliefs.  I think most religious people, if they are being honest with themselves, would admit to questioning their faith during hard times in their life.  I pray for our species that we will continue to evolve with our spiritual beliefs and eventually have churches that accept people of all faiths, including people that do not believe in any particular god but have a belief in the essence of the human soul.  A simple belief there is a natural divide between good and evil and that it takes an incredibly strong soul to confront evil and forgive evil with acts of love and passion.  I think it is natural to believe in a creator as logic tells my brain it is impossible for every atom to have been created from nothing.  It would be like believing a building just naturally occurred without any input from a higher power. 

But, I can absolutely respect the belief system of an atheist.  With all of the tragedy in the world and the ability of our mind to grasp immensely complicated concepts, it is easy to lose faith and assume there cannot be a God if we cannot prove it through science.  I guess the flip side of that logic is that we will never be able to prove a god doesn't exist.  I will end with this thought.  I have lived a portion of my life without a belief in God and it was an extremely depressing period in my life.  Not believing in a God with modern day Christian values left me with a very sick and depressed world view.  All I cared about was myself.  It was a very selfish mentality.  I was introduced to a very positive Christian church by a friend and it has been a wonderful influence in my life.  The friendships I have built will last a lifetime and I have been able to help many other families in need.  So, thank you for being able to accept my belief system.  I'm not sure what is was like to attend a Christian church 50 years ago but I can say that my experience today has been 100% positive.  Hearing messages of faith, hope and love is good for the human spirit.  I believe we were wired to receive love and give compassion.  I hope things work out between you and your father.  I pray your father can become a less judgmental person.  He is not perfect and sins every day of his life so he should accept everyone else for who they are as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

(August 29, 2015 at 5:33 pm)deep thinker Wrote: I also appreciate your ability to respect my beliefs.  I think most religious people, if they are being honest with themselves, would admit to questioning their faith during hard times in their life.  I pray for our species that we will continue to evolve with our spiritual beliefs and eventually have churches that accept people of all faiths, including people that do not believe in any particular god but have a belief in the essence of the human soul.  A simple belief there is a natural divide between good and evil and that it takes an incredibly strong soul to confront evil and forgive evil with acts of love and passion.  I think it is natural to believe in a creator as logic tells my brain it is impossible for every atom to have been created from nothing.  It would be like believing a building just naturally occurred without any input from a higher power. 

But, I can absolutely respect the belief system of an atheist.  With all of the tragedy in the world and the ability of our mind to grasp immensely complicated concepts, it is easy to lose faith and assume there cannot be a God if we cannot prove it through science.  I guess the flip side of that logic is that we will never be able to prove a god doesn't exist.  I will end with this thought.  I have lived a portion of my life without a belief in God and it was an extremely depressing period in my life.  Not believing in a God with modern day Christian values left me with a very sick and depressed world view.  All I cared about was myself.  It was a very selfish mentality.  I was introduced to a very positive Christian church by a friend and it has been a wonderful influence in my life.  The friendships I have built will last a lifetime and I have been able to help many other families in need.  So, thank you for being able to accept my belief system.  I'm not sure what is was like to attend a Christian church 50 years ago but I can say that my experience today has been 100% positive.  Hearing messages of faith, hope and love is good for the human spirit.  I believe we were wired to receive love and give compassion.  I hope things work out between you and your father.  I pray your father can become a less judgmental person.  He is not perfect and sins every day of his life so he should accept everyone else for who they are as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

Well, I’ve tried to forgive the evil acts over and over again, but since the evil doesn’t want to stop, I thought it might be time to walk away from it, because it was severely affecting my mental and physical health.

“I think it is natural to believe in a creator as logic tells my brain it is impossible for every atom to have been created from nothing” This is a logical fallacy, which is called an argument from ignorance. You don’t know how something could have occurred, therefore god. You have a right to believe this, but what does your logic tell you about how this mysterious, invisible man in the sky was created? If you think there MUST be a creator for all of this, then you must believe that there was a creator for your god. How can a god just pop into existence? Think about it; you get into an infinite regression. If you believe there is an eternal god that came out of nothing, then why would it be crazy to think that the universe is eternal? It’s a more natural explanation, when all supernatural explanations fail miserably. It seems your god fails in the evidence department, and sounds like a tall tale. I don’t see anything supernatural happening on this planet. I see more and more being explained as time progresses. I don’t see your god doing anything for this planet, in fact, he allows people to kill each other over an argument of his existence constantly. You think this god would reveal himself to the world, and actually enlighten everyone once and for all.

To me, a logical conclusion to make is a) a god exists and doesn’t care to provide a shred of evidence of his existence (which means he allows pure evil constantly) b) a god doesn’t exist.

When looking at this, I cannot worship something that probably isn’t there. Also, I see no evidence of a god that has ever done anything for me, so I can’t worship on those terms either. And, don’t make the mistake of saying a presupposition, where you assume a god exists for a fact and say, “God gave you life, you should be thankful or worship him.” I actually don’t, because he’s nowhere to be found. Simple as that.

To address your previous atheism.. I felt the feeling of emptiness (not entire meaninglessness, but a general emptiness) as well that lasted a month or two. I, then, continued to live my life as normal. The feeling passed, and I realized I still had my family, and I still had the same life whether I was going to exist after death or not. These feelings subside, and you shouldn’t believe or not believe things based on your feelings. You can still live a fulfilling life as an atheist. I’m completely back to my normal self, and could never delude/force myself to believe something that I don’t believe in, based on how it made me feel. I’m sure you have a stronger character than that, so to give you some friendly advice, don’t do that. I’m glad that you’re happy with your faith, but you really should question it big time, because it is a completely made-up religion with many logical holes in it. Even if you still believed in a higher power, I guess that’s a start for not making you depressed, but I’m not trying to convert you, but I strongly suggest you have some logical thought with yourself, and say, “I don’t really believe in hell, so why would I need a savior? Why would god need a savior? Why come 2,000 years ago and save people, when humans have been around for much longer than that?” There’s a tons of logical fun you can have with the bible, if you really open yourself up to it.

You’re one of the few theists that I’ve come across on here, that I’ve actually liked, and I could see myself carrying a conversation on with you.. I hope you stick around, and join in on some conversation, and all I can say is remain open-minded and try to be honest when defending your beliefs. Have a good day

I had my first therapist session of my life today, and it went really well! It made me feel very good. I'm grateful that I have Medicaid, without it, I don't know where I'd be.

Thanks for the support guys, I think things are going to slowly start heading in the right direction for me.

I too have struggles still with my dad. Things are better ...he tries. I try too. But, it kinda sucks that either of us have to try so hard at something that should come naturally. He continuously asks me when I will 'come back' to the faith, and repeatedly asks me to attend church services with him. I understand the issues you're dealing with...sending you hope and love. And a hug. You can't change him, but you can take deep breaths and accept that he is who he is, and you can only change/control how you react to him.