Need to Vent - Thanks Religious Assholes

[Salacious B. Crumb]

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.