Journalist and pastor Lee Strobel — an atheist reporter-turned-Christian writer — is wondering whether a person’s relationship with his or her father could be impacting what individuals believe about the existence of a higher power.
Strobel, who commissioned the Barna Group to conduct research associated with his new book, “The Case for Grace,” told TheBlaze that he was interested in exploring the potential relationship between fathers and faith, especially considering his own personal story.
“I began heading toward atheism as a result of my cool relationship with my dad,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated by how one’s earthly father impacts [ideas about one’s heavenly father].”
… er no Lee, people do not disbelieve in the various god claims because they did not get on with their Dad.
The reality is that lots of different people are non-religious for a wide diversity of quite different reasons. Some have encountered obnoxious religious people (who might indeed be a parent), or individuals whose negative behaviour has been driven by religious belief, and so they have walked away from belief, but generally speaking, most religious people are quite similar to most non-religious people, some will be very nice decent humans and some will be completely obnoxious twats, and while irrational belief can indeed inspire an astonishing degree of intolerance, misogyney and homophobia in some, most can rise above all that despite what the belief says.
So why don’t people believe? The vast majority of non-believers, simply observe a complete lack of evidence for the assortment of rather weird claims that are presented, and so opt to not drink the cool aid.
Dialogs well worth avoiding
What can however be truly frustrating is finding people such as Mr Strobel who simply cannot come to terms with non-belief, and so you find these gems often pop up when faced with such individuals …
- Ah but you do secretly believe, you are just angry with god because something happened. [and you secretly believe in Thor … correct?]
- Oh but you are leading a lifestyle incompatible with god’s plan and you don’t want to obey god [Yep, quite correct, I’m not into biblical slavery or genocide]
- Where do you get your morality from? [Hint: not a religious text that endorses slavery as a jolly good idea]
- Without god your life has no meaning. [and without unicorns or elves your life has no meaning]
- You can’t prove that god does not exist [OK, prove to me that Zeus does not exist, then apply that same logic to god]
- You need faith [er no, we tend not to embrace ideas that have exactly zero evidence and then pretend they are true]
- You were never really a true Christian/Muslim [the denial is strong when faced with folks who quit]
Folks, if you believe (and that is fine), then here is a bit of friendly advice. If you want to have a meaningful conversation about your belief with somebody who does not believe, then it may be best to avoid the above.