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Far be it from me to take the word of a minion of the anti-Christ, the vicar of Rome, but this man has put forward a well-argued theory that I feel explains a lot about atheism.
I'm sure the high levels of atheism in northern Europe correlate exactly with this.
All atheists had a defective father. The proof seems overwhelming.
I'm sure the high levels of atheism in northern Europe correlate exactly with this.
All atheists had a defective father. The proof seems overwhelming.
Paul Vitz is a Psychology professor at New York University. He graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1957 and with a Ph.D in Psychology from Stanford University in 1962. An atheist until he was in his late 30s, he is now a practicing Roman Catholic. His focus is on the connection between Christianity and Psychology. He is a member of the fellowship of Catholic Scholars, but also has strong contact to Evangelical Protestant organizations and deeply religious Jews.
Vitz criticizes liberalism and believes there is a link between fatherlessness and atheism, as he demonstrates in his book Faith of the Fatherless, the Psychology of Atheism (1999). The thesis of Faith of the Fatherless holds that famous believers—e.g., Blaise Pascal, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—had strong and loving fathers, whereas their atheistic counterparts—e.g., Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Sigmund Freud, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler—all had fathers who were weak, unloving, or absent. Thus, philosophers, professors, and political tyrants who denounce God do so in order to relive traumatic childhood experiences and to subconsciously seek out help rather than to explore any sort of valid or respectable reasoning process.
Vitz criticizes liberalism and believes there is a link between fatherlessness and atheism, as he demonstrates in his book Faith of the Fatherless, the Psychology of Atheism (1999). The thesis of Faith of the Fatherless holds that famous believers—e.g., Blaise Pascal, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—had strong and loving fathers, whereas their atheistic counterparts—e.g., Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Sigmund Freud, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler—all had fathers who were weak, unloving, or absent. Thus, philosophers, professors, and political tyrants who denounce God do so in order to relive traumatic childhood experiences and to subconsciously seek out help rather than to explore any sort of valid or respectable reasoning process.
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