Sky Lords and Fathers

But back to the skydaddy insult. Again this is not new, it’s only a lesser ( or commoner) form of criticism derived from (what was at the time) an eaqually pathetic attempt to conceal ones own grudges with their father or problems with authority figures. Rather than compete with theological debate involving admittedly complicated subjects, the person resulting to tactics such as this only reveals more about their own psyche.
There is a reason for the saying “Hurt people, hurt people”. There is a reason that bully at school lashes out at those he or she feels done them wrong. There is a reason that boyfriend or girlfriend can’t stop accusing their partner of not being faithful. The same goes with people who criticize Christianity unjustly. Instead of rational thought (from those who ironically call themselves the most rational ones, New Atheists) and honest reflection, they will instead result to mischaracterization of Christians, the Bible, and the histories. When that doesn’t work the lies come the intentional skewing of history. When that is failing good old fashion name calling and demonizing, no different than the juvenile ways of middle schoolers.
Paul C. Vitz also studied this in both defendes of theisim and the attackers of faith, atheism,or what he called “Intence Atheism”.  He looked particularly at people who were historically famous as athiests as well as their alternitives in theism from the same time period, and in the revised version, had more modern examples like the New Athiests. Using the criterias of the effecs of dead fathers, abusive and weak fathers, and absent or distant fathers, had on the child. He notes that the prominent athiests had Such as Voltaire, Albert Camus, Thomas Hobbes, Bertrand Russell, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Meslier, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Hobbes, Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Camus,  and more all were either missing, distant, hated or didn’t respect, and or abused by their fathers. As I mentioned earlier Sigmund Freud in particular being the first to accuse theists of having daddy issues, is particularly rich.
It only gets richer when Vitz mentions the New Atheists.  Christopher Hitchens referred to his father, even in adulthood, as “commander”, being that his father was British naval officer in World War 2. Vitz assumes “Perhaps his earliest memories of the “Commander” colored his lifelong disdain for authoritarian symbols?”. His father respected physical ability, something that Christopher did not have being short and gravitated toward books and school. He was much closer to his mother instead, shocker. His mother had a at first secret later very public affair with ex Reverend and later bothhis mother and her new lover were found dead at a hotel. After more investegation, it was found that they both commited suicide in a pact. Being that the love affair between Chistophers mother and her lover had much sway in the event of her death,. So seing that her lover was an ex Reverend and being that he ws apart of a “new age religion”, this had long lasting effects on Christophers already skewed view of father figures and religion.
Richard Dawkins another leader of the New Atheists especially in the late 90’s early 2000’s, a horrific experience of sexual abuse when he was 9, by his Latin teacher during his separation from biological parents at Anglican boarding school associated with the Church of England.
Finally Madalyn Murray O’Hair, even though she was not directly apart of the New Atheists movment in the early 2000’s, she was a very important pioneer of radical atheism in America that led to New Atheism. Being the founder of the , the American Atheists Association, she was responsible for the lawsuit that led the U.S Supreme court to ban prayer in schools in 1962. Madalyns son, William J. Murray in book “My Life Without God”, notes that his mother absolutely abhord her father, John Irwin Mays describing it as “maniacal hatred”. Telling of a time where she tried to kill her father with a butcher knife and a time when he was young where she attemted to  coerce him to poison her father, his grandpa. Her last words to her father before he died of hrart failure were “Oh, I wish you would drop dead.”. Why the hate? All because her father dissapproved of her affair and pregnancies with a married man and a man named Jon Garth.
This is the pioneer to the radical atheism that started millions to hate Christianity in America. These are the pioneers of those same people who use the “insult” Skydaddy. This is the level modern atheists have sunk and so for a period I’ll do the same. A handfull of rebellious crybabies, and people with serious truama with their own fathers or father figures, that if most were alive today, would be right along with the Redidit forums and social media spaces using the same “insult” right along with the anonymous users and crazy eyed profile pics.
What about the theists, what were their relationships with their father?
Well, Vitz looked at a long list of prominent defenders and believers in God. It included, Blaise Pascal, George Berkeley, Bishop Butler, Thomas Reid, Edmund Burke, Moses Mendelssohn, William Paley, Albert Schweitzer, William and Samuel Wilberforce, François Chateaubriand, Karl Barth, Friedrich Schleiermacher, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Alexis de Tocqueville, Sören Kierkegaard, Baron von Hügel, G. K. Chesterton, Martin Buber, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Abraham Heschel. Surprise surprise, all but one,Sören Kierkegaard, Vitz says, had “clearly positive father-son relationships—or of good father-substitute-and-son relationships.” and “compared to the atheists, the theists appear to have had many more loving and supportive relationships throughout their adult lives.”.

And the in the case of Sören Kierkegaard, even though early in his life, the relationship with his father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was “estranged” as an adult he later reconciled with his father and even wrote how he now understood his father more as an adult. Much like me and my father.
Shocker, right? Not really, so it seems we theists aren’t the ones that were in need of a father figure at a young age. Now, this was a specific case study of famous atheists and not representative of every athiest. But this is a study of those famous athiests who were aggressive against religion, Christianity specifically, and have accused or would have no problem with the accusation of theists in need of a skydaddy.

Conclusion
Atheists have run out of road with objections to theism and at some point will have to conceed that they have no real argument for their “lack of belief” or remain in the dark pit of their own arrogance and woeful ignorance of history and how it works, theology, and reason.

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