God – The Father?
I sometimes wonder if my relationship with my parents (and in particular with my father) either determined or had an influence on my attitudes and beliefs towards God. I suppose that any psychologist worth their salt would say “Of course it does” and I would tend to agree with them – up to a point.
I have many fond (though rather vague) memories of growing up with my father. I remember going out most weekends visiting various interesting places locally. We never had much money back then so most of what we did tended to be either cheap or free. We went walking in the countryside (after a fairly long bus journey) and I remember Dad always wanting to see what was around the next corner, and the next and the next one too. I remember ‘fishing’ in the local canals for sticklebacks and frogs which we took home in jam jars to live out their short lives in a large tub in our back garden. I remember visiting ships in the cities harbour, riding a gigantic lift on an aircraft carrier and being pelted by giant hailstones on the way home. I remember many, many visits to local cinemas to watch what are now considered classic films of the 1960’s and 70’s.
But as I grew older my father and I grew apart. To this day I have no idea why. Maybe it was just me being a typical teenager, I don’t know. But from puberty onwards my father became progressively a stranger to me. So, what has this to do with God I hear you ask? I can imagine that if I had any theistic feelings at that age that I might have increasingly substituted God the Father for my biological one. Do we get our idea of God from our fathers I wonder? Looking at it from more than a few decades later it certainly seems possible, if not as an actual determinate at least as an influence, maybe even a major influence. Can the relationship with my father be another piece of the puzzle that is my belief system? It’s a good question. Though thinking about it I have to wonder what might have made a difference. Would a father more involved in my teenage years really have made a difference in my attitude towards God? I honestly don’t think it would. I didn’t lose my faith in God in step with the loosening of the ties to my father. As far back as I can remember faith was never an issue for me.
But I do wonder.
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11 comments:
Along with a lot of people, I have more than one father. I have a biological father who I didn't really know and therefore idolised as 'perfection', and a stepfather who I did know, and whose failings and foibles were everpresent.
Although my fathers have had a very strong impact on my attitudes towards men (I have spent my life looking for a idealistic 'father figure') they have not shaped my attitude to God in any positive way. Neither of them were/are religious types and neither of them pursued a relationship with God.
I think it's not just parents but it is the whole environment. Nurture and Nature combine in the most magical way to create an individual with beliefs and attitudes that may set throughout life.
But then you have the situation where two people are raised almost exactly the same (be is race, creed or culture), yet their beliefs end up miles apart.
The one person who clarified my beliefs and attitudes in later life and determined my relationship with God is the author of this post! :-) This man questioned my deepest beliefs and what came out after about six months discussion was a firm belief rooted in common sense - thank you cyberkitten!
btw 'what's around the next corner'? I like that kind of inquisitiveness and it is very Quakerish in its very essence.
cq
I'm not sure. Atheists come from all backgrounds and all walks of life, so the father-figure is likely to be drastically different for each individual.
personnally I never felt the need to replace the empty father-figure role, as my father hung around all my life without filling it himself:-)
By age 8 I'd learned about role reversal though, so maybe that had something to do with my atheism - in my world parents needed their children more than children needed their parents. However my atheism started younger than that - back in my very early childhood when my parents were still the ultimate in knowledge and ability.
At 5 years old Mstr A has already been told off at school for stating (in the middle of service) that he doesn't believe in God, and I'm reasonably certain Aggie fills his father-figure needs right now!
I think it's more of a personal thing about how we see the world, and what we put our trust in.
CQ said: This man questioned my deepest beliefs and what came out after about six months discussion was a firm belief rooted in common sense - thank you cyberkitten!
Well, I *do* like to be of use... [grin]
CQ also said: btw 'what's around the next corner'? I like that kind of inquisitiveness and it is very Quakerish in its very essence.
I think that's one of the things that my father certainly gave me - an endless curiousity. But more of that in a later post (yes, another personal one)
Mrs A said: Atheists come from all backgrounds and all walks of life, so the father-figure is likely to be drastically different for each individual.
Indeed. I'm just musing on possible common threads... trying to see the big picture and all that.
Mrs A said: At 5 years old Mstr A has already been told off at school for stating (in the middle of service) that he doesn't believe in God
[snigger] That boy will go far!
Mrs A also said: I think it's more of a personal thing about how we see the world, and what we put our trust in.
Good point. I don't trust easily & once my good graces are lost, they are lost forever. [to paraphrase Mr Darcy]. It probably explains my political leanings too - me not trusting government...
I'm not sure I can even enter into this discussion..mostly because I'm not what my nelief system is and I don't think any of it came from my father..perhaps some from my mother, but....much I think came fromquestioning things myself and I'm still doing that. I know there is something...but what it is or who...is another question all together...I'll get back to you when I know more for myself....meanwhile, I do believe the ocean is bigger than I am and uncontrolabee...so, for now..The Ocean is my "Higher Power". And that I didn't get fro either of my parents...
I shared a hospital ward with a woman who believed her Higher Power was a spaceship full of aliens.
She lost a baby, and I struggled to help her come to terms with it (not many nurses, lots of DIY therapy going on!), until I hit upon the simple premise.....
insert 'alien spacecraft' for 'God'.
It worked to a certain degree. She was able to work through the pain/loss and I was able to use 'alien spacecraft' in the right context and without sniggering :-)
Personal Belief is such a difficult thing to quantify - or even describe! Ergo, the origin of personal belief is probably just as murky.
My idea of God is certainly not the same as the next Christian's, and, as Naomi points out, each of us has their own perception of a 'higher power', whether it be God, or Nature, or an alien spacecraft.
cq
It's an interesting theory. God says he made us in His image. I'm learning that there is a lot that God shows us through imagry and pictures.
Perhaps the family unit is a 'picture' of his relationship with us?
When our earthly fathers abandon us or don't live up to the position God had intended for them, perhaps this leads us to search for a replacement?
My biological father is not in the picture. My mother left him when I was too little to remember him.
My mother remarried when I was around 2.
My "step" father (I hate that title--he's my dad) has been my father and I consider him to be MY father.
My kids don't even know that he's not my "real" dad.
I don't see how any of this led me to Christ though.
My journey was much more about my failures...
Thinking about it, I believe my father to be "better" than the God of the Bible. He is a man of more integrity and more fairness than anyone else I've ever met. Maybe it's because I saw that the God of this world couldn't even be as good as my mortal father that I couldn't believe in Him.
sadie lou said: I don't see how any of this led me to Christ though. My journey was much more about my failures...
I'm not sure what my relationship with my father has to say about my beliefs either. Maybe it's just another piece of the jigsaw that makes me... me. Or maybe not. [grin]
JA said: Maybe it's because I saw that the God of this world couldn't even be as good as my mortal father that I couldn't believe in Him.
Impressive. He must be one hell of a guy. You're a lucky person.
I agree with Mrs Aginoth. We atheists come from different background. I became officially an atheist at the age of 16, with minimal opposition of my parents. I love them both. My father was always my father, never the god of the Catholics.
I think our family structure be it positive or negative can and does influence all of our behaviour and beleifs to a certain extant, the degree to which they are shaped is dependent on the individual's character. For me with a very much emotionally absent if omnipresent father I developed a certain unease over the traditional male hierachy but that in itself has nothing to do with my feelings on faith overall but will probably have some weighting on my specific dislike of God's portrayal as a authoritarian father figure.
Thinking about it, I believe my father to be "better" than the God of the Bible. He is a man of more integrity and more fairness than anyone else I've ever met. Maybe it's because I saw that the God of this world couldn't even be as good as my mortal father that I couldn't believe in Him.
Wow. Looks like the Lord gave you a whopper of a hurdle. I've never heard anyone ever say something like that before.
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