Rick Warren Explains the New Atheism

Hmmm… I guess I’m going to have to tell my dad that regardless of all the time we spend together that we have a terrible relationship because Rick Warren says so.

Again this myth that Hitler was an atheist. I bet they’d argue that Martin Luther never wrote any treatise on how to deal with the Jews that advocated most of what Hitler did.

why do people refer to atheists as if they are a group, with like opinions?

He seems to forget the real money is in Televangelism. So the pennies Dawkins and the rest make compared to any of the Big TV Bible Money Beggars is ridiculous.

The truth is if he did go up and state atheists killed far more than religious regimes through out history, he would have been shredded and laughed out of the building. Not that he would be smart enough to know he was toast.

Atheists only get angry when confronted with complete and utter stupidity. Which falls under believing in invisible guy in the sky that plagiarizes other religious fables to be his own. Probably stemming from a complete lack of deity creativity. The whole foundation of a religion is false. Hmmm when faced with a believer that does not listen to any reasoning. I wonder why atheists are not more vocal.

One thing we need to realize about Christians.

Logic, truth, and reason do not mean as much as “want”. The logic and truth behind Hitler and Stalin just completely destroys that Christian argument against atheism. And so, instead of correcting the argument (and thus, admitting that religion IS a big, deadly idea) they will continue to repeat what they want to hear, regardless of the falsehood.

It’s not a new argument. It’s been debunked many times. However, Christians still use it because they want what they’re saying to be the truth.

they had no relationships with their fathers.

And Warren has no relationship with honesty. Perhaps that’s why he feels free to make crap up?

I have never known an atheist who wasn’t mad, who wasn’t angry.

How could anybody not be angry after hearing Warren’s lies?

When you take Mao, Stalin and Hitler, there’s no comparison the genocides that have been caused by atheists.

As was pointed out by Mr. Mehta, Hitler believed in a diety. In fact, I think one could argue that Hitler hated atheists (just not to the extent that Hitler hated Jewish people). Also, Stalin was a paranoiac, which is far more likely to be the cause of the Soviet Union’s death toll than his nonbelief.

Two more bits from the Warren-Harris debate:

WARREN: We both stand in a relationship of faith. You have faith that there is no God. In 1974, I spent the better part of a year living in Japan, and I studied all the world religions. All of the religions basically point toward truth. Buddha made this famous statement at the end of his life: “I’m still searching for the truth.” Muhammad said, “I am a prophet of the truth.” The Veda says, “Truth is elusive, it’s like a butterfly, you’ve got to search for it.” Then Jesus Christ comes along and says, “I am the truth.” All of a sudden, that forces a decision.
…
WARREN: The truth is, religion is mutually exclusive. The person who says, “Oh, I just believe them all,” is an idiot because the religions flat-out contradict each other. You cannot believe in reincarnation and heaven at the same time.

Well, I have a funny relationship with my dad. I totally understand how we’re alike, even though I didn’t grow up with him. But then he’s dogmatically conservative whereas I figured out that I’m very liberal, but do my best to challenge my dogma at every turn.
Then… I have a stepdad, who I’m close with and he’s also dogmatic (kind of a Bill O of liberalism). So I guess my only problem with my fathers is that in their old age they haven’t learned to listen to opposing opinions very well, which I guess I can understand. Definitely no hate happening though…

Hmm. I’m still Daddy’s little (44 year old) girl AND an atheist. There must be something wrong with me. My father, also an atheist, had a very close relationship with his father. Must be something wrong with him, too.

Paul Vitz, who is an author with New York University, wrote a very fascinating book called Faith Of The Fathers, in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, …, and the only thing he could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads.

I had a decent relationship with my dad. But I think I see the distinction: I’m not famous.

—————
On a tangent, let’s check out The Paul C. Vitz Resource Center For Christianity and Psychology, And Related Subjects

Publication titles mentioned:
Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious.
The Father Almighty, Maker of Male & Female
Support from Psychology for the Fatherhood of God, Homiletic and Pastoral Review

I have to say, judging the books from their titles (!) that this doesn’t sound like objective, academic work. It sounds like apologetics.

This seems to be the book mentioned:
Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism
Paul C. Vitz, Spence Publishing Company, 1st edition (December 23, 2009), ISBN-13: 978-1890626259

Time warp!

From an editorial review at Amazon:

Vitz (psychology, New York U.), an atheist himself until his 30s…

Ri-i-i-ight. Yet another apologist who claims to be a former atheist.

I’ll have to call my son and see if he is angry at me. I doubt it.

On the other hand since we are both atheist then wouldn’t he rather be religious if he hates me?

And I always thought Alfred E. was atheist but I just can no longer square that with “What Me Worry?”.

Paul Vitz, who is an author with New York University, wrote a very fascinating book called Faith Of The Fathers, in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires, the Freuds, and the only thing he could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads. Every one of them.

Vitz must have missed Asimov and Sagan, who expressed great affection for their fathers.

But more importantly – abusive dads do not make Christianity true. Dobson has been trying that for years, and he still has not a shred of evidence that humans were the core focus of creation, that Jesus was resurrected, or any other testable tenet of Christian faith.

Granted, my father wasn’t the warmest person on the face of the Earth, but during my teenage years, my religious devotion actually increased. It was only when I hit college age that my faith waned and I eventually became an atheist. My father wasn’t a factor in my becoming an atheist at all.

I don’t have a perfect relationship with my father. So that means I can’t debate Warren.

Lucky for him. Of course, I’m not an angry atheist. I am a friendly atheist and an angry gay rights advocate.

I also don’t like lying weasels much.

This line struck me as funny:

“RW: Well, first place, they’re making a ton of money, okay?”

This line from one of the most successful religious writers of all time!

That’s like Bill Gates saying about the guys who wrote Napster: “well, they’re making a lot of money…”

Remember Samuel Johnson’s quote, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a soundrel.”? Rick Warren has now inspired several paraphrased versions:

Psychoanalyzing is the last refuge of a fraud.

Piety is the last refuge of a hypocrite.

Revisionism is the last refuge of a liar.

Rick Warren is the last refuge of… oh, fuck it.

Rick:

Paul Vitz, who is an author with New York University, wrote a very fascinating book called Faith Of The Fathers, in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires, the Freuds, and the only thing he could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads. Every one of them.

Hemant:

To recap: Warren just said what all atheists have in common is a bad relationship with their father.

It seems evident that Rick has been misrepresented in that Hemant quote.

What he actually said is that Paul Vitz wrote that about the 72 most well-known atheists in history.

RW: Well, first place, they’re making a ton of money, okay?

Like he’s a pauper with his books and mega church…..

To recap: Warren just said what all atheists have in common is a bad relationship with their father.

I thought that was what “turned” people gay. Gee, I’m so confused now.

BTW, I have a great relationship with my dad and I’m both lesbian and atheist. Warren and his friends obviously have air between their ears.

… in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires…

Another lie from Pastor Rick. Voltaire was anti-clerical, but I believe he was a deist rather than an outright atheist. You can read the details on Wikipedia. I don’t know if this is Warren’s own lie, or if Vitz made the same mistake.

Maybe if Rick Warren could pull his head out of his saddlebacking ass for a few minutes, he might realize that some of us are angry at ignorant pricks like himself who continue to slander anyone who isn’t offering sacrifices to his stone idol.

*Sigh*

Not what I need to read in the morning after being up for entirely too long.

I thought that was what “turned” people gay. Gee, I’m so confused now.

HA! That was my very first thought. I wondered if he was getting his apologetics talking points mixed up.

Good lord. Rick sounds like the freshly quoted German Bishop Mixa who said atheism caused Nazism. I wrote a quick entry about a complete change of tactics that we atheists should use in repeatedly confronting these ridiculous claims.
Let me know what you think of it if you get a chance: How atheists should respond to claim atheism caused Nazism

There’s another book with the same kooky logic as “Faith of the Fatherless” called “The Atheist Syndrome”. The author tries to link atheism with bad daddy relationships and bed-wetting, etc.

Try not to let your head asplode.

Odd that this person in Indonesia is citing the same book Warren does, which will not be officially published for another 8 months.

Letters: Stop comparing religions to atheism!
…
In Faith of the Fatherless, the author suggests Atheist philosophers have unpleasant family lives, especially in relation to the absence of their father figure. Believers on the other hand often received massive religious indoctrination from their parents at a time when they needed attention on other things.
…
Hikmawan Saefullah
Jakarta

I can’t believe I used to actually look up to Rick Warren when I was a Christian. Was he always this nutty, or does he just disguise it well among his own flock?

On that book, which I believe is called “Faith of the Fatherless”: I do happen to be estranged from my father, who is a jerk (to put it mildly). Less than one week after I came out as an atheist to my Christian college friend and roommate, that book showed up on our kitchen table, where it stared me in the face for weeks. Without a word from her. I don’t know which is more insulting, that action or Rick Warren’s vomit.

You know, it struck me in Warren’s quote that there is a hidden assumption that all atheists are men. He doesn’t say it… but it feels like he’s making that assumption.

Paul Vitz, who is an author with New York University, wrote a very fascinating book called Faith Of The Fathers, in which he went and studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history, the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires, the Freuds, and the only thing he could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads. Every one of them. They had distant dad, demeaning dad, a dead dad, they had no relationships with their fathers.

Nothing like an apologist using a classic antireligious argument to attack atheism without actually understanding any of it 🙂

This one actually comes from Freud. Children revere their fathers, they see them as benevolent and omnipotent beings. When they grow up and realize their fathers are neither all-powerful nor perfect, they subconsciously displace those feelings to the imaginary figure that is helpfully provided to them by their christian cultural background. If you don’t have much connection with your dad (or don’t have one), this doesn’t work and you likely end up as non-religious. (Also if your father was strict, you will probably be a fundamentalist believing in a strict and punishing God, etc.). Makes a lot of sense (though, as with most of freudism, it is difficult to verify – you can alway find some reason why the guy you know to be atheist had a weak connection to his father and vice versa, so it’s easy to conform the facts to your expectations), but bringig up the effects of childhood impressions on our image of God as an argument against atheism requires an impressive lack of insight.

Did that pompous idiotic tool just lump us in with Communists and Hitler? Apparently Rick hasn’t picked up a book that wasn’t written by a Christian apologist in his lifetime otherwise he’d know that first of all Hitler was a devout CATHOLIC who had the support of the Catholic church. And Communist atrocities were politically motivated, not motivated by atheism.

As for atheists having daddy issues, well I don’t have a father. I’ve never met my father and never even seen a photo of him. I don’t know the man so I certainly don’t have any issues with him. I’m not mad at him or hate him. In fact I’m not surprised he didn’t stick around because my mom is about the most high maintenance and selfish woman I know who takes advantage of anyone and everyone she can. Her boyfriends are generally tools or alcoholic losers.

I looked around more on Amazon. I was confused that the “first edition” of Vitz’s book was listed as December 2009, and yet it seems to have made the rounds. The December 2009 date is from the paperback, and an earlier hardcover edition came out in 1999. I am looking at the Table of Contents on Amazon. Vitz does indeed include the Deist Voltaire in his list of atheists. He also include Adolf Hitler. This does not encourage confidence in his scholarship.

I have no idea what my real father’s take on religion was. I had no relationship with him.

I did have strong relationship with my grandfather, who was an apatheist, and with my stepfather, who was an open atheist. Papaw was the father of my early childhood. He died, and right before my mother remarried. My stepdad was the father after that, and we had a relationship that could only be described as terrific, everything a father-daughter relationship is supposed to be.

Both men taught me basic decency and never to be afraid or ashamed of who I was,

I loved them both, so much, and it is insulting to all of us, and the memories of these tremendous people, to imply what Warren has.

Hitler was NOT a Christian by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t think he was an atheist either.

On your quote:
The whole argument about Mao and Stalin has been debunked repeatedly. While they may have been atheists, they didn’t kill in the “name of atheism.”

I think that is overreaching. The argument has been debunked. Why? Because Dawkins said so?

How do you kill in the name of atheism? I do not think that anybody argues that they killed in the name of atheism, but it proves beyond doubt that an atheist (one who does not believe that they will ever be held accountable for their deeds and has the power) is very capable of doing terrible things (he does not have to be ‘religiously’ motivated).

To put it in a different way: even Osama has a limit (I hear that an imam gave him a high bound of 25 million people to kill) on how many he can kill. An atheist has no bounds except the ones that HE chooses to set for himself, since he has no higher power to limit him.

Am I saying that all atheists are bad and they are prone to do terrible things? Certainly NOT. All I am saying is that the atheist century has produced many many more atrocities that all the Christian ones combined.

It is a sign of maturity if you face this fact.

P.S. The point with the fathers is certainly an interesting one. How are you getting along with your fathers? I think it would be interesting to take a poll on this atheistic site. Maybe you will prove or disprove RW.

Hahahaaa…

I just had a thought. It may be that first-generation atheist have troubles with their parents – but I can guess why: faithful dad disapproves of kid’s new reason.

Additionally, I don’t think the correlation holds up well; I loved my dad – but then, he was an atheist, too.

Moreover, I think that the alienated father is a symptom of any religious conversion – even deconversion.