Freedomain Radio

I did not know which forum to post this in, but here it goes.

 

My dad is an Atheist who still goes to Catholic church on holidays for some very...interesting reasons. He claims to like the music and like the "cultural experience" of it. He likens it to seeing an ancient mayan ritual being preformed. This I could understand (hell, I've been to many theistic Hindu temples,  gurudwaras, a mosque, synagogues, and churches for the purpose of experiencing it) but he continues to throw his money into the donation bucket. Sometimes a good amount of it too, 50-100 bucks. Its really disgusting behavior in my book, and the fact that he does it regularly (well, regularly in the sense that every easter, and christmas and some other Catholic holidays he WILL be at the church) and pays for it every time makes me think that something other than his stated motives are at work here.

Also he sent me to after school catholic education for a few years. I confronted him and quit just before my confirmation, but I did go through the whole communion thing.

I have spoken to him about why he donates to the church. It goes something like this each time.

me: Why do you donate to this church? you don't believe in it.

dad: Well I figure I go there, I listen to their music, I eat their wafer and drink their wine, I should pay something for that service.

me: But dont you know what that money goes to do? Its a CATHOLIC church for one, so some of that money goes straight to the top, and then gets assigned to all sorts of global projects, like spreading AIDS around africa by telling them not to use condoms, like forcing poor south indians to convert by buying up their wells and refusing entry to non catholics, that sort of thing.

If you were just going to a Klan BBQ cookout for the music and camaraderie, and you ate some of the hot dogs that they gave to you, would you feel obligated to donate some money for the service they provided knowing that it would be used to buy rope with which to lynch some minorities?

dad: Well this is a small suburban parish the money just stays within the church, to redo the shingles on the roof and stuff like that.

me: Well for one, you have no way of knowing that. You just throw money in the plate. It seems like a post hoc justification, except that you keep doing it. Also, the local actions of that one parish do extend to indoctrinating kids into the Catholic cult. And even if you were just paying for the new shingles on this church, you are paying to sustain a structure that hosts an organization that is actively encouraging all the things I stated before.

dad: (half jokey/dismissive/distracing/misdirecting statement to divert the conversation or make it seem unimportant)

So I dont really know what to make of the whole situation. I feel like he is just too mentally/emotionally reliant on his membership in this cult to stop paying the donations. but based on the discussions I really do think he sees the immorality of his actions, just refuses to acknowledge it. What sort of action do I take? Is there a question or a line of discussion that I should have with him that I am just missing? what could his real motivations be?

other information: I am 18, he is in his mid-late 60s, for the sake of simplifying this, I am an athiest with hindu leanings, and my mother was a theistic hindu and is now a...  hindu of some variety.

The usual advice would be to follow the benfit.  Do others there at church / in the community know he's an atheist?  Does he in some way rely on a reputation as a devout catholic?  Or on the other side, how sure are you that he's an atheist?

Hmmm, this has opened up a new avenue of thought. I don't think that anyone really knows that he is an atheist. The sense I get is that he would rather avoid discussing the issue entirely. I don't think he so much relies on his reputation as a devout catholic as he may fear the repercussions of being found out as an atheist. Devoutness really isnt as big of an issue as not rocking the boat perhaps? I am almost 100% sure that he is an atheist, but he could be afraid that his clients will find out and think poorly of him as a result?

 Maybe he is just too attached with the idea of being a Catholic. for example, in one of the movies in the "Bourne ______" series, when bourne's true identity is revealed it shows his dog tags. On them it says his name and place of birth and whatnot, but it also says "Catholic". My dad described how seeing that made him feel a real emotional sense of connection with the character, and he almost broke down into tears in the movie hall.

But what I still dont understand is why he is funding it. Even if he needed to keep up the act, and felt comfortable in the fold of the "Catholic Identity" why does this necessitate giving money to a cause he knows is quite wretched? Could he not just put in an empty envelope into the collection plate? or could he not just put in a single dollar bill to keep up appearances instead of a 50? It is this behaviour that is most confusing to me, and I simply do not know how to react to it. He is funding death, and he knows it and it doesnt seem to bother him.

What evidence do you have that your father is an atheist?

We have discussed the issue quite a bit. We read the God Delusion, End of Faith, and God is not Great sort of at the same time and talked about them during and after. He seemed to be resistant to the ideas at first, but would not fall back on faith as an explination in any capacity other than a joke. So based on these discussions I am pretty sure that his atheism is a begrudging acceptance that it is the only rational position, but it is atheism nonetheless. He has also made some statements occasionally such as "I know its all bullshit but sometimes i just like to pretend theres a god..."

"I know its all bullshit but sometimes i just like to pretend theres a god..."

I guess he's a little more honest than most religious people..

Nightpotato:

We have discussed the issue quite a bit. We read the God Delusion, End of Faith, and God is not Great sort of at the same time and talked about them during and after. He seemed to be resistant to the ideas at first, but would not fall back on faith as an explination in any capacity other than a joke. So based on these discussions I am pretty sure that his atheism is a begrudging acceptance that it is the only rational position, but it is atheism nonetheless. He has also made some statements occasionally such as "I know its all bullshit but sometimes i just like to pretend theres a god..."

I'm no psychologist, but your father's constant joking about the topic sounds nervous and evasive, the way you describe it.  I would guess that he's not as far off the fence as you might think.  In fact, he might even be off the fence on the wrong side, just kind of looking at the fence and considering what's over there.  The collection plate offerings might even be motivated by guilt / conflict he's still working through (especially if no one else really knows how much he's putting in).  I don't know what you do about that though.  It's great that you're getting him to read some of the neo atheist stuff, that's certainly a good start..

I don't mean to be rude or cheeky or snarky, however, I just don't see any evidence that your father is an atheist...

Thanks for your insight Trips

hmm... I certainly see what you mean Dave. I mean its his words against his actions right?

longgg update: I recently had a phone conversation with him about how much his giving money to the church bothers me. Except this time I was a little bit different in my approach. When he became evasive or started to kid around or minimize the situation I would bring the conversation back by saying how this was not a joke, and it IS a big deal to me and I think it is very important to discuss it seriously.

We ran through the conversation template I posted previously almost word for word. Eventually when it got to the end of the template (with minor adjustments) he said something like "why are you trying to control me?" and i told him that I was not trying to control him, that he is perfectly free to continue to fund all these immoral actions, just as I was perfectly free to disconnect (alluding to a possible de-foo. I may have done this sloppily... i am not sure how to bring up the subject of de fooing properly). Then he told me that if I disconnected from everyone in my life who I thought was corrupt I'd be left with nobody. I counterclaimed that at the minimum I have three close friends, and my girlfriend. Basically it boiled down to a choose the church, or our relationship sort of scenario for him at which point he said that we would talk about it in more detail when he visits me in person on the 10th.

Later, the conversation went towards political philosophy and anarchism (my dad is fairly interested in this stuff and has even listened to a number of stef's podcasts). I told him about how some people into the whole freedom movement think that they may have found a path to freedom that does not involve throwing molotovs at the capitol building or anything. He was curious. So I explained the whole logic of eliminating obligations to corrupt people in your life, as a path to freedom. He said something like "yeah that makes a lot of sense. I mean surrounding yourself with bad people is going to effect you negatively as opposed to surrounding yourself with good people. And yeah, if you've got obligations to such people... ugh what a nightmare"

Then I reminded him of stef's podcasts on this issue and he had sort of a lightbulb moment and said that he remembered hearing about that sort of thing in the podcasts. At that point I saw the opportunity to maybe have him understand where I am coming from and said "and this is of course where you giving money to the catholic church, and our relationship comes into the picture...".  Then he had an even bigger lightbulb moment and said "ohhhhhh i see what you are talking about, i see." He may even have seen how what he had just said about the horror of obligations to corrupt people was actually a description of himself! Then he repeated the "we'll talk about it in person when I see you on the 10th" except this time sounding more sincere to me.

We'll see how it goes on the 10th I suppose. I'm trying to have no expectations. Any advice on how to handle this upcoming discussion? I am afraid of jumping into de-fooing so quick, especially with someone who I think may be close to snapping out of it.

I would advise that before the meeting, you review your expectations for him and make sure they are not set unrealistically too high.  I think you mentioned that your father is in his 60s?  That's not really an age that I would expect someone to be making a lot of major life-altering decisions about the course they are on.  It's a lot easier for someone younger to cut out all of the non-virtuous people in their lives and start hooking up with new virtuous people.  For him, this will probably look like a death sentence to be alone (except you) for the rest of his life.  How many people in his current social circles are going to make the cut?  Probably none.

Even if he truly commits to atheism, I wouldn't even necessarily expect him to stop going to church, as you mentioned there may indeed be some business concerns for him there.  Non-virutous behavior?  Sure, but again I wouldn't expect this to happen overnight.  You've got him started, he's listening to Stef's podcasts, he's reading the right books to introduce these new ideas.  That's all great.  I think what you can best do there is lead by example.  Definitely you gotta stop going to church with him.  I don't know if you should go so far as to try to plan other activities with him on Sunday mornings, that might be too manipulative again.  But in some way, and I don't know what that might be, you could start introducing alternatives to the social circles he's in now.

And please don't use de-foo as a threat against him.  Nothing productive can come of that..

Captain Trips:

And please don't use de-foo as a threat against him.  Nothing productive can come of that..

 

I'm pretty sure no one here has ever used defoo as a threat.

People defoo when they gain an emotional understanding of their parent's corruption.

I dont think i am using de-foo as a threat. I just sort of made refrence to the reasoning behind de-fooing to offer to him a path to more clearly understanding my motivations and perspective.

 

could you maybe elaborate as to why it seemed as though I was using de-fooing as a threat? maybe theres something unconscious there that I did not pick up on.

Not that you did in the above interaction, but I would just be very wary of making ultimatums..."If you don't change, I will leave."  If someone only acts better after a threat of your leaving the relationship, then that change won't be satisfying for either of you – he will likely feel resentful of being "forced" to change, and you will likely not feel satisfied that it took a threat for him to finally change.

Oh and to answer your question...

I think that this sentence could be perceived as getting into ultimatum-territory:

"Basically it boiled down to a choose the church, or our relationship sort of scenario for him"

It's not that you did anything wrong in the above interaction...I would just focus more on feelings rather than dichotomies like that in a future conversation with him.