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| Borders, in Ann Arbor |
Vitz's book is Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism.
Vitz is a former atheist who became a Jesus-follower. Vitz became an atheist at age 18, and his atheism lasted until he was 38.
Vitz's "Theory of the Defective Father" is outlined as:
1. father present but weak
2. father present but abusive
3. father absent
Vitz analyzes the lives of staunch atheists and finds, generally, that one of the three points obtains.
Personally, many militant atheists I have met fit this pattern.
Vitz's work is not meant to attack atheists, but rather, to show that:
•just as psychology has often trained itself on the psychology of belief, it can also be used to explore the psychology behind unbelief, including showing correlation with formative emotional events
•just as the propensity for belief might be explained by emotional needs and experiences, so can the propensity for unbelief
•just because someone has a psychological need for belief or unbelief does not mean that such beliefs are wrong OR right, so we should stop attacking ideological opponents by accusing them of mental illness - not that such accusations are untrue, but that they can be leveled from both sides, so it's a draw
•there is a very strong correlation between unbelief and the breakdown of the family authority structure, the safety of the family, and esp. the experience of a failed father. He proposes that this is also a causative factor as well. (These four bullets are from here.)
