Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'
Offline Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion' Says atheism-promoting book hidden under mattress, last page bookmarked
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81459
A New York man is linking the suicide of his 22-year-old son, a military veteran who had bright prospects in college, to the anti-Christian book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins after a college professor challenged the son to read it.
"Three people told us he had taken a biology class and was doing well in it, but other students and the professor were really challenging my son, his faith. They didn't like him as a Republican, as a Christian, and as a conservative who believed in intelligent design," the grief-stricken father, Keith Kilgore, told WND about his son, Jesse.
"This professor either assigned him to read or challenged him to read a book, 'The God Delusion,' by Richard Dawkins," he said.
Jesse Kilgore committed suicide in October by walking into the woods near his New York home and shooting himself. Keith Kilgore said he was shocked because he believed his son was grounded in Christianity, had blogged against abortion and for family values, and boasted he'd been debating for years.
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After Jesse's death, Keith Kilgore learned of the book assignment from two of his son's friends and a relative. He searched Jesse's room and found the book under the mattress with his son's bookmark on the last page.
A WND message seeking a comment from Dawkins or his publisher was not returned today.
What makes them think that it wasn't PTSD or just the fact that the process of becoming an atheist in what is obviously a very conservative household isn't what caused his suicide?
Position: This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society: I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group:
Atheist 39.6% 47.6%
Muslim 26.3% 33.5%
Homosexual 22.6% NA
Conservative Christian 13.5% 6.9%
Recent Immigrant 12.5% Not Asked
Hispanic 7.6% 18.5%
Jew 7.4% 11.8%
Asian American 7.0% 18.5%
African American 4.6% 27.2%
White American 2.2% 2.3%
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*Looks in mirror*
*looks at own hands*
Just as I suspected. I am both (a) sitting right here and (b) human.
Kind of puts a hole in your hypothesis.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Careful that the roof of your world doesn't hit you on the head after it's walls finish crumbling down, Cap'n.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
After reading the blog entry from which that quote is taken, I got the impression that the kid had read The God Delusion, and had dismissed it. Nothing in his later writings indicated to me that he was experiencing any lapse of faith. I noticed a slight increased interest in science and technology, but nothing to indicate that his reading The God Delusion had a profound effect on him. That nobody other than his father has come forward with mention of his crisis of faith, combined with his failure to mention or even reflect such a crisis in his public writing, causes me to suspect the crisis of faith is purely an invention of his father. While the man may only be using it to remain in denial, his own raving about morality being destroyed, accusing the college of being mostly atheist, contempt of science, and claiming to be a persecuted religion suggests to me that he is exploiting the death of his son in order to push his views.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
All that shows is that atheism didn't lead to his suicide (which I never said it did...)
I highly doubt his father saw his blog where he wanted to end it all.
That along with the fact he contacted other relatives prior to his death, and yet apparently didn't contact his father. So yeah, I think there is more to this story.
No, you said that you didn't think there were warning signs/the father didn't ignore warning signs/theism had nothing to do with this.
You were wrong, and you're not even woman enough to admit it.
Translation:
lalalalalalalalalalalaIcan'thearyoulalalalalalalalala...
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
My point is that I find it odd that that his relative said that Jesse didn't want to mention anything to his dad.
And no, I'm not trying to defend the father, I think it's a rather dispicable thing he's doing to try to pin his son's suicide on atheism
I think that Christianity lacks the tools needed to handle the temporary nature of life, that's what really failed him.
Sometimes I reflect on my own former Christianity and how my general philsophy has evolved over time. I understand the "What's the point" mentality used by people who find the loss of their God overhelming, but I now understand how flawed the idea is. "What's the point of existing if it's all going to end". They feel that everything is fulile because everything is finite, but so what? It makes me wonder if the person who came up with the phrase "You Can't have your cake and eat it too" was an atheist becuase the concept pretty much sums up the point perfectly. Just because you enjoy something, like a delicious cake, doesn't mean that it's now futile. The point of doing anything is to live in that time, one day everything is going to end.. but that's no reason not to enjoy things right now.
To go beyond your limits you must first find them.
Jacob, I think you hit the nail on the head. War is highly traumatic, if anything caused him to commit suicide, it would be taking the lives of other human beings as well as the gruesome cruelty involved. I have a work friend who is a Veteran of the Iraq war, just recently he showed me a few pictures that his company had taken during his stay there. One of the pictures was of a man's head crushed under a tanks tread, he sowed this to me without a bit of emotion. The psycologial damage of war seems to go far beyond even that of loosing ones belief. I can only guess that his reading of the God Delusion was a display of his weakening faith, and that his Christianity was nothing more than an eazily broken crutch, but I also doubt it was the main reason for him taking his own life.
To go beyond your limits you must first find them.
This young man could have also been living with an inherited propensity for developing mental illness. Some mental patients ( such as your's truly ) require no catastrophic scenario to cause their fragile minds to begin to self destruct. Certainly being a former combat soldier could easily upset whatever delicate balance he may have been experiencing up until then. Whatever the case we can only guess from a distance.
Unfortunately, his coping strategies were insufficient and he resorted to that old standby that millions of his fellow humans depend on.....suicide. It's a sad reality but at least the poor fellow is no longer suffering.