Disputing my Dad

Just a week ago my dad spammed out an email to me and other relatives about his discoveries and studies about "Creation Science", I was appalled to see glaring straw men like Pascal's Wager and other things that no body uses as "evidence" anymore. I have always been proud and respectful of my Dad. I wrote a response to each one of his "evidences" but that email is still sitting in my outbox, I just cannot bring myself to send it. I think there is a point where confrontation would serve no purpose.

I think your approach was ethical and respectful of your dad. I've encountered the same situation with my father, who is a life-long Christian with strong convictions, especially on creationism, pre-milleanialism, the immorality of gays and the ACLU and the morality of the Bush family. I think disputation and defending one's point of view has its place. However, with my own father, I ask the question: to what end? as I know minds won't be changed although feelings could get hurt.

I remember the story of a great Hasidic rabbi whose mother went mad when he was a teenager. She would go out into the streets shouting and he would go out, find her and gently guide her back home. While she walked with him, she would insult him loudly and mock him to those he met along the way. He grew up exquisitely sensitive but he never, ever spoke badly of her. The more she acted horribly, the more protective of her he was. He may have been relieved when she died but he mourned her as if she were the greatest mother on earth.

This was one of his greatest merits. He honored his mother even though she did not honor him. In that, he was doing the mitzvah, "honor thy mother and thy father." He honored her in two ways. One, he covered her madness by removing her from a situation of shame. Had she ever become sane again, she might have been ashamed of her behavior so he stopped her behavior being a scandal to the neighbors. Then, he never complained that she was shaming him.

The balance is hard to reach. If your father is sending you input that erodes your respect for him, you find ways to replenish that respect from other sources. You don't respond to the messages that make you angry. If he insists on bringing them up, you shrug and change the subject to something about which you two can meet. Tell him you respect his opinion (not the contents but his right to hold it) but do not share it.

I had a father who loved to argue with me. Gawd, he had so much fun getting me riled up. But when he was sick at the end of his life and I knew I had to make sense of our time together, I realized that he had done me a favor by making me learn about the world just so I could argue with him. I became a ravenous reader and avid learner. I was able to thank him for the rancor of our earlier relationship. Maybe your father has made you a more aware skeptic along the way. Find ways to thank him for that.