How A Permanent Father Turns Us Into a Permanent Child

When we are children, we believe in things like the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, and so on, only to grow up and understand that such ideas are more fiction than fact. We discover, in other words, that behind the curtain of each of these characters, is usually our parents. And then, out of ultimate love and respect for our parents, we continue that same facade with our own children, and they in turn with theirs, and so on. 

But what if our parents never died? Christopher Hitchens once pointed out that, if we have a father that never dies, then we become permanent children. We are, in other words, infantilized by the notion that we are forever bound to accepting as "true," any and every story told to us by that "all knowing" and "all powerful" father. And this is especially true when we know that, to question any story that eternal "father" tells us to simply "believe," could result in us being thrown into a blast furnace in the basement, forever. 

Religious narratives and "holy books," then, are all  basically stories handed down from just such a "permanent" father, who people around the world are forbidden from doubting, under the threat of eternal torture. And those who come to depend entirely upon those religious stories as their sole source of identity, meaning, and "truth," become like a child who refuses to accept that Santa Clause is more fiction than fact. 

Indeed, they become exactly like the spoiled children in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory who, having been coddled and spoiled their whole lives to "believe" their pedigree made them special (and what is a religious "belief" but a pedigree of the mind?), would rather die like martyrs for their "beliefs" that they are special, than ever admit they are no closer to the "truth" than anyone else, and that the only reason they thought otherwise, was because they had been lied to their entire lives.