Fight Club: Perceptions of God as an Absentee Parent. How is man's relationship to his father reflective of his relationship to God?

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Perceptions of God as an Absentee Parent

Try asking the question, "Have you seen the movie Fight Club?" of any conservative person who has not seen the movie. Almost all of them will reply, "No. I don't like movies about violence." And it's hard to convince them that a movie with such a title and that actually did spawn numerous underground boxing clubs among adolescent American teens really isn't about violence. "Well, what's it about then?" A quick answer of anarchy or nihilism usually won't placate these conservatives either, and is far from true anyway. Both the movie and the book go a lot deeper than that. There are many important and timely messages interwoven and clumped into the story by author Chuck Palahniuk. We will focus on two parallel themes, which run through both works. The first is a man's relationship, or non-relationship, to his father. And the second is drawn from that: our relationship with God is like our relationship to our fathers.

Chuck Palahniuk never would have dreamed his debut novel would become a landmark feature film. His first attempt to get published was with Invisible Monsters. Publishers liked it, but thought it would be too dark, too seditious for the readers. How did Palahniuk respond to this concern? He got frustrated. And he wrote something even blacker and darker and more stirring. In an interview with Chris Switzer of turtleneck.net, Palahniuk explained what he was thinking: "'What if I make it even more offensive, and more dark, and more risky? They'll never publish it.' I had really given up hope. I was never going to get published so I might as well write what I want to write. That's when I wrote Fight Club" .

His honesty and creativity paid off. The issues...