I’ve been thinking lately about God, assuming He exists. Mainly, I’ve been thinking about the Judeo-Christian biblical conception of God, and asking myself, crazy as this sounds, if He exists, Is God a sociopath?
I pose this question seriously, and apologize in advance for offending anyone by probing this idea. But consider:
You are expected to worship Him.
You are expected to acknowledge His perfection.
You are expected to live by His standards.
You are expected to fear His Judgement.
You are expected to please, not disappoint Him.
You are expected to do penance when you’ve strayed from His rules.
You are expected to be in awe of, and fear, His omniscience.
You are expected to be in awe of, and fear, His omnipotence.
You are expected to prize His love, and fear His wrath.
You are expected to seek, and follow, His guidance.
When He feels unheeded, He licenses Himself to unleash cruel, violent, devastating rages (see the Flood, among countless other examples).
He is a punisher.
He is perfect.
He has no guilt; yet He instills guilt.
He “made,” and he “works,” the world and universe from “above,” sitting in Judgement of all who deviate from Him.
He is infallible.
He is unaccountable.
He is callous—a cause of, and silent witness to, untold violence and suffering in the history of humanity.
He is “entitled—”to judge, and punish, as He likes.
He is controlling to a highly pathological degree, for all the reasons stated above.
He is merciful, so long as you heed Him. Otherwise, He can be merciless.
He expects to be idealized and treated like a God.
He rages, and inflicts the cruelest of punishments, when He feels defied.
His word is the bible.
Now you tell me: If I were describing a human being in these terms, what conclusion would you draw? I suspect, if you weren’t feeling defensive, that you’d conclude that we’re talking about someone with a case of seriously malignant narcissism edging, perhaps, into the realm of sociopathy?
But, of course, I’m describing the Judeo-Christian God.
Think about this: from the earliest age, this is your almighty Father figure. You are taught to worship Him, seek His love, His mercy, accept His perfection and infallibility.
You are taught that His word is final; His wrath is justified; to feel shame before His eyes.
You are taught to have to work hard to earn your way back into His good graces, and to be grateful for His forgiveness.
His judgement is final, and even terrifying.
Now if this is the Father figure we’ve been raised to heed and idealize from birth, is it not fair to wonder how much this relationship—with God—might predispose us to end up with a sociopath?
Does one’s adult relationship with a sociopath not replicate, in certain ways, one’s relationship with God?
I pose this as food for thought, nothing else. But I will follow-up this post in the next several weeks, to further flesh out my thoughts, factoring in, as well, your initial feedback.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Steve I love this and very brave to post !!!!!!
OK, I’ll give up some of the key words that non-believers do not comprehend.
You are expected to worship Him. Meaning, you are suppose to open up the Bible and read what is written (truth versus lies, wisdom versus staying ignorant).
You are expected to acknowledge His perfection. Meaning, know the difference between a loving functional individual versus a hateful, dysfunctional individual.
You are expected to live by His standards. Comprehend what healthy, positive minded is.
You are expected to fear His Judgement. Meaning to Fear God is to start learning wisdom.
You are expected to please, not disappoint Him. Meaning, don’t slack off and stop reading wisdom after the first scripture.
You are expected to do penance when you’ve strayed from His rules. Meaning, don’t be an airhead and do as you please, learn to live civilly among others.
You are expected to be in awe of, and fear, His omniscience. Again, meaning to start learning wisdom.
You are expected to be in awe of, and fear, His omnipotence. Same thing ” meaning start learning wisdom.
You non-believers have some reading to do to catch up. Oh, isn’t that what one tomato said to the other tomato?
“With tears in my eyes”
”“My God is a God of love, peace, understanding, comfort and empathy. My God has conscience and heart.
My God doesn’t manipulate, cheat, lie, con, steal, abuses or uses me, he respects and loves me for who I am and doesn’t try to kill my soul or my personality.
When He punishes me is with love to teach me as every good father should do with his children.—This Is The God I worship.
Timely post and seeing as Wini pointed me to an old post I made that fits here I will repost it here. FYI to Wini I used his words but I thought this long before I knew him.
This is a small explanation of my view on “God”. The words are not mine but come from a Rabbi and his words over time that I find I agree with and just paraphrase now:
For me, and I can only speak for myself, I see “God” in a much different light than some. I’ll try to explain my view in hopes it may be of help to you.
God is the Source and Substance of all that is. God manifests as and transcends all reality. God is not other than creation, nor is God limited to creation. (I do not believe in intelligent design, I believe the design itself is intelligent.)
Self. The individual is a manifestation of God. We are to God as rays of sunlight are to the sun. Sunlight is simply the sun manifest in time and space. It is not other than the sun nor is it all of the sun. You and I are rays of God. We are not all of God, nor are we other than God. This is what the Bible means when it says we are created in the image and likeness of God.
When you know who you are as the image and likeness of God you live from love with love. You embrace each moment with gratitude, and each being with justice and compassion. Living this way is heaven. Living any other way is hell.
When we are in spacious mind we are awake to God in, with, and as all reality; we identify with all life, and find ourselves embraced by and living from ahava rabba, infinite love. In spacious mind there is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, saved or damned. There is only God manifest in infinite variety. In spacious mind we live freely, lovingly, fearlessly, with compassion and hospitality toward all we meet. This is heaven.
When we are in narrow mind we are locked in the prison of ego, and imagine ourselves to be separate from God and creation. We live in perpetual fear, and engage life without trust, love, and compassion. In narrow mind we divide and judge, calling some chosen or saved and others infidels or damned. In narrow mind differences, God’s infinite creativity, scare us, and we worship the idol of conformity. In narrow mind we imagine ourselves to be alone, afraid, and adrift. This is hell.
We move into and out of heaven and hell depending on our state of mind. The purpose of authentic spiritual practice is to open us to heaven and spacious mind. Too often, however, we worship at the altar of ego and end up in the hell of narrow mind. It has nothing to do with God rewarding or punishing us. It has everything to do with our willingness to see what is true.
I am to God as a wave to the ocean. Each wave is unique and distinct, yet all waves are nothing other than the ocean in which they arise. Each being is unique and distinct, and yet not other than God who is all that is.
God to me is, as the Bible says, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh,” (Exodus 3:14) the I AM that is all being and becoming. God is the water than embraces both ocean and the wave. God is the nondual Reality that embraces and transcends the duality of absolute and relative, I and Thou, front and back, good and evil. There is nothing that is other than God. Nothing that is apart from God.
To me God is not a thing that can be just or unjust, good or evil. God is Reality, and Reality can be both just and unjust, both loving and cruel. But these are human concepts. Nature is neither good or evil, it is just what it is. We humans call things good and evil depending on whether or not they serve our interests. What I am saying is that when I see myself and all beings are part of the nondual Reality I call God, I see the wisdom of engaging life with love, compassion, empathy, and justice toward all beings.
As in all things, you have a choice. The choice of honoring and reverencing God has and always will come down to two words…Free Will.
Good post Shana31, free will (meaning your choice) to be either a functioning, loving, intelligent human being that lives in harmony with others and takes responsibility for their thoughts, words, actions …. or the complete opposite … to be an anti-social personality in the world, non functioning, hateful, foolish with self centered thoughts, desires and deeds who will never take responsibility for their thoughts, words or actions.
Amen, which means “SO IT IS or THAT IS THAT”
Hell, meaning anguish … for what a fool does to us having them come into our lives.
Peace.
It is with faith in God that I have been able to move out of toxic relationships. They simply were not what He wants for me.
Hey, the thread I really wanted to see started here! Cheers.
Consider this; Satan told Eve not to be bullied anymore by God – now think about that. Who is the real sociopath in this equation? The autocratic, intolerant bullying God, or the serpent in the Garden who pointed this bullying out to Eve?
Interesting when you look at it this way. Isn’t it? Was Satan the original Robert Hare? Perhaps the first women’s lib advocate?
Of course I am being simplistic and I do not believe in the silly garbage of a devil or a hell, but just flipping the context so you see how easily the “scripture” can be changed to suit an agenda?
I am delighted to see this topic brought up as so many people here seem to think the Bible is helping them. This is frightening in terms of the path they are taking for recovery as they are jumping straight into the ultimate manual of sociopathic manipulation.
This is what the Bible was designed to do from its inception. From the Council of Nicea to the Councils of Withby and Trent it has all been about creating a bespoke “God” so it makes it easier to control the rest of us. It is not a religion created with our welfare in mind, no religion anywhere on the planet is about anything which ultimately helps ordinary people. Its all about controlling them by playing on their fears. Sociopathy 101.
Firstly, we have to define who and what this biblical “God” is. I have studied this stuff for years to the point were I have collected many books and even some historic archives on the matter. Essentially the origins of the Western religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all rooted in Astrology. Or to be more correct Astro-Theology. Old fashioned Paganism.
This is basically worshipping the stars and planets as Gods. For instance; Judaism is mostly rooted in the worship of the planet Saturn. Lucifer is the planet Venus, Christ is rooted in the worship of Egyptian (Horus), The Virgin Mary (Osiris and the Sumarian Queen Semiramius) and Roman solar deities (Sol Invictus and Mithra). You get the idea. Same dieties, new packaging.
This is all very interesting and harmless stuff. In fact, once you read into it, Astro-Theology and Paganism in general are good ways to develop archetypal understandings of natural laws. Joseph Campbell has written many wonderful works on this. I myself being Irish tend to aling myself with Druidic concepts. Which culturally works for me more effectively than the misery which the appalling Catholic and Protestant sects have brought to my island for hundreds of years. (Saint Patrick was a Roman agent who did to the Druids what the Conquistadors did to the Mayans)
But that just something that interests me personally and helps me grasp certain archetypal concepts otherwise difficult to grasp within the context of the Western mind. I do not worship anything.
But I feel a sense of “connection” to other humans and animal souls and nature. I need no middle man – nobody does. We are all incredible Gods and Goddess’ inside ourselves and been conned into handing our true spiritual nature to the sociopaths in frocks. But I can see the wonder and true beauty in some of the wisdom that can be found in Christian, Judaic and Islamic and many Eastern Hindu and especially Taoist Text. But joining any club is not for me. The only God I need is myself. Same for all of us. Because that’s what we all are.
The simple fact is the Judeo-Christan God is a sociopath.
Absolutely 100% no doubt. This would stand up in an clinical or anecdotal analysis of his behaviour and pathology. He is an evil, cold blooded, decieving, manipulative and generally horrible fellow.
The good news is he is also a total fiction made up by the Levite Preisthood in Babylon who were a black magic blood drinking child-sacrificing cult who fused together certain aspects of Eqyptian Atonism and the Babaloyian Religion. They also perverted Judaism into a something it was not before they became the official wing of Western religion.
All the problems with Western religious sectarianism spawned from this cult. They were not Jews anymore than Charles Manson was a Christian. They were akin to a cult who under a political mandate within the context of the Babalyonian/Sumarian empire needed a One-True-God concept to legitimise the “Divine Right of Kings” which is still sadly with us to this day.
Eventually this by way of Egypt moved to Rome and became the Catholic Church. This is how Jesus (who may or may not have been real) became the deity. Jesus was just a fusion of the eariler Mithra and Zarroastra pagan myths. (look all this stuff up and do not take my word for it)
The good news is that regardless of if you are Christian, Jew, Moslem, practicing, or otherwise and your heart is good it matters not that your religion is real or not. You make it real thought your love and deceny towards others. But you need to keep in mind that the God you worship has an appalling track record and most of the stuff he tells you is to destroy your soul and not save it.
In my personal opinion the Judeo-Christian God is the greatest disaster to have ever been visited upon mankind and has been a huge source of misery and totalitarian control on ordinary people.
The reality is, long before Constantine converted to Catholism (which is absolute bullshit when you read the true accounts) the concept of the “One True God” has been used to implement control on people. “One True King” and so on. “King of Kings”. Charlamange and the Holy Roman Empire took this idea to extemes. But to this day it still goes on. Look how many people see Obama as a sort of Godhead. He is just a man like the rest of us. But I have watched videos of Americans and others literally in a state of religious eurphoria looking at him speaking. The Devine Right of Kings idea is as strong as ever… It’s all rooted in the same concept of, if there is a God in Heaven, then we must obey his representatives on Earth…
I do not believe in a God as such. But I do believe in our amazing and incredible spiritual reality. It is deeply important to me and I make sure I am concioussly aware of my personal divinity as much as possible. Everything is a miracle. In that you, I and everyone is just a piece of “god” which makes up the whole. In the same way if you cut up a holographic image they all are a smaller version of the main image.
So we are all a sort of God, but we also have a responsibility to create the reality we live in. This planet is our school of life and we are all here to learn. This is why the sociopaths are also here. Consider them a really nasty teacher or lesson.
This is a holographic universe and without any question it reacts to our desires and wishes. This is why we have to be very careful of how we live our life and who we hand our power and energy over to. Quantum Physics and especially The Copenhagen Experiment where scientists discovered that a sub atomic particle was either a wave or matter depending on when they looked at it. This proved we get the reality we want. This is all a movie and we can write our own script. We must all strive to be Gods if we are to create the universe we want. Because we will get what we want. This is not New Age crap, but hard science which validates much of the pagan wisdom the same Bible told you would send you to burn in Hell. Isn’t that interesting…
Again, the God of the bible is a crazy psychopath, complete bullying fuitcake – anyone with honesty can see this by the horrible evil scriptures documenting his behaviour. The good news is he never existed. He was a fiction invented by evil people on behalf of psychopath rulers. The other good news is it does not matter once your heart is in the right place. It’s trancends the dogmatism put into your head since childhood.
Spirituality YES, Religion? NO Thanks!
Peace (I’ll run and hide behind the sofa now…)
Steve,
I think an important distinction needs to be made between God, the source of all things and the loving energy that holds us all, and religion, which is man-made.
What you have described is what I learned in Catholic school. Quite frankly, I don’t buy it. The dogma is not my experience of God. If you look at the history of the Catholic Church, the hierarchy was always more concerned about consolidating power than serving the flock. The New Testament was a political settlement reached at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD – an attempt to settle disputes among many different versions of Christianity. And just look at how the church is handling the sex abuse scandals today. It’s appalling.
Then, look at other religions like Buddhism, which predates Christianity. I’m not an expert in it, but my understanding is that Buddhism has none of the concepts you’ve listed above. Can all those millions of people be wrong and damned to rot in hell? That doesn’t make any sense.
This song comes from a misplaced faith and trust in someone (S-ex) or something who was not worthy. My God is worthy.
Final thoughts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSq0PiYVM9E