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 and Frank Lee-you are speaking my truth and I am grateful. I went the christian route for many years trying to find healing re. my Sociopath mother. I got asked to leave 3 churches because of too many questions. One day I was surfing tv channels and I came upon a program about the nag hammadi scriptures. This book set me free-I found the answers I had been looking for all my life. I especially related to chief chaos of planet chaos. Now I have an inner life of peace-PURE PEACE-and contentment. I know who I am and its the most beautiful truth any human can discover. Its what my soul came here to learn. No one can ever take that truth from me-no matter how evil they are. I stand firm in the truth of love and it is a force to be reckoned with-my force-not evil chaos. We do create our own reality-right or wrong-we create it.
Redheeler – the Naghamadi texts are gnostic texts, and I just wanted to say I was surprised to find someone else here who found meaning in them. They do contain answers that can help people like us (my mom was an Spath/N/histrionic fool, too).
Can I ask you if you ever made peace with your mother directly, or did you make peace inside yourself? I haven’t made peace where my mother is concerned yet, I’m still suffering too much from all of the wounds she inflicted, but I’m looking for my way. Just wondering what your way has been, b/c I don’t meet too many people who know what it is to have an evil mother.
Psyche
Steve, I forgot to mention that many (though certainly not all) gnostics identify the sociopathic god of this world with the God of the Old Testament, for many of the reasons that you list above.
This has been a fascinating post and the responses are really quite fascinating. Unfortunately I have heard the same arguments and replies for more that 40 years with no chnage. So I think I will leave it as an unsolvable discussion as we have yet to develop the technology to visit “the other side” and come back with a definite answer.
I will say though that I have seen things in my live that give me faith in a loving God and things that give me a firm belief in Satan. I sometimes think I married Satan twice, but that’s a personal opinion.
The sadness I feel many times is almost always as a result of people, myself included, acting out in a manner that brings about pain and sorrow. In my own case it is a matter of learning to accept the responsibility and pay the price.
I also belief that a faith in a strong loving God can do wonders for people dealing with the pain we do. The blog site can not be there always, but a strong faith can be.
I see faith as a tool that can be used or put aside, but ultimately the choice is up to us.
Whether you believe in God or not, what I was saying above is that Steve has said we believers were “predisposed” to being with a sociopath, thereby implying that it was OUR fault, and I’m not buying into THAT. I KNOW it was not MY fault, and I don’t like Steve implying to us that it is. We were deceived by lying pieces of sh*t who pretended to be normal human beings. It can happen to anyone, including Steve. I don’t know what Steve’s agenda is and I don’t know who Steve is. Posting these articles is a priviledge, not a right, and this is not healing.
How does Steve explain the millions of non-believers who were burned by a sociopath? These people were not “predisposed” as he suggests people who believe in God were.
Wow, Psyche, you don’t meet too many others with evil mothers? I could start a club with Tshirts with all the evil mothers I know of. They make mine look saintly.
Just for myself, I’ve made peace with my mom inside myself by realizing she was a very sick person. I don’t forgive her behavior, but I don’t hate her. I’ve finally stopped trying to figure her out, as though knowing what her problem is could change anything. That’s what LoveFraud has done for me. I spent most of my life trying to deal with my mother and even after her death, the fear and guilt she instilled in me. Now it doesn’t matter. I could never had made peace with her, she would never have allowed it, heaven knows how many times and ways I tried. Make peace within yourself, then what they do can’t harm you as much. We can’t control their behavior, we can only learn to control how we respond to it.
nah, romanticfool, most of the people in my daily life enjoy spending time with their mothers and wonder why i never go ‘home’ for visits with family. it’s not like i can explain sociopathy to them. their mothers aren’t perfect, but they aren’t sociopathic/evil either. mostly i feel like a black sheep in my circle, which is why i come here.
anyway, thanks for answering my question.
psyche-I have made peace with my mother, inside myself. I spend longer periods of time with her now. If she acts out-I say to myself- another girl could have been born to her and she would have done the same thing to her as she did to me. It was never about me-the sickness is inside her. I came out on the “other side” of the trauma I lived with as a child. I stopped believing in fairy tales and began believing in myself-one step at a time.
hi redheeler,
i think i’m doing what you’ve been doing, and like the way you’ve handled yourself. it’s about finding the otherside of trauma, after accepting it for what it was. no more fairy tales (i had some histrionic traits for a while). i still can’t forgive my mother for all the pain she caused me, and for allowing my brother to abuse me, and destroying all of the happiness I might have known as a child, and for the toxins of abuse that still run through my life (body, relationships etc.), but i can believe in myself, despite it all. i think that believing in myself and my truth will get me to a place where i will feel the pain of what she did less and less. while i got over my N dad a couple of years ago, i only just recently realized how deeply sociopathic my mother was.
thanks for understanding and giving your perspective,
psyche
I used to be a sunday school teacher. I used to be a part of the worship team at the evangelistic church I belonged to for many years. I was as christian as they came.
Though I had stopped attending church because of other obligations, I still felt I had a personal relationship with “my god.” However the last 4-5 yrs have changed me, and my beliefs.
I can’t look around me, and say there is “no god.” There is too many things that scream, creator! However, my view of a loving god who cares about the hairs on my head is gone forever.
I am still having to deal with my ex spath, as I work in the unti where he is a key player. I continue to look for other job opportunities, but in this job market I’m sort of sol. Been looking for another job for almost 3 yrs now. The people who are getting the jobs I apply for, litterally have 20 to 30 yrs more experience in the field!
Needless to say, an OK day can turn bad fast when I hear the ex-spaths voice over a cubical wall. That’s all it takes, the sound of his voice, and I feel trapped and get flashbacks. In the blink of an eye, I’m thrown back into time where I should have made a different choice.
My issue with GOD right now, is the part I felt he played in those choices. I know I’m not a puppet, and I make my own choices. However my belief in god, and my desire to make a difference in the world… was part of what made me an easy target.
Now my view on god is much like yours. I ask myself over and over again, if god is an actual personality or simply a power sorce without any awarness of us individually. Then if he is an actual “person” if you will, I have to agree with you, MANY of his personality traits could easily be describe as sociopathic.
Here is what I wrote yesterday when I was having a melt down at work, after hearing my ex spath’s voice over a cubical.
“I do not understand how there could be a god who watches demons like him run this world and punish his followers. I do not understand how there can be any kind of god, except a sociopathic one who watches us being hurt and killed without lifting a hand to help.
He sits on his thrown on high and looks down on us as ants. He sees the pain and suffering and cares not. We are but ants, so why care? Those like him, the cruel and uncaring are lifted up to places of honor. Because the evil lie so well they can use and manipulate without a single feeling of guilt.
Man alone does not reflect god so much as the sociopath does. If you are crushed by them so what? After all, it’s nothing personal.”
I have trust issues now, and I used to be the most trusting person I knew. My lack of trust, includes god now. I am but his vesel… it’s up to HIM what he puts into me. That doesn’t mean I have to like it when it’s shi+ though.