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.)
Wini,
I will save any judgement for God, and you don’t reach people by condemning them.
Buttons,
You say God is a device of man. The article does attest that this is how we were taught about God; well I wasn’t taught to believe that. There was a series of commercials recently about beef jerky and messing with Sasquatch. Well eventually Bigfoot catches up to those that are just playing with him. What more so the one who created us? I think it is so that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, without it you can think you are smart, but you really aren’t. I had a college baseball coach who was a Dr. of psychology, who I attest was the craziest person around. As a matter of fact most people I have known who have had their degrees in psychology or psychiatry have been “abby” normal. You know the what about Bob types. But I won’t go down the road to say that they are all sociopaths. That would be sterotyping just like saying all Christians are predisposed to falling prey to sociopaths because we have been taught God is terrifying (which we were not all taught that).
Teacher123, what are you talking about? Scriptures speaks about the “mark of the beast” being a sign on your forehead. Meaning, Satan deceives the masses making them think Jesus isn’t real. The sign on your forehead is your MIND!
Teacher123, I did NOT say that God was “a device of man.” What I have been saying all along this thread is that MANKIND has placed boundaries on GOD – limitations, human attributes – this was the crux of Steve’s original article, I feel.
The God that I know is AGAPE – unconditional love.
Brightest blessings.
The Beast mentioned in Revelations is the Roman Empire. The mark of the beast is the Roman taxation system. The Book of Revelation talks only about events relating to disinfranchised Jews living under Roman occupation 2,000 years ago. Has nothing to do with prediciting the future in today’s world. That’s The Omen movie.
And as I mentioned prior, Lucifer is one of the names the Romans called the planet Venus. Astrology is the basis of all Western religion. Jesus is connected to the fish as he was born under the Age of Pisces during something called The Precession of the Equinox. It’s all rooted in astrology. All of it.
Christians do not know this stuff because almost none of them actually read this book they defend. If they did they would not be on this thread calling it offensive. The Bible is also loaded with racism. The Book of Hamm declares dark skin people unholy. There are endless accounts of delight in the slaughter of various ethnic groups and how God helped and was pleased.
As for 666 – this is derived from Jewish Kabbalism which is a mystical mystery school. It simply means money and the magical intent to create wealth.
The God of the Bible is a sociopath. I cannot see how any rational person looking at the matter objectively can come to any other conclusion.
Where do you think the term “God Fearing” came from…
Given a choice between God and Satan I would chose Satan everytime. The serpent represents freewill, personal choices and inner wisdom. Satan was saving Adam and Eve from a sociopath God. This is why freewill and wisdom were deemed “evil” as you cannot keep a dogma going if the “flock” think for themselves.
“Sharon C., try changing your views about the history of Christianity this way ” that the wars were to rid the world of the sociopathic/psychopathic personalities of the day? Today, what do our courts do? A big NOTHING except take the money, time, patience of the law abiding citizens in this country and tell them they won ” now go and do something about it.”
Sorry, I will not be able to relate to this viewpoint. The history of christianity is a violent, forceful one. They did not wipe out psychopaths and leave only the healthy. They attacked innocent communities and forced them to choose death or Christ, then tortured converts to find out if they really believed. If you can manage to take that, candy coat it, and turn it into a unicorn with rainbows, be my guest.
With religion, the entire problem is that people are asked to leave logic and reason behind and have “faith” that the bizarre behaviors and absurd claims in the Bible are something we will just never understand because God is something we aren’t capable of understanding so we need to just accept, without judgement or questioning. This in a nutshell explains why some people will do just that- justify anything at all in the Bible as a devine action they cannot grasp and will not judge, while others who dare to look to their own moral codes will have a lot of difficulty accepting the cruelty associated with the Bible both in it, and as a result of it.
The main issue on this thread is that Christians do not know anything about the bible. What they know is what they have been told to know in their churches. When something like the title of this thread points out the reality of what is actually written in there in Black and White, some of them get offended, because they “never saw that” and “never heard of that.”
Well said Sharon C.
Look at the Cathars. The Catholic Church wiped out an entire culture in Southern France and Spain because they chose to take a diferent slant than the Pope. When the pope was told that many catholics would also be killed in the slaughter, his response was “God will know his own” and look at Charlamange and the elimination of the Germanic tribes for refusing to accept Jesus Christ as their saviour and it just goes on and on and on… But you can’t tell these Christians this! Oh no, it’s all about love isn’t it.
The Christians will never accept that their beloved bible has created more misery and genocide than all the love and inner healing they claim it provides. And it is not just the Bible. The Talmud/Torah, Koran you name it all have the same baggage.
The God of the bible has been the ultimate enabler of sociopaths in Western societies since this barbaic Bronze Age blueprint for control, domination, subjugation and intolerance was first invented by human sociopaths to beat the rest of us down.
If this make me a nut then get me a straight jacket and put me in a rubber room with all the other unbelievers! I do not want to live in a sane world were the Bible represents the path of “truth”.
Screw that.
I’ve not yet read through all the posts here, but I find the diversity of thought, faith, and individuality here fascinating and educational.
Steve, I do understand why you posted what you have here and it is definitely food for thought.
In the past, I have heard and read about God being referred to as a sociopath, if not at least narcissistic. What is very interesting about this, if one is to believe that God truly IS sociopathic and/or narcissistic, why narcissists and sociopaths FLOCK to religious affiliations! I think it’s wonderful that people have faith and I certainly do, but I also believe that too many USE that faith, coupled with their religion to check out of the process of logical thinking. In other words, they expect God to do everything FOR them rather than using the tools that God gave each of us to do it for themselves. This makes those of “blind faith” incredibly susceptible to sociopathic victimization, especially in the “church”.
I avoid religious affiliations by actually stepping foot into a church. It asks me to leave my logic at the door and follow as a stupid sheep being led to political, conservative, slaughter, spiritually speaking. Because I do not attend church, does not mean I do not believe in God, have faith, or that I dismiss the teachings of Jesus especially. I have run into far too many women, myself included, who have fallen victim to men in the church that were clearly narcissistic, if not sociopathic. It is disheartening how many their truly are. It is also used as a system of helplessness and entrapment, denial to stay in a marriage or relationship that is clearly unhealthy and dangerous.
I experienced this getting out of my first marriage to a psychopath and the church I was involved in. Divorce was a BIG no no, and when I finally left him, it was MY fault and I was not following in faith in God to “save” my husband from his sin. Unfortunately, his “sin” is not curable. I believe Sam Vaknin also referred to this thinking as malignant optimism.
So this was my conclusion: if one believes in God, good, heaven, etc, one also believes in evil, hell, Satan, and equally, the two CAN coexist on this earth as “good” as well as “evil”, and can inhabit the heart and mind of a human being. To assume each “Christian” is completely totally Christian without combined common sense, using the above factors, is ludacris.
God gave us ALL a free will. We are told that psychopaths are AWARE of what they are doing, as are narcissists and CHOOSE not to change themselves, seek help, etc. But there are also many victims sitting in church pews everywhere, who CHOOSE to remain with their sociopathic spouses and CHOOSE to remain in denial. Please don’t misunderstand me, I do not blame the victim. I’ve been there, done that, but there DOES come a time when the lightbulb DOES go on…..it may take many times to get free for the victim, but more needs to be done IN the church to help those that are the victims of attending Narcissists and Sociopaths, who also need to be held accountable for their actions.
Another thing I’d like to point out and something that a really great and HEALTHY Pastor said to me while I struggled and struggled as to “commit the sin of divorce”…..I had said that my husband had committed adultery many times, but I stayed and then had an affair of my own when I had reached the point of my wits end with no love, no care, no nothing but abuse from him, this is when I decided it was time to go….anyway, I needed spiritual emotional release from this marriage so the Pastor asked me, “Why do you think adultery is limited only to straying from the marriage sexually?” I responded, “Because that’s what I was taught”…….he said to me, “Let me read you something….he picked up a book, that looked like a biblical dictionary and read the description for the word adultery. It is the vacating of the marriage, not just sexually, but emotionally, spiritually and physically. When your spouse is abusing you, even if he is NOT straying from the marriage sexually, he is committing adultery. The way that marriage is described in the bible is many times misinterpreted, I believe, and that the concept to love your wife as christ loved the church is forgotten for the basic narcissistic sociopath whose primary focus is on control and manipulation. HIS focus will be on OBEDIENCE from his wife, not about loving her. And unfortunately, many times, the hierarchal, patriarchal system will validate him, putting her further into jeopardy, not only with him, but her own spirituality.
I think that the propensity to teach a lack of logic, in return for what I understood at one time to be faith, is not what God would want for me. I have learned about many religious faiths since my separation from my spouse, which has been many years now. I have a DEEPER faith and SPIRITUALITY because I chose to learn more about other faiths, other people. Others experiences. God gave us ALL a brain, are we in sin if we do not USE it to THINK about God, about life and the universe? About sociopathy and narcissism and the realities of good and evil?
Never again will I leave my logic or insight behind. Love for God, for me, is MORE, not less, because I use my BRAIN. The saddest examples, I feel, are more prominent than not in how so many leave their God given intelligences at the religious door. It is an excuse not to move on. It is a stagnate, painful place to be. When we expect God to do EVERYTHING for us (no lie, my ex sister in law would literally go to the store and pray about contents on labels of food cans), we are CHOOSING to do NOTHING for ourselves.
I believe that God is real. I believe that Jesus was a shining example of God’s love that we are to show others. Probably the best thing that God ever did for us………….
But I also believe that Satan is real, that there are immeasurable amounts of evil, as well as good, in the universe and I think that sociopaths and narcissists are tools of that evil to bring down those of faith, but it is your LOGIC that will save you from that evil. It’s an essential tool that God gave all of us. But he’s not gonna do it for us. We have to love ourselves enough and love others enough to make it happen.
End of story
So why would God create Sociopath’s if he were not a sociopath, God’s self?
If God were All Knowing, then he would have known about his creation, Satan, the fallen angel!
Why would he create Satan(=Sociopath)!
If God was All Powerful, Why has God not destroyed Satan?
Frank Lee, I can see your childhood now. When you went out for practice to make the baseball team, you brought along your hockey stick. When you went out for the debate team, you brought along your drums. When you applied for the debate team, you brought your scuba gear.
Keep sitting on that fence of yours Frank, while talking chit from the sidelines. All the Christians are telling you when you finally want to jump into the waters with the rest us … we’ll see who can tread water the longest.
Not just another cookie from the cutter’s block!