God has a narcissistic personality disorder
A narcissist is a person who has a very frail ego. He will do a lot of weird stuff to promote the idea of his superiority over others, especially their spouse or girl friend. Now let’s imagine for a while, that (the Christian) God is a person, who enters your (God’s bride you,) life.
You are having rough time in your life, and that is usually when God appears. He comes in as your saviour, tells you that he will make everything better, because he loves you. You poor thing made a mess out of your life without me, but now I am here, to make it all better. It will be very special between us, I love you, you love me, and we forsake all others.
He does make everything better. The Sun seems to shine brighter for you and you feel so loved and special. You focus fully on your new love, and you tell everyone how happy you are, and how much in love you are with this special man. Your friends are a bit on the hesitant side, most of them don’t really believe that you are for real. They warn you a bit about the dangers of going into the relationship head over heels.
God, your man, will now tell you that you have to ignore your friends, because they are not good enough. They haven’t been touched by love like you are, they don’t know. They are not experienced enough to give you advice. You would be better off without them anyway, at least give yourself some space from them, and concentrate on US. Just ignore what they say, they don’t know what they are saying. How could they know what a special relationship we have?
God will then slowly introduce some rules into the relationship. He likes his bed made the certain way. He doesn’t like you swearing. He doesn’t like you being too slutty, dressing up too slutty, as that will arouse other men. (Yes, narcissists do that, exactly.) If you enjoy sex, it has to be with him, and with him you have to be ecstatic, it’s God Sex, woman! You have my blessing here! Moan and groan, woman, it’s me inside you! One day you buy yourself a dress you think your man will like, but he will turn away from you, and says he hates it. Too sexy. It must be that you don’t love me! You want to attract other men, you want that dirty sex that other men give you! Not the divine and pure sex we have! You whore!
He will tell you that he insists that you have to eat healthy, but buys cakes and chocolate for you. He places them in front of you and waits. When you eat some, he will tell you what an disobedient horrible person you are! He will tell you that you have to respect these people, but then manipulate them behind your back to behave in a disrespectful manner, just so that you would slip up again and you demonstrate how you don’t respect them. He takes great pleasure in trapping you. Once you have been humiliated like this, he will then insist on having an intimate moment with you, to strengthen the bond you share.
When you silently think that you want out of this relationship, he will threaten you with the hell he will put you through if you don’t comply with his rules. He will not only make your life a hell, but your childrens as well, he will make your children pay for your sins, regardless, sure, they are his children as well, but your sins will be paid by your son. There’s a reason for you to stay put! Besides, wouldn’t it be embarrassing to leave? God was so good to you to start with, and you were so silly going into the relationship telling everyone about all those wonderful things he did! How could you admit to them, that it wasn’t as good as it seemed after all? God tells you, that nobody will ever love you the way he did anyway, and you should do anything for love like that, shouldn’t you? You don’t just cast away happiness with both hands like that! You will never be happy again if you leave me, I should know, because I’m God, right?
Sure… This image of a God is the one that exists in the unedited version of the bible and old testament. But how far are we supposed to “edit” God and still think it’s the same bloke? A lot of people will say, that God is really not like that… And all wives of narcissists have said the exact same thing at some point or another. “It’s not how he is, he’s just misunderstood.”
So if you really know what God is like, what do you need a church or the Bible for? That’s what I decided long ago, nobody was going to tell me what God likes or doesn’t like, I was in as good of a position to know Gods will than anyone else. So I left the church, and I have never looked back.
| 2.5 |
Off topic Child Free discussion board.
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Tony Single (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Well, I’m one of those who are in love with the Narcissist, I guess. What can I say but, “Oops, sorry for the faux pas!”
Brie (Who am I?)
1 month ago
I like how you likened the devote Christian’s relationship with God to an abusive relationship. It really is.
Great blog post!
Bries last blog post..Just a Glamoramapuss.
Sebastyne (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Tony, is he the edited version or the one that Bible (including the Old Testament) describes? If you include the OT, how do you explain that to yourself? If not, how do you explain that to yourself?
Brie, our earlier conversations were one inspiration for this.
Tony Single (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Well, I think the God of the Old Testament and New Testament are one and the same, not either/or (and I’m sure that’s not what you were saying
). Now, if all I had was the OT God, then I wouldn’t follow him, nor would I follow him if he was just the NT God. An exclusively OT God is far too moody and dangerous, having the infinite ability to act on those emotions without any kind of thought to what mere mortals would suffer. An exclusively NT God is too wishy washy to be taken seriously. But taken together, I get the sense of a God who was once angry at being rejected (Adam’s disobedience and so on…), but then eventually calmed down and decided to take a different, gentler approach to this strange human/God relationship thing. I see this culminating in the an expression of love called the crucifixion. He allowed himself to be nailed up, and died there, essentially taking the blame for all of human history (that includes his role in things). In other words, I can’t pick and choose the bits I like and ditch the uglier bits. I have to admit to myself that God, like me, has feelings and a personality, and makes his choices whether others like it or not. It’s true, people died because of him, but he also died for me, which says to me that he doesn’t take pleasure in the suffering of others. That’s how I see it any way.
Ultimately, I can’t justify him to you or anybody, and if I’m deluded, it’s certainly not for lack of having thought about the very issues (and they’re valid ones) you’ve raised in this article. It might surprise you (it might not, which means I’ve made an assumption I oughtn’t have), but this article closely mirrors the questioning I’ve gone through before and during my relationship with the Narcissist.
Sebastyne (Who am I?)
1 month ago
I find the thought of a God with a personality quite dangerous and… Well… rebinds me of those stories of Greek and Roman gods who had a whole heaps of issues to deal with (like Narcissus…) To think that a God would be so easy to offend and make angry… Why would he care? He knows he’s going to get his way in the end, and if you know that, why would you be so uptight about things? If you know you have a divine plan that cannot go wrong in the end, why would you care what people do about it right now? And to think that people are not judged by the same rules on that final day… Should you have been living before Christ, or after Christ… And you’d have to know about the bloke to follow him, right? So what if you never heard of God? To Hell with you, is that it? Or if you haven’t heard of God, are you judged again with a different set of rules? If so, wouldn’t it be best NOT to hear, and stop preaching? Or is it about since I have to go by these rules, you should too - you know, other people can’t have it easier.
Yeah… There’s a lot of things I don’t agree with that version of a God. I can’t say that I don’t agree with God, because I cannot be sure what he is really like, but I think that if he exist, he must be very logical fair and stable at all times.
Tony Single (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Again, all quite valid questions, but none of them are ones I can answer for you (it would be arrogant for me to presume to). Any thinking person asks these questions if they’ve genuinely read the Bible for themselves, and any thinking person admits that they probably know hardly any of the answers.
At the end of the day, maybe I’m the one who’s the narcissist for believing in a personal, loving God. I would hope I’m not, but then I’ve turned out to be a lot of not very nice things over the years. Regardless, we all stand by the things we decide are true, and try to figure out our path through that.
Sebastyne (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Those are rhetorical questions, I don’t expect an answer. I know the answers to those from my point of view, the God I believe in is very different to the Christian one, but that is beside the point of this post. (I was born Lutheran so I was taught from birth that this is what God is like, but I started asking some questions, not necessarily the ones above, and as I didn’t find answers I would be satisfied with, I decided the Christian God must be a human made. That didn’t stop me from believing in a God, but it forced me to rethink the whole concept.)
I do have one question I am curious about though; Why do you choose to believe in the Christian God after all those questions?
As for narcissism, I don’t think you are one. :p (I can smell them a mile away these days.)
Tony Single (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Sebastyne, I’m afraid you might not find my answer to be a very satisfactory one, so you have my apologies if that turns out to be the case… but I shall attempt one nonetheless!
In a nutshell, I didn’t grow up a Christian, but I was always looking into lots of different philosophies and forms of belief, as I was curious about those things any way (and still am). I feel like I’ve believed that there is Something bigger for all my life, that I was always trying to find a way to touch the face of it. However, none of the different beliefs and philosophies that I came across were things that I could bring myself to live by, and especially not the organised religions! A lot of it seemed like ordinary people (just like me) groping in the dark.
Even the Bible seemed kind of lacking to me, and as a PR exercise, it did, at times, seem to paint God in a very unflattering light. That made me suspicious right there. Why would God not cover this up, or get rid of it entirely? If he’s God, he can do that, right? None would be the wiser. As I read and reread it, I felt like, at the very least, I was reading the turbulent story of people and God trying to relate, which felt truthful to me. I eventually came to the point where I said, “I’m going to trust in you, God. Or try. Please don’t let me down.” Life did not magically transform into a primrose path, but it did gradually become more meaningful to me.
So, really, I only adopt the term “Christian” because that more accurately reflects my beliefs than any other term would. However, I’m not very comfortable with being identified with the institutionalised (and, dare I say, “Americanised”) form of Christianity that so many people have been burned by (myself included). If you don’t in every way contort and mutilate yourself to fit their crippling view of what a “true” Christian should be (whatever that means, and it differs from denomination to denomination), then heaven help you!
As I read back what I’ve written, I still don’t feel like I’ve really answered your question. I think that’s because when it comes to my spirituality, I often find it very hard to quantify in words. Perhaps I’m in denial about this, but I’ve found that even my questions and doubts have strengthened my relationship with the Narcissist (sorry, I’m being facetious again, Sebastyne
), so I may only be proving your point. Ultimately, my answers are not going to convince anyone but me!
Still, I appreciate the article. It’s good to drag these things out into the open and look at them honestly. Niceties just get in the way of investigation, I find. That’s what I had to do with my depression (which God did not magic away for me, although I very much wanted him to)… just drag it out, kicking and screaming, and confront it. As soon as you let others dictate what to believe, I feel like you may as well give up the ghost right then and there.
Sebastyne (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Somewhat different path, but interesting nonetheless. I decided I would not ask anyone what God is like, I asked myself. I knew already, that I believed in reincarnation, but what else was there, was a bit of a blur. I worked out a bit by bit what I thought was the truth, until one day by accident I found a book called “Conversations With God” and it did it for me. Explained things. THAT made complete sense to me. It had everything I had come up with so far and then some. I don’t know which group I belong to, probably new age, but I don’t want to put labels on it, because as soon as I put on labels, there’s going to be someone telling me that I got it wrong. When I just tell people I have my own idea of God, they usually leave me alone. :p Granted, my God doesn’t give much of a meaning to life, and yet he gives meaning to everything we do. Even blogging, he finds fascinating.
It’s not a good God-idea to spread around too much, I think as it is quite forgiving and easy to abuse… A lot of people couldn’t handle it, I think. But the good thing about what I believe is that you don’t HAVE to believe, you don’t have to earn your way to God, he’ll make sure you’ll find your way in the end, even if it did take you a bit more time than the next guy.
I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this, it’s very interesting.
Tony Single (Who am I?)
1 month ago
Thanks very much, Sebastyne. I appreciate your candour!
henk (Who am I?)
1 month ago
This message is about a religion this piece is not about, GOD.
Sebastyne (Who am I?)
1 month ago
That is true, Henk, it is about religion, and not The True God. That was exactly my point, I’m glad you picked it up.