The God Complex

A Costly Relationship

A narcissist is obsessively self-centered, with an inflated sense of self-importance. He feels entitled, exploits others, craves constant admiration, displays grandiosity, is preoccupied with power, is prone to arrogance and envy, and tends to deflect blame and avoid accountability.

So, someone who insists all glory belongs to them, unabashedly orchestrates events to showcase their own power, delivers extreme punitive consequences for disobedience, is hypersensitive to any activity perceived as disrespect, seeks to control everything of others’ lives, is quick to anger and revenge, and intolerant of anyone else getting attention …. could easily be pointed to as a prime

example of a narcissist.

If so, the bible’s god is almost a classic textbook depiction of narcissism - which would be amusing if not for the fact that it anchors religions that flourish to this day, whose adherents believe in the bible’s god as omnipresent, omnipotent, great, just, and kind, while being self-depicted in ITs bible - and personally experienced by ITs believers - as insecure, vengeful, intolerant, punitive, controlling, demanding, and attention-seeking.

From this perspective, then, a solid and deep relationship with this god would mirror the experience of being in a relationship with a narcissist: Your needs are irrelevant; only god’s count. Your feelings are invalidated; you may feel only as god tells you to feel. Your values, interests, self-worth… all worthless, replaced by god’s. But (only) if you are of god, then you’re everything right and good. (You might then become a narcissist by association).

If you were born into a system that groomed, cultivated and maintained an individual and collective close relationship with this imagined divinity, and later chose to unshackle yourself from it, you’d have the formidable task of building a sense of healthy selfhood, as anyone might after being enmeshed with a narcissist. A competent mental health professional might be necessary to help you with this work.

It is said that diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

Maybe the bible’s hidden (diplomatically dressed) lesson is not to follow its god at all, but as a case study in narcissism, possibly once packaged with a warning label that fell off somewhere between translations.

Not lost in any translation of the bible are many examples of what would seem to be exaggerated examples of how a narcissist might act, and lessons why to avoid one: Capital punishment for idolatry and blasphemy. Punishing future generations for a predecessor’s sin. Testing a chosen human with a command to kill his son. Disease, pestilence, famine, drought, crop failure, shortened lifespan… for not being obedient. Repeated reminders of how ITs chosen people would be less than nothing and still in Egypt, had IT not freed them (from an enslavement IT created). And of course, love-bombing: If you embrace being ITs chosen one, there’s wealth, abundance, success, security, and prestige waiting for you.

It would seem obvious that the bible means to teach vigilance, not obedience.

Power loves to dress up as virtue. Be wary of anything presented as perfect, unquestionable or holy - particularly when bundled with expectations of trust, obedience, praise and especially if it subsumes your personality. Nothing gets to erase or replace your identity. Selfhood is paramount.

Life is your diary; not someone else’s stage.