WHY FAITH IN GOD IS FUNDAMENTALLY NARCISSISTIC

Christians are to base their life on, “God teaches me to do this and that this is what I should believe”. Actually that is saying, “I am not going to discuss anything with you.” You are not able to discuss for God. You are saying that you got this information not from yourself or anybody else but God and that is the end of it for God knows best.  That shows whatever faith in God claims to be, it is about satiating a need for power, a need to exploit.

Even believers admit there is a risk of arrogance in speaking for and claiming to have messages from God but seem to expect us to overlook them as if they are something special.

If humans have an inherent need to run after idols that does not mean they have an inherent need to worship them. Many pagans spat on their idols if they did not deliver when asked to do something. We should be careful not to take it literally when we say that a banker worships the idol of money. Idols can be secular or non-religious. The banker can have more devotion to money than anyone ever had to a God.  If that happens, then he proves that the idea of a God inviting us to put him first is a lie.  In short, if there is a need to put something first it need not be the same thing all your life.  It need not have anything to do with religion.  And there is no way to tell any spiritual or psychological difference between a person worshipping a golden calf and one worshipping an invisible God.  An idol of metal is never the real idol.  It is your feelings and notions so even if there is a God it does not follow that the one you connect with is him and not a creation made up of your hopes and fears and dreams.  You don't need a statue or picture to be guilty of idolatry.  The craftiest form is based around the invisible, the unknown, the allegedly divine spirit. It can be more immune to commonsense than the plain old statue-in-a-temple kind.  Idolatry empowers the liars who support it and preach it and that spiritualised version does this the most.

So beware those who tell you that everybody has a God and needs religion and whoever does not follow the true God in fact has a substitute one.  They are trying to make you think you need their version of spirituality and they will help you realise it.  To say that worship is inherent means that if you throw dung in the face of your seemingly incapable statue of Isis that is worship too.  Such a suggestion is absurd.

If you put two artists at the same spot to paint the same landscape there will be many differences that add up to a lot. Now send them to the spot to memorise it. Ask them to paint it a few days later. The differences will be very big then. Very. The God who you think you are in a relationship is too much at risk of being inherently unique to you. And it is actually happening so it is a risk that has caused damage.There is too much room there for he being totally or largely your own creation, your version. 

Christians are asked to pray a lot so that their wills may align better with the will of God. They will supposedly do more good works and feel better about terrible things happening for God is with them. Nobody likes the fact that reality does not care what anybody thinks.  And there is the kind of person who is mostly annoyed about how reality does not care what he or she thinks.  How it oppresses or rules others is not his or her's concern at all.

The believers are clearly trying to feel that whatever bad things happen as a result of God’s will, it is their will too. They play God in that way. They are finding a way to grow spiritually they say. In fact they are just growing in selfishness. If reality is not about you, you have to admit it and live with that instead of trying this gimmick to feel it is.

It is true as Christians say that if you deny the Bible has full or reliable authority, you take authority over it. You become the claimed word of God, maybe even the Bible’s filter. But the paradox is, if you give it proper authority you are STILL appropriating authority for yourself. And even more so for now it becomes your backing, your reinforcement. The one who delegates their authority to another authority is the real authority.

You can replace the Bible with "promptings of the Holy Spirit" or apparitions of Jesus or whatever.  It does not matter.

We are told that if God designs all things then that falls apart if we say nobody designed God. The other point that God may be himself designed by luck is not mentioned. It would mean he is really a powerful being rather than anything to be relied on as a God or friend who you worship

We must avoid some arguments against religious authority that fail.  For example, Derrida argued that when somebody speaks their meaning has no more authority than how the person listening interprets it. Derrida didn’t seem to agree with himself. If he really thought his words were that unimportant then he would have written nothing. And the readers if they come to different conclusions about even a paragraph he wrote, that does not say much for their supposed authority. And what happens when you write something and read it the following week when it is no longer fresh in your mind and you become the interpreter?

Some atheists love what Derrida has said for it allows them to affirm that the Christian claiming to follow the word of God is in fact putting their own interpretation on an equal level with God. But that is not the way to prove God belief leans to narcissism.  Some reply, "Derrida went too far. But if the speaker is supposedly a God then his meaning has as much authority as what the listener thinks he meant.  Do not compare it to a human authority.  Derrida's argument works but only if the speaker is reportedly a God."  You ask what the difference is and you get this.  "You have checks in place to see if you should let what somebody says override what you think.  But you have no such check in place if messages from some unknown thing in an unknown realm are coming.  You have no way of telling if a spirit means what it says.  A liar spirit would give you a message to push buttons so that you will put a rubbish interpretation on it."

Being a narcissist in the God and religion area does not necessarily mean you will be too dangerous to function in society.  Too many protect their narcissism by advertising their more cordial and good side.  Beware.