Psychopathic Christian Beliefs (part i)

It has become self-evident that Christians historically and contemporarily have belief-sets that are blatantly psychopathic. And by this word I do not intend a slur, but rather the technical sense of the word, in which one does not demonstrate the proper human emotions, but rather remains cold and apathetic, inhuman.

It becomes necessary to define exactly what I am not including under my label of psychopathic. I do not mean to refer to a sense of exuberance the believer feels at something like the fate of the wicked, burning for all eternity in hellfire. Such joy and happiness felt at the sufferings of others is deeply human — history stands a testament to that. Norbert Elias recounts that during the Middle Ages, townsfolk would often take great pleasure in the torture of cats, as public amusement. We are a people given over to violence, hatred and death. There is no doubt that such beliefs are monstrous, but humanity itself is monstrous.

"At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause." — Tertullian

"However there are other spectacles—that last eternal day of judgment, ignored by nations, derided by them, when the accumulation of the years and all the many things which they produced will be burned in a single fire. What a broad spectacle then appears! How I will be lost in admiration! How I will laugh! How I will rejoice! I will be full of exaltation then as I see so many great kings who by public report were accepted into heaven groaning in the deepest darkness with Jove himself and alongside those very men who testified on their behalf!" — Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

I do not want to discuss the demonic Christian portrayed above (quite the oxymoron), but rather the well-meaning Christian who remains apathetic to the horror and suffering espoused by these monstrous theologies.

The first case I want to draw attention to is the Christian justification of genocide in the Old Testament. The classic passage is I Samuel XV:ii-iii: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish what Am′alek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Am′alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.’” Contemporary Christians will balk at the idea of slaughtering civilian populations, and castigate Muslims for suicide bombings and the like. Yet, Christians will justify the past-historic genocide of innocent, men, women and children. Platitudes will be given about how all human beings are deserving of death, and such; none of which are very convincing.

This wicked sketch belongs to Pechan at DeviantArt.

The second case I want to bring under our gaze is constituted by the barbaric laws of the Old Covenant for the ancient Hebrews. So for example we find the words written in the Tanach: "But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you." Once again, Christians balk at the monstrosity of Muslims in the Middle East administering such "justice" on women, but adamantly defend the righteousness of the Laws of Moses. No Christian in their right mind, living in the Western world, would think it just for the Government to kill females who have had pre-marital sex. A great discrepancy exists as in the previous example.

The last case is the nonchalance with which Christians condemn non-Christians to hell and declare it an act of justice. Many honest, well-meaning people, actually believe that well-meaning non-Christians deserve to burn in hell for all eternity, merely because they did not believe the same things about God. These Christians walk amongst the hell-bound every day, give them a warm "hello" and call many of these people their friends. As in the previous two instances, something appears to be amiss here. The theology does not appear to match behavior or (moral) emotions.

This post merely intended to lay the groundwork. The next post will flesh out the notion of psychopathic theology, which has become the hallmark of contemporary Christianity.