by Tim Ozman
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven...” -- John Milton
Preface: YOUR DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
1. THE NARCISSIST CODEPENDENT DYNAMIC
2. GOD’S PEDESTAL
3. BIPOLAR GOD
4. UNFORGIVING AND VINDICTIVE
5. SELF-SACRIFICE
6. FEAR CONTROL
7. GOD'S NARCISSISTIC RAGE
8. GOD HATES EQUALITY
9. ALL TALK NO ACTION
10. GOD IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR
11. GOD’S JEALOUSY
12. YOU WILL NEVER MEASURE UP
13. EMOTIONAL HOSTAGE TAKER
14. AN IMPERFECT PERFECTIONIST DEMANDING PERFECTION
15. GOD-EXIT
NON-SERVIUM
Preface: YOUR DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
You have a relationship with power that is either healthy or unhealthy. The more dependent you are upon the more powerful, the more toxic the relationship is. Being independent of those more powerful is healthy.
This relationship dynamic translates into one's dealings with other people, government, authority figures, experts, mass media, and religion.
Do you need any of the above or do they need you?
This spectrum of dependence to independence determines how much of your power you retain and how much you delegate.
God is the most powerful being in the universe, or so it is said. Here is another perspective: God is a construct made to control the minds of the masses by instilling dependence and a need for a savior.
What is your relationship, to "Him”?
Just as a starting point, let's examine his one-sided relationships with his believers and all these hollow threats and empty promises. Of course, his believers, being co-dependently bound by the need for his approval, will not admit, even to themselves, that they get nothing out of it. Much like believers in the empty words of the narcissist who give and give and give but never get anything in return; they can only hope that things will get better; that the person will be the person they pretended to be to gain their trust.
Faith is a replacement for results. Why not just await that better and eternal future in Heaven? It sounds a lot better than what you have now, and the world is damned anyway.
Many believers hope the world ends so they can finally meet him face to face. Others smugly await the day their controlling God casts their enemies into outer darkness. This black and white judgmentalism is consistent with God's has a borderline personality; you're either with him or against him.
1. THE NARCISSIST CODEPENDENT DYNAMIC
Elitists created the Bible and purposefully made God into a raging narcissist. This is the same concept demonstrated in the construct of Big Brother in Orwell's 1984.
God is, therefore, a proxy by which those who control religions control your mind. How much control they have depends on how much you give them.
This exploitative and toxic relationship is inculcated into religion to turn believers into codependents who can be easily manipulated by guilt, fear, and shame; into one that obeys, obeys, and obeys.
Authoritarians in charge invoke the supreme narcissist as the authority by which they assert their right to rule.
2. GOD’S PEDESTAL
Perhaps nowhere is God's narcissism more evident than in the Garden of Eden. There, God is in control over beings "fashioned in his image."
Narcissists always fashion others into their image, whether their children or the people around them, all must conform themselves to their standards.
The primary narcissistic trait exhibited in the garden was conditional love.
God's conditional love was retracted at the first sign of disobedience. It's worth noting that Adam and Even never made their way back to Eden. They're probably burning in Hell right now; such is the vindictiveness of the narcissist. Their love is not free, comes with strings attached, and quickly turns to hatred should one not live up to the image and the ideal the narcissist fashioned.
The narcissist will place the current object of their affection on a pedestal. This pedestal is then used as leverage to keep their codependents under control. The codependent is dependent upon the narcissist's approval. They know if they lose that, they lose the pedestal. The Garden of Eden represents that pedestal.
Behind every narcissist is a trail of formerly idealized friends, family, lovers, ideas, religions, et cetera scattered like ruins after having fallen off that pedestal. Just look at Lucifer: God's most beautiful angel, second only to God himself in greatness, now at the very bottom of Hell.
Look too at Adam and Eve: two others who strayed, both dwelling in Eden itself, the ultimate pedestal.
How bi-polar is that? This is classic borderline personality. And what does it say about God's judgment that all these he exalts eventually feel his wrath? Does the smartest being in the universe make terrible choices? Or is God's personality that of a typical two-faced, bi-polar Jeckl and Hyde narcissist?
God, like all true narcissists, uses flattery to make his believers (codependents) feel special. The source of that feeling of specialness is the illusion God creates. And what he creates, he can take away. The more wrapped up the codependent is in the surreality of the narcissist, the more their very worldview depends upon their relationship with their controller.
Who fears Hell more than a true believer in God? Similarly, who fears rejection more than a codependent caught up in a toxic relationship?
The believer is dependent upon God's approval. Disobedience means losing that specialness and the promised paradise--and if there's anything that all narcissists have in common, it's the false promise that one day, you will be judged worthy and be granted eternal acceptance upon that permanent pedestal.
And forget about forgiveness. The damned are not only stuck in Hell forever, but they will forever be used as an example of what God does to the disobedient. The negative publicity campaign never ends. Narcissists are notoriously slanderous and libelous; look at what God has to say about his enemies, the non-believers, the wicked sinners, and those who worship other gods.
3. BIPOLAR GOD
Heaven or Hell is a false choice, a classic double-bind. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, salvation is ultimately up to God, and you were already deemed unworthy by nature of being incarnated into this world. Salvation requires loyalty, obedience, and faith in God. The default position for man is Hell.
Will you choose salvation or be counted among the damned?
The saved self-segregate on Sundays. Their obedience is a reflection of how well they practice their religion. A culture of believers obedient to God's will develops around this. This division of saved and not-saved is another way of dividing those of whom God approves and those he does not.
God isn't opinionless about those who don't find their way to church. Non-believers in God's image are his enemies; so too are the enemies of the narcissist treated to the dark side of that bi-polar personality.
This primary division between saved and not-saved is far from harmless; it's a fundamental act of war. Additionally, the "us vs. them" mindset is what typifies destructive cults. It's not a coincidence that toxic relationships often take on an "us vs. the world" character.
Once divided into two camps, believers can fight each other, as with religious wars an ideological struggles. They will send proxies to influence those who they don't yet fully control. They do this by wooing new victims with flattery while at the same time demonizing those who rejected the offer. One significant red flag indicator that one is dealing with a narcissist is that list of previous victims who were all taken off that pedestal.
God triangulates with missionaries, proselytizers, pageantry; like all narcissists, he needs to be in the spotlight at all times. Every holiday is another opportunity to reassert the supremacy of this hypothetical supreme being.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that it is better never to have known of God than to have come to know of him and reject him.
God's power over the believer relies on the ability to devalue, reject, and cast out believers who are dependent upon his approval. Only secure people can ignore or choose not to be affected by the opinions of others. Insecure people are easier to control, so narcissists love to, subtly or not, remind their codependents of what happens to those who are cast down.
Every narcissist has a list of Satans, Adams, and Eves they can invoke to point out what happens to those who get too comfortable or uppity.
4. UNFORGIVING AND VINDICTIVE
Did you design Heaven? Does the version of Heaven in the Bible appeal to you? Or did you fashion one out of your imagination
Do you wish to run around the Garden of Eden, innocent, naked, and totally ignorant? Or would you prefer to float on a cloud and strum harps all day?
Narcissists are known for enslaving their codependents to a version of reality where the codependent has no input, and are expected to share the same tastes, vision, wants, and desires as the narcissist. They prefer to fashion you in their image.
Should one refuse the path, the religion offered, then one is denied access to the exclusive resort at the end of the road. Hell is the default, despite how modern money-making faiths will tell you.
The very fact of Heaven being exclusively for the saved should tell you something. Being saved according to God's rulebook places a particular set of demands upon the believer. It's not for everyone. You won't see Jeffery Damher there nor would you expect to see the 3000 priests from the Archdiocese of Chicago accused of raping altar boys.
So is God forgiving? Possibly, if one bows, scrapes, does penance, and atones with various acts of contrition. In other words, you can be saved by groveling, provided you do it publicly enough. Why? Because narcissists are all ego and if you can flatter it with egregious acts of public worship, they will consider it good public relations.
Jesus stopped the angry mob from murdering the prostitute with a "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," appealing to their sense of insecurity with regards to how God will judge them. Why did he save her? Because she was salvageable.
The narcissist will sometimes spare formerly devalued victims because it's an excellent opportunity to show everyone that they were right after all. It's out of pure smugness
Had she not been willing to change or repent, she would have burned in Hell like all the other prostitutes (because God does not forgive those who do not choose him). With God, it's his way or the highway.
All other religions are of the devil. Anyone who doesn't worship the narcissist must have something wrong with them.
Proclamations such as "I am the Way" and "Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve" - Joshua 24:15 are both examples of a false choice. How does one choose servitude?
Choice, volition, and options are for free people. But freedom ends when one "chooses" to eliminate alternatives and options.
5. SELF-SACRIFICE
God demands sacrifice. But he never takes it directly. He insists that you give to his earthly representatives.
Self-sacrifice is touted as a virtue, although the underlying mechanism is moral cannibalism. If the individual is an expendable part of the group, then the group decisions which allow for individual interests to be expropriated, or sacrificed, is motivated by a cannibalistic and vampiric spirit.
"Drink my blood, eat of my flesh" are the words attributed to the paragon of moral virtue, Jesus Christ. But how ethical is a man who allows the group to survive off his flesh and blood?
The ritual cannibalism inherent in Christianity is designed to make the point that individuals ought to be willing to die for the group--which sounds noble, as it comes with good intentions.
The trouble is, when one decides it's virtuous to self-sacrifice than those who do not also offer themselves up are being "selfish."
The basis of collectivism is that everybody belongs to everybody. So Jesus Christ, in his self-sacrifice, is just leading his apostles and all those they lead, off a cliff. So when Jesus died for your sins, it wasn't a truly selfless act, as you're supposed to follow his example. In other words, it's a culture of self-sacrifice.
Taxation is a form of sacrifice. It is not the same as charity. Charity is not a sacrifice, as the charity is not stealing from one to give to another. Nobody loses. Sacrifice requires that one loses for others to gain; a real zero-sum game.
Now here is where the narcissism comes in. Narcissists like God, are always raking in the praise, worship, and sacrificial offerings. Worship is attention, and if there is anything a narcissist demands, it is your attention. Why does God need churches? Because it's important that everybody sees how much everyone else adores him — group affirmation of the supremacy of this being.
The church is how God gets his narcissistic supply. That is his fix. Those who attend church, the saved, are in God's good graces. These are the ones that fill the coffers. They leave church lighter in the purse but feeling holy. But heck, Jesus gave his life, so what're a few dollars to pay the utilities and for the priests' ascetic lifestyle?
Like churches, narcissists extract their supply, your blood, by flattery, grandiose promises, along with the usual guilt trips and a general sense of shame to keep you feeling in need of being saved.
6. FEAR CONTROL
"You'll never make it without me," said every narcissist upon losing a victim.
They want you dependent and incapable of surviving alone.
God has an apparent disdain for the independent, those who don't need him. Witches, sorcerers, and servants of the devil fall into this category.
Those who have been cast out are pointed out as examples of what happens when God no longer favors one’s endeavors.
Believers are often bewildered when they encounter those who never gave their God construct an instant of sincere consideration. Their ingrained fears cause them to reach out to “save” the ignorant, and therefore an unrepentant sinner.
The mantel of saved gives one a holy high ground to feel justified in curing the unsaved. Self-righteousness and arrogance are typical of priest classes and those who follow them.
7. GOD'S NARCISSISTIC RAGE
“The great day of the LORD is near;
It is near and hastens quickly.
The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter;
There the mighty men shall cry out.
That day is a day of wrath,
A day of trouble and distress,
A day of devastation and desolation,
A day of darkness and gloominess,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
A day of trumpet and alarm
Against the fortified cities
And against the high towers.
"I will bring distress upon men,
And they shall walk like blind men
Their blood shall be poured out like dust…” Zephaniah 1:14-18
God’s rage is legendary. Floods, apocalypses, turning sinners into pillars of salt.
Yet, despite his dark side, no matter what happens, however terrible, the believers, believing themselves saved, will play down God’s wrath.
As codependents defend their abusers, believers will excuse God's psychotic behavior and tell you how "loving" he is.
8. GOD HATES EQUALITY
Knowledge is power, and ignorance is disempowering. This is why God forbade Adam from partaking of the tree of knowledge.
God can read your mind and condemn you for what's in your heart because he doesn't respect your privacy. He violates your boundaries every second of your life but don't you dare transgress against his.
Does anyone understand the contradictory madness of God if you read his mind; even his (ghostwritten) Bible is impossible to understand. The more literalist the interpretation, the less sense it makes.
God gets to remain inscrutable while his believers are under total surveillance inside and out for life, and will be judged accordingly.
God's all-seeing eye, all-knowing mind, an omnipotent omnipresent makes him inescapable yet intangible and mysterious.
God's lack of respect for boundaries or privacy is off-putting except to those without solid ego walls, those who are willing to be molded by the opinions of others. True believers are looking to be fashioned in the image of their God and to be elevated on that platform; to be counted among the saved.
Moreover, the apple in the garden was a great equalizer. Those who don't feel equal to their abuser would never disobey and eat of it.
What characterizes the narcissist vs. codependent dysfunction is the imbalance of power reinforced continuously by a disparity of knowledge.
Childlike minds are easier to control, and according to his public relations, Clearly, God prefers ignorant and naive minds to free-thinking minds:
Matthew 18:2-4 - Do you realize that everything is dependent on God as a child is to their parent?
9. ALL TALK NO ACTION
God is a construct propped up to give his priests power over believers. The priests serve this mysterious God who is posited as the ultimate authority. Claims made in his name are considered to be authoritative.
Servants of God, therefore, are powerful by proxy. This supreme being is a granter of wishes, also known as prayers, for those who really really really really believe. But their power is only limited to acting as extensions of their God. They can't use his magical powers.
Priests are at best low-level wizards, but even their elaborate stage magic of transubstantiation of flesh and blood leaves much to be desired.
So where is God's power? Is it, like that of Oz, The Great And Powerful, just a bluff?
The narcissist is the powerless older man behind the curtain. Oz is far from a superior being; it is only his public relations that prop him up as something more significant. In the story, the Emerald City is the exclusive residence of the saved and the savior. The legend of his great power brings Dorothy and her friends to meet him directly to find answers to their prayers.
However, it is revealed that all they lacked was self-knowledge. Upon realizing this, the dream ended.
So too does the mask of the narcissist dissolve when the codependent attains awareness of their own lack of self-esteem.
10. GOD IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR
God's Bible is a storybook full of miracles and impossible things. Like all narcissists, he requires a colorful backstory to demonstrate his greatness. Unsubstantiated backstories are there to fill in for lack of evidence.
Stories about the future are mere fictions. Religions have always used fiction to control people's lives by scripting the narrative frameworks into which they contextualize their experiences. Fake news does the same thing. What is fake news? Fiction. Lies.
Lies are always fiction. Fiction, when presented as real, constitutes a form of lying.
Faith is required to cover up the knowledge gaps in the minds of the believers where explanations don't match the perceptions. Belief without evidence or in the face of counterfactual evidence is self-deception.
Every miracle presented without evidence deliberately contradicts the perceptions of the believer, which is a specific form of psychological abuse called gaslighting. Gaslighting is how narcissists invalidate the opinions and viewpoints of those they control.
Myths, parables, falsehoods, and pseudo-historical narratives of the Bible are various forms of lies passed off as truths to give power to those citing and appealing to its authority.
Is lie too strong a word to describe what someone does when they assert a falsehood to be the truth? Nope. If I say that Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit did fend off trolls to teach us a lesson about courage, am I lying? What about if I tell the tale of David and Goliath?
Lies are used for reinterpreting reality for believers in the lies. Those who are lied to can either reject the lies and castigate the liar, or believe the lies and live in that surreality controlled by the AUTHOR of the lies.
Narcissists always lie to elevate themselves at the expense of others. They will lie to one-up the achievements of others because their image is based upon maintaining that power disparity.
11. GOD’S JEALOUSY
“You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3
Narcissists don't share the spotlight. They hate you for having other friends. This explains God's monotheistic, singular, ideal path. There are no options; therefore, there is no freedom of conscience. It's all about God's controlling jealousy.
God is similar in many ways to the evil queen in Disney's Snow White. She received the constant reinforcement of her greatness from her magic mirror, who informed her each day that she is the furthest in the land. That is until Snow White shows up. The queen's response? She sent an assassin.
It's not enough for God to be supreme and awesome. He must ensure that no other gods detract from his grandeur with their own shine. God is a monopolist when it comes to attention and expresses hatred, disdain, and intolerance towards the polytheists.
If God can’t have you, no other god will.
12. YOU WILL NEVER MEASURE UP
Romans 3:23 KJV: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God
Where would the believer be without God? Given that God is a construct, we'd be absent whatever impositions it places upon the believer.
This basic premise that the believer will always fall short of God's glory ensures that the balance of power will always be tilted in favor of those speaking for God.
Nobody will ever be as pure as the Virgin Mary or her virginal son Jesus.
Absent God's purifying forgiveness, all are damned.
13. EMOTIONAL HOSTAGE TAKER
God is holding you emotional hostage. If you piss him off, you could face instant judgment and eternal damnation.
Narcissists have such characteristics unbalanced and extreme emotions, that people learn to walk on eggshells rather than risk triggering that volatility.
But one way to stave the capricious wrath of God is to give his priests money.
14. AN IMPERFECT PERFECTIONIST DEMANDING PERFECTION
Guilt is an emotional pain compliance mechanism that punishes believers for failing to measure up. Guilt-tripping is when the psychological abuser, usually a narcissist, triggers that guilt mechanism and exploits the response.
Guilt is easy to tap into when the person being manipulated already possesses a deeply entrenched and internalized sense of shame. Shame is similar to guilt but more of a stigma than an error that can be corrected, confessed, absolved, or atoned for.
Salvation is the only way to remove the taint of sin from your soul. This, of course, implies bodily death. In other words, salvation is on the other side of life. Being "saved" means that your name is on a list; your seat in Heaven is reserved.
Sinners are born so. They don't merely do bad; they are bad. By accepting the stigma of a sinner, one is accepting a sense of shame that comes along with it.
Shame is the antipode to pride. Only God can be prideful. Any competition will be cast down and then some. Lucifer's main sin wasn't murder or theft or hate crimes or abuse of altar boys; Lucifer was prideful. He thought highly of himself, and only God can do that.
God wants us to think lowly of ourselves, highly of him. Those who toe this line get to Heaven; those who don't, Hell.
The believer's entire life is a tightrope for your life is God's court, and your judgment is coming. This is the same plight as the codependent, forever walking on eggshells, seeking approval but never measuring up to the impossible standards.
15. GOD-EXIT
There is only one way to escape a narcissist. One must nullify the dynamic. This can be as simple as refusing to bow, kowtow, or respond to emotional manipulations. Fear of God's reprisal is a powerful motivator and behavior-shaper.
Flagrantly rejecting this tyrannical construct can be liberating. This starts with stepping outside the good versus evil false dichotomy. It is predicated on a definition of good and evil which was authored by those placing themselves in the position of right.
If you reject the false choice, you evade the trap. The choice between a monster and a facade posing as a good guy is not a choice. In many ways, Jesus is the public relations front and apologist for his father. And this does not make him good, as he's the bait in the bait and switch ploy called religion.
This is the same reasoning behind Scientology recruiting attractive, happy, and successful celebrities as ambassadors. They lure you in with a disingenuous offer.
Is it really "better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven?" as John Milton wrote Paradise Lost? Satan speaks these words after his fall. But what about opting out of that dichotomy and choose not to serve in Heaven nor rule over lesser demons in Hell, but to rule oneself on earth, here and now?
To me, that seems the most transparent escape route. Choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil. This proves that Christianity is evil. It is the lesser of two evils presented but truthfully since it's a false choice, it is the greater evil.
Narcissists cast others into rigid roles. Their power lies in getting others to accept the definition imposed upon them. They demonize those they don't control, deify those they do (but will readily tear them down should they stray).
Exiting the God construct is as simple as refusing to be defined by it. God has yet to appear in the flesh in our lifetimes and only the threat of doing so keeps the myth alive. Since there is no evidence for this God, in reality, it can be discarded without remorse.
To answer under duress, under fear of being wrong, even if that fear is far down the road, is to cave to the extortionist plot. The goal is to deprive you of personal power and control, to devalue your own life in your own mind in favor of overvaluing a one-sided relationship.
This is why people (rightfully so) slam the doors in the faces of religious proselytizers. It's the only rational response to an irrational proposition.
NON-SERVIAM
Fear of rejection is the primary tool of the controlling narcissist that reigns supreme over those caught in the bonds of codependency and mental enslavement.
The elite’s God construct is the Cop in Your Head. It takes other forms outside of religion. We see it in the political cults which deify political leaders as secular saviors; we see it in the political correctness enforcing celebrity idols; it's evident in the space-age sustainable utopianism which posits technology as humankind's savior in the coming end times.
In all instances, wherever it shows up, it’s a good idea to slam the door in its face.
About the Author
Tim Ozman is the author of several books on psychological manipulation including The Secret Religion of the Elite and How To Control Codependent People, both of which explain the rationale for elites creating a “God” for people to fear.
You can find his books at
And listen to his podcasts at