Hate the Sin, Not the Sinner
In this week’s sermon at my local church, the priest reminded us that the Pharisees disapproved of Jesus for eating with prostitutes and tax collectors. “Those” people were considered unclean and therefore contagious. It was dangerous to be in their company because one might become like them.
Now that we understand Mimetic Theory, we know that this is actually true. People tend to mimic each other’s values, desires and behaviors.
That’s why, when we were preyed on by psychopaths, we began to lose our sense of self. Our boundaries began to dissolve and we behaved in ways we wouldn’t normally behave. They tried to take our being and insert their being in its place. This is also why No Contact is a powerful tool for limiting their effects on us.
Yet, other people influence us every day, often even without our knowledge. According to the New York Times, in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers determined that weight gain is contagious.
Their study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003. The investigators knew who was friends with whom, as well as who was a spouse or sibling or neighbor, and they knew how much each person weighed at various times over three decades.
That let them watch what happened over the years as people became obese. Did their friends also become obese? Did family members? Or neighbors?
The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased one’s chances of becoming obese by 57 percent.¹
So how could Jesus associate with sinners, without risking the threat of contagion? Apparently, He had very good boundaries. In His company, the sinners imitated Him, He did not imitate the sinners. He loved the sinners, though He hated the sin.
Our own encounters with psychopaths, didn’t go so well. We were compromised. We’re lucky to be alive –so many victims of psychopaths don’t live to tell about it.
To understand the difference, it helps to compare how we reacted to “the sinners” vs. how Jesus reacted. In my case, I felt sorry for the psychopath. He used the pity ploy –liberally. I felt embarrassed for his shameless behavior. I owned his shame for him by pretending his behavior was acceptable and making excuses for it. This is what psychopaths count on as they scheme and plot to steal your soul, they know how to make their behavior contagious: they use charm, pity and rage.
Jesus, on the other hand, never deviated from calling a sin, a sin. He understood the sinners’ weaknesses too but when He forgave their sins, He commanded them to “repent and sin no more.” He didn’t say, “We’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.”
It seems that no matter how hard we try to be individuals, we always end up imitating others to some extent. We relate to each other because we share similar experiences, that’s how bonds of culture are formed. So how do we prevent ourselves from imitating the wrong behaviors? The answer is to choose a role model whom we imitate exclusively. Jesus’ role model was God the Father. He didn’t deviate from that role model and Jesus asks us to imitate Him.
Whether we want to protect ourselves from psychopaths or we just want to lose weight, it’s worth remembering how much we are affected by the people around us, their values and their behaviors. We don’t just copy them, over time we become like them.
Also, it bears remembering that we serve as role models for each other. We affect each other, so we should make a conscious choice to affect each other as positive role models.
There is no need to do as the Pharisees did. We don’t need to judge and persecute those who falter. We don’t have to be embarrassed for them, take responsibility for them or pretend it didn’t happen. It’s enough to offer a better role model.
References:
1.) Kolata, Gina. “Obesity Spreads to Friends, Study Concludes.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 July 2007. Web. 10 June 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/health/25iht-fat.4.6830240.html?pagewanted=all>.
Copyright © 2012-2013 Skylar
I just can’t accept that God made evil people. I believe that it is a choice to think in certain ways, and once that choice is made we become the choice. The choice to not submit, not accept reality is the first step down the psychopathic slope. I can see genetics is involved too. A person who is particularly strong willed, will tend to be more determined to have their way. Testosterone can affect fetuses etc…
The features that I observed in my spath that weremost striking were his will power, his willfulness, his determination to get his way. All of these made him feel entitled to do evil just for fun.
It’s rainy and cold here too STJ. Gotta run.
Got my front tooth denture today. Feels horrible in the mouth but I have been reassured by my nephew that I will get used to it and won’t even notice it LOL 🙂
wooohooo! you got your tooth!
Did it brighten your day a bit? practice smiling at yourself :D.
STJ and Skylar (and All),
Sorry your’e feeling some fear today, STJ. I get that sometimes too. The world, with the reality of evil in it, isn’t the same place. It is rainy and warm here in the Northwest. Beautiful really. Sun breaks and puffy clouds. And the birdies are bombarding my feeder.
Skylar- does the article create angst? I ask, because you wrote you couldn’t believe God would create evil. Couldn’t God have created evolution, and then left us to evolve, naturally, then? I am asking, truly. I am so science leaning that I often overlook other views….and I respect yours. When I read that what you most noticed about exspath was his will and determination, I thought to myself that that is likely biologically driven. Every pathological I have known has been willful and incorregeable. What MAKES them ALL cookie cutter control freaks, with unmanageable will and desire to make others suffer?
It could be biology. The spiritual question, to me, is what will finally affect a change in them? And the spiritual answer for me is awareness of them, on a massive scale.
I have often wondered whether spaths have come about from our very BEING human. It is HARD to be human. We have had to find our way, from cave dwellers. We have made really difficult and shitty choices about how to treat one another, and how to raise children, and how to survive, etc…….and perhaps ALL our choices, and the subsequent reactions to those, over the ages, have altered our genetics to such a degree that that is why we have disease and disorder. And it is also why we have civilization, discourse, and other more ‘positive’ human manifestations.
It’s like, right now, in the loooooong view, life is a double edge sword. It still cuts both ways, in terms of altruism and perverse abuse. Perhaps with awareness, and different choices, and better treatment of one another, our genes will twist further toward altruism and pathologicals will become a rare exception.
Certainly a world full of spaths wouldn’t survive. Our species, if it reaches the spath tipping point, will surely be destroyed. I wonder if our genetic impulse to survive would allow such a thing?
And, I agree wholeheartedly….even if there is a neurobiological basis for being pathological, it doesn’t mean it cannot be defined as evil. They are evil, as we well know.
Just my thoughts and wonders…..thanks for letting me ramble.
Slim
Slim,
one of the reasons I’m so glad I started the 180 blog is because people can ask those kinds of questions here. We obviously need to ask more and better questions because psychopathy has been creating hell on earth since the beginning and we still haven’t figured it out.
I think that our free will and our willfulness is connected. We are given free will unlike any other animal, yet we have the choice to submit to God’s will. Which choice will we make?
Spaths don’t like to submit to anyone and they despise those that do submit – they call them sheep. They despise authority. In a way, I can understand why, since most authorities are corrupt in our culture. As Girard says, “culture was founded on a murder and a lie.” Spaths know this instinctively. They see through hypocrisy…well, except for their own. What they don’t get is that God’s will is beneficent and not hypocrisy. Obviously our Creator is going to know what’s best for us, but spaths can’t accept that.
So where did free will come from?
There’s an interesting theory from a guy way out in left field. He seems a little odd, he’s not mainstream, but I read his book (a free download) after I checked out his site and he has some really promising theories particularly in regard to autism and the left brain. The book is 212 pages long.
Basically he’s saying that when primates moved out of the trees, to wander on the plains, they lost the best source of food for their brains: Fruit.
The anti-oxidants in fruit were needed to squelch the free radicals caused by too many hormones, particularly testosterone. (I can’t remember if it’s the free radicals or the hormones themselves) The hormones cause the brain to become left dominant and suppress the right brain activity. Furthermore, when we became hunters, we began to eat the hormones in the animals we killed and added that to the hormone overload. The hyper-masculine brain theory is based on work by the autism expert Dr. Baron Cohen, who says that autism is a symptom of an overly masculine brain.
The book is called Left in the Dark ‘The Biological Origins of the Fall From Grace’
The website is http://beyond-belief.org.uk/ Its organization is different… but it’s got some great videos to watch.
Skylar,
I will check out the site and the book. It sounds interesting, and I think I have been referred to it previously, and just never got around to checking it out.
I don’t have any issue with hormones coming into play with behavior. For any woman who has experienced PMS, it’s not a stretch! And then to think about hormonal influence on the development of brain, and possibly genetics…I will check it out.
Free will does have a place in understanding all of this. It has to. If we are not insane, and can ‘even’ intellectualize our choices, we have the ability to choose. However difficult.
It was extremely difficult for me to overcome my personal programming and perhpaps ‘hard wiring’ to ‘love’ everyone, and to open my life up to anyone who wanted to come in. I would feel terrible pangs of guilt and shame if I had boundaries. I had to choose, over and over, with more and more skill and knowledge, until I could protect myself. I had to learn to see myself, and others, differently. This process made me feel cut off from myself, at times, until I finally started getting subtle positive feedback….then the choice to exercise my boundaries, and choose who I was going to love and accept, became easier. I guess because it started to feel GOOD.
Anywhoo….
Have a good one Skylar,
much love and light to you….
Skylar and Slim
Thanks first of all Slim for understanding my fear based lapses. When you read about them all the time it gets to a place where you feel surrounded by them and you have to give yourself a reality check that they are still in the minority.
My personal journey through reading and a sort of awareness coming through–I can’t say it’s conclusive and is very open to debate is that the world through the internet is becoming alert to these predators amongst us.
Also–a few weeks ago I picked up a booklet in my doctors about personality disorders. They must have got snapped up by the public as it the space is always empty when I go to them. The common people is getting access to this information.
Communities are not as cohesive as they used to be where everyone knew everbody else and because of the mask they are hard to spot. It is not until a target gets burned by one of them that they hopefully escape and search for answers. Getting believed is another problem.
Pre internet days–targets were left alone and probably found themselves commited to psychiatric wards or committed suicide because there was no way of understanding or help available for them. These are not common abusers. They are cunning and deceptive.
But now I see an awareness or an awakening happening. People who escape are starting to look at our leaders and our personal leaders like parents etc. But the problem as I see it is it is not until we get burned by one that we start looking. And that is the lucky ones who escape.
Before that we were oblivious on our way like the majority of the population unaware that this evil was amongst us. Believing that there was good in everyone.
Skylar
God gave us free will and choice. After I threw the spath out I was in a terrible embittered and cynical place. Totally opposite of my true nature. I hated and raged. My ability to love was driven out by fear and I was reduced to this in a period of nine months.
So God heals those that want to be healed. I used my free will and choice to start back on the path towards the light because I knew that is where I am the happiest and joyful. I am not quite there yet but I am making progress. PTSD interferes.
My good for me decisions always carry an element of is it good for everyone. Win win.
Before I knew that he was a spath and just a normal human with human flaws I used to have these deep conversations with him about love and what it means and how it affects our mental health. I was a happy go lucky optimistic little biddy and I used to try and convince him that it was in helping others we helped ourselves. I sort of knew he had a problem with this as his whole family are selfish and now I see narcissistic and I thought it was just family of origin issues.
As it turned out I was wrong and he was the worst of the lot.
Sorry. I have sort of rambled myself in this post but I am leaving it up because it is where I am at now.
In conclusion I feel hope that psychopathic leaders will get exposed eventually. Evolution or Gods’ will is turning our heads towards them and seeing the destruction that they weave. Stronger souls will emerge to challenge them totally aware of what they are dealing with and will have the skills and wherewithall to do so. Be it Gods’ backing or an evolutionary counterpart to the psychopath.
Testing measures will be put in place to prevent them reaching places of power. Peoples’ revolutions throughout history have overthrown corrupt governments. It has and can happen again. And the psychopaths know this.
They are getting exposed. I read on one of my travels where psychopathic psychologists and psychiatrists were caught delaying and destroying research into it. But I see a lot of lay peole like ourselves who are creating bloggs like Skylar and writing books. They can’t control everyone.
Anyway nuff said
Love to all
STJ
xxx
STJ,
AMEN!!!!!! I have that vision in my head too. Awareness is spreading. The internet certainly is playing a big role in this information being shared. And I am so happy to be a part of it. Besides liking and respecting Skylar, it is why I come to this, and other, blogs.
One time you asked why the spath stayed so long with you. I think some of it may have been that he had a lot to ‘learn’ from you. I think that is one of the reasons some of them stick around for a time….If we are deeply emotional AND we share our insights and feelings, they learn a lot about how normal humans operate, and why. They need this information to sharpen their spathic skills at reading people, and knowing what to do and say at the right moments, to con us.
They learn everything from us. And, I bet he learned a lot from all your deep talks and ‘sharing’. Sadly, for you, it was just him absorbing this information to develop a more elaborate mask.
They are empty, except for what they steal from others. Then, they are still empty.
xo,
Slim
STJ,
I agree with Slim. He was learning from you. My exspath used to always say, “I picked his brain.” That’s how he would learn any skill he needed to learn for his next con. Whether it was flying a helicopter or 3D drafting or playing the guitar, he would find someone who was already proficient and he would get them to teach him everything they could. He would figure out the rest.
What I didn’t realize at the time, is that this included me teaching him about emotions. That’s why he liked to have me hug him when we were watching movies. He would feel my emotional responses to the thrilling or scary parts. He was learning. They are such freaks.
Hi
Skylar my ex used to do that too. Pick brains for his own use. Also what you said about him ties into my feelings of being studied like an insect in those nine months of hell.
No not an insect. His words were that I was a fridge and a food source. So he studied me like an object that provides food.
It totally gives me the creeps because I think that is what he was doing the whole time he was with me.
Viva la revolution.
🙂
STJ
xxx
Slim
I think that it is only when we start to recover from the shock of the evil are we ready to be able to productively deal with it.It takes time to really sink in. I also read other bloggs and support them totally although it is only Skylar’s I suscribe to.
All of them are aiming for the same goal and it was great to find them when I was in that terrible place of being disbelieved and wounded. It also restored my faith in humanity that I thought I lost during the war.
In a way I am glad he discarded me. My life is quite good and I quite enjoy singlehood.My kids are getting up and I have lots more freedom to do my own thing with no one to consider but myself. Even during the good times he always held me back. If I wanted to do something he always had an excuse why not to. Off course–silly me respected his wishes and self sacrificed to make him happy.
It is a slow appreciation I am experiencing and I am just rolling with it.
Take care all
STJ
xxx
Skylar
This is an interesting website for the other argument that we are not ‘born bad’.
http://www.naturalchild.org/alice_miller/
STJ
xxx
Thank STJ, I love Alice Miller’s work. She isn’t afraid to say the truth about child abuse and its effects.
I clicked on this link http://www.naturalchild.org/alice_miller/violence_kills_love.html
from your link. It’s really insightful.
I had an interesting thing happen when I went for a walk.
There was a man standing on a bridge ahead of me. He was hanging around or walking very slowly toward me over the bridge. When I walked near him he said, “Are we having fun yet?” He had only one arm and he wore a cowboy hat and lots of flashy jewelry.
I could tell he was a predator by the way he looked at me and his approach. I didn’t respond, just kept walking by and he turns around and says, “Sure, just don’t be friendly.”
He was using his missing arm as a pity ploy to make me feel guilty for not wanting to talk with the poor disabled man. While trying to be charming at the same time. I’m supposed to be friendly and chat with every pervert standing on the street? For all I know he was hiding his other arm.
Skylar,
I love your description of this man, and how subtle and strange his ‘cues’ were. Good job! Missing arm, are we having fun yet? (BTW exspath used to say this ALL the time), and ‘just don’t be friendly’. They can be SO obvious, once you know the pattern. First lure you with pity, then ‘friendliness’, then guilt trip you. That was a pretty rapid cycle, huh? The exspath used to cycle really fast like this. He wasn’t a stick around for decades kind of spath, so he went through his cycles from the first meetings/dates, and they never let up.
I love being tuned in in this way, and actually having boundaries. Aren’t they awesome?
It is awesome, Slim. Most of my life anybody could guilt-trip me into “being nice” or “being friendly” because I shouldn’t hurt other peoples’ feelings. WTF? what about my feelings? Nobody ever taught me that my feelings mattered. So even a lecherous, one-armed bandit could have made me stand on the bridge and chat with him, just “to be nice.” For all I know, he’d have thrown me off the bridge.
Furthermore, people could yank emotions out of me, at will. Psychopaths know exactly how. It’s ironic that the ones who feel nothing are most adept at making others feel something. It never even occurred to me to protect my emotions. Isn’t that something? What kind of parents don’t teach their kids to protect their emotions?
Our kind of parents. sigh
I have been with so many crazies….one armed, lecherous bandits would fit right in.
I am (still) embarrassed at how obviously dysfunctional most of my spaths have been, that I don’t even like to describe their appearance, jobs, names (the last one was a DOOZIE…wish I could share his name, cause it is absolutely ridiculous), housing, hygiene, friends, etc….
Slim
Good bounderies Skylar. Ted Bundy hobbled about on crutches to gain the sympathy of his victims.
‘Are we having fun yet’ sounds just too weird. Be careful. Nut jobs abound.
Ick
STJ
xxx
Yeah, I love having boundaries. Just a few years ago I didn’t know what they were!
It’s strange that I knew from almost a block away that this person was a predator. I was actually afraid to walk past him, but didn’t show it.
Skylar
I read that link and I agree wholeheartedly. I have never lifted my hands to my children and wouldn’t let anyone else do so e.g. grandparents. I didn’t care if it was the norm to spank a child. I remembered how I felt when it happened to me, how humiliating it was and I didn’t want my children to experience it.
It worked out fine for me. I relied on reason and encouraging them to express their feelings.
My sister spanked and her kids are troublemakers.They live by the rule of fists first then questions.
I am glad I stuck to my guns and never did it even though kids can be frustrating at times.It used to bamboozle me that an adult could rationalise hitting a child that is small and yet not say boo too an aggravating or aggessive adult who is the same size.
STJ
xxx
STJ,
That explains why you have emotionally healthy children despite their father’s personality disorder. We were spanked and emotionally abused. It resulted in 2 spaths and 2 enablers.
I’m so glad that you took responsibility for your children’s emotional well-being. I believe that if all mothers could do that, we would be more than halfway towards solving the world’s problems.