In my previous post, I laid out my argument that basically, there is enough material in the Christian Bible to support almost any moral position, one needs only to pick and choose what parts of the Bible you most closely identify with, then embrace only that part of the scriptures to, in essence, create your own version of Christianity. Indeed, I think that entire argument can be summed up into a single point:
Man creates God in his own image.
WBC is a great example of this. If you read carefully about Fred Phelps, his abusive family history, his own predispositions toward good and evil and right and wrong, you start to get a picture of someone who is clearly mentally unbalanced in some fairly significant ways. He has a "my way or the highway" attitude about life and when he was a younger man, was fine with abusing or ostracizing anyone who got in his way or didn't agree with him. He's been "arrested for assault, battery, threats, trespassing, disorderly conduct, contempt of court" and convicted of these types of activities more than once. He's clearly severely homophobic and very misguided about homosexuals in general. In his actions, in his words, he displays all the characteristics associated with a sociopath.
When Fred Phelps looks to the heavens for backup, he doesn't have to look far. The Old Testament in particular is full of behavior from God that could only be considered psychotic if anyone on Earth tried to do it. What would we do to anyone on this planet who literally attempted to drown every man woman and child on it but save only a select family? What about someone who attempted to destroy an entire city or two because they disagreed with them? What about someone who just killed or tortured one person because they disagreed with them or didn't say what they wanted them to say? Well, of course, we would never tolerate this behavior from an individual, but because "God" did it, it is all supposedly okay. In Fred's view, this is all proof positive that God is just like him. Disagree with me, and I'll smite you. Say anything against me, and I'll punish you for eternity. This is just how Fred thinks, is it little wonder then that Fred has created a version of God that includes everything a sociopath would love?
The God Fred has created matches his views perfectly. This isn't because it's the only message in the Bible, but because that's the message Fred was looking for.
Fred created his God based on his own image.
As a side note: when I say that people create God based in their own image, this can be a insult (as in the case of Fred), or it can be something of a compliment. When I see someone who is highly moral -and- a Christian, I can immediately tell that they have eschewed all the negativity in the Bible and taken out only what they wanted to hear, i.e. the positive messages of love, etc., from the Bible. Indeed, I find it something of a useful tool to measure someone's innate morality; the more immoral someone's interpretation of the scriptures are, the more immoral they are...nobody would believe in something they themselves knew was immoral.
In the case of WBC, it's also clear that Fred has, like most batterers, conditioned those around him to accept his abuse.
What's really sad is that because of Fred's version of Christian Morality, the level of control Fred has over his 'congregation' (family members, mostly) is great; he has conditioned them to accept power as reasonable equivalent for morality (both in this world and the next!) Therefore they see any being who has the power to punish them as being morally "right", regardless of the immorality of its actions. Fred's succeeded in projecting his own immorality into the afterlife by making up a God that agrees with his twisted views on moral behavior and because those verses are there for the reading, he appears to have God on his side.
All Fred's really done is create a supernatural version of himself...
...just like every other Christian.
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