Month: December 2021

Imagine you see two people going out somewhere together. One is in hysterics while the other one is perfectly calm. The calm one is explaining to others that his/her companion is just crazy, but he/she loves him/her anyway. In such a scenario, some of us may be inclined to believe that the calm one of the two is just a very patient person who is somehow “tolerating” the hysterical one. In reality, this scenario is a red flag for a possible abusive situation.

Abusers will often create a discrepancy between appearance and reality. Certainly if bystanders saw the reality of the abusive relationship, they would be more likely to intervene, and the abuser would be less likely to evade accountability. Abusers like to create an appearance of a happy relationship, or make it look like the victim is the aggressor.

The movie Case 39 presents a good illustration of the large discrepancy between how a relationship appears on the outside and how it actually is behind closed doors. In this video clip from the movie, a case worker from child protective services meets a young girl and her parents. We see a sweet young girl with these parents who look like angry nut jobs. We, as the audience, are inclined to empathize with the case worker who wants to get the girl out of this bad family situation and give her the loving home that she deserves.

What we find out later in the movie is that the girl’s parents were a perfectly nice couple, and it was the girl who is evil and drove her parents crazy. She is not even a child, but rather a demon. In this video clip, we see the girl reveal her true colors; and the case worker, who was so keen on giving this poor girl the loving home that she deserves, now is smashing the TV onto the ground and yelling at the girl. Then we see, for a split second, the girl’s face become the face of a demon. Indeed, the girl’s parents were not the problem. The girl was the problem the entire time, but this girl, who is actually a demon, is very good at making herself look like the innocent victim while her victims look like the aggressors.

The Case 39 movie is completely fictional. We are not going to see in our lifetimes a demon disguised as a young girl; but the same principle still applies. All over the world there are abusers who emotionally, and sometimes physically, abuse their victims until their victims reach a breaking point. When these victims have undergone emotional trauma, sometimes seemingly little things can set them off. They can appear as high-strung to outside observers. Sometimes the outside observers may even wonder how the other person is able to tolerate this “nut job.” What the outside observers do not know is that this nut job is a nut job because of abuse by the other person who seems to be the more emotionally stable one of the two.

A real-life example of an evildoer and a nut job is in the story of Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito. The couple were on a road trip together when they got into a bad argument one morning. They got pulled over by the police and each one was interviewed separately. In this video clip, we see that Gabby is very upset while Brian is nice and calm. Later in this video clip, we see that if anything, police officers are suspicious that Gabby is the aggressor because of scratch marks on Brian’s skin; but Brian says he does not want to press charges because she is his fiance and “he loves her.” We see that Brian is good at creating the illusion that Gabby is the nut job and he is the calm and tolerant one. See the full video of their encounter with the police here. Meanwhile, a 9-1-1 caller had earlier told a dispatcher that he/she saw Brian slapping her.

Not only was Gabby not the aggressor, but also evidence showed that Gabby was strangled to death, most likely by Brian. Gabby was reported missing, about one month later, by her family after they noticed that she had not returned any phone calls or posted on social media for several days. Her body was found outside somewhere in Grand Teton National Park where it was thought that it had been there for 3-4 weeks before it was found. The autopsy evidence showed that Gabby was manually strangled to death. Meanwhile, Brian was out on the run. The FBI tried to search for him for over a month. Eventually his skeletal remains were found in Florida, with evidence that he committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Prior to his suicide, he had already been charged with unauthorized use of a debit card, on which he spent about $1000 during his road trip with Gabby. He obviously was not a good honest person.

Complaints have surfaced on social media about how the police officers had ignored the signs of domestic abuse, and thought that Gabby was the aggressor. Julie Cantrell — a multiple award-winning, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author, editor, story coach, TEDx speaker, and ghostwriter — lists 30 lessons we can learn from the story of Brian and Gabby. One of the lessons that she listed:

A typical abuser would be skilled at convincing people that he’s innocent, while in fact he’s been acting very differently behind closed doors, pushing his target to this point intentionally and feeding on her emotional break. Many abusers LOVE to see evidence that they’ve hurt their target. They LOVE to see their target in pain. For this reason, “breaking” the target is usually the goal from the start. In cases of abuse, it may take an abuser hours, weeks, months, or even years to break the target, but he won’t stop until he gets that reaction, and then he’ll point the finger and say, “See? She’s crazy. I’m just trying to keep her calm.” And then he’ll do it again. And again. And again.

Another blogger, Chump Lady, discusses how angry she was that the police gave Brian a hotel room while Gabby had to sleep in the car. In numerous comments to this blog post from Chump Lady, women relay their personal experiences with the same kinds of abusive partners who tried to convince themselves and others that the woman is the aggressor.

In one of the comments, the woman’s husband found out that she knew about his adulterous affair, so he explains to her that he was avoiding her because he was “afraid that she would try to kill him.” Such a statement is offensive and accusatory. Furthermore, women are less prone to physical violence, and when they do get physically violent, they do not cause as much damage as a man would. While both men and women are equally prone to doing wrong, when the man does wrong, the consequences are more devastating because generally men are larger and can physically overpower women. Therefore, a woman has more reason to fear for her safety when the man is the aggressor than the man does when the woman is the aggressor.

The Crying of Gabby Petito

Many people do not think there is enough awareness of domestic abuse, but there is even less awareness of domestic abuse towards women of color. Some have complained that Gabby’s story was only told because she is white and blond and pretty. If she were a woman of color, her story would be less likely to be told. This article states that in the state of Wyoming, “only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, compared with 51% of white homicide victims.”

Toxic people can bring out the worst in others

I have met people who have presented to me a negative picture of this other person that they were in a relationship with. The other person was often described as bitchy, angry and abusive. In a subtle way, I was being congratulated for not being like him/her. I would later find that the person I was talking to was exhibiting behaviors that would make a normal person get angry.

For example, there was one guy I met who described his X-wife as bitchy and abusive. However, he also admitted that at one point in their marriage, he went out and bought a car without talking to her about it. Considering that he made much less money than she did, he was using more her money to buy the car than his own money. His actions gave her a good reason to get angry. It makes one wonder if his X-wife really was the bad guy.

The point is that when you are told that another person, whom you have never met, is easily angered and/or bitchy and/or crazy, you may be deceived. The bad guy may be the one standing right in front of you, and if you go into a relationship with this bad guy, then you may become his/her next easily angered nut job that he/she will be telling others about.

What about the screaming child in the grocery store?

If you see the usual screaming child in the store with the calm adult, it does not mean there is abuse. Children are known for throwing tantrums in public even when they have loving caring parents.

If you see two adults, and one is very upset while the other is calm and is exclaiming that the upset one is just crazy, then I would get suspicious. Nonetheless, finding out what is really going on can be tricky because even the victim can be brainwashed into believing that he/she is the problem. I am no psychologist or domestic violence expert myself, so I wouldn’t consider myself to be qualified to evaluate the situation. Just be aware that these abusive relationships happen, and to an outside observer, the perpetrator and victim can appear as the “calm one” and the “nut job.”

When we say “our loved ones”, we are generally referring to friends and family; but beware, friends and family can be some of our most treacherous enemies. The reason is that they are more likely to have our trust, and they have easier access to us, both physically and socially. They are more likely to know our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They usually know where we live and where we sleep. Sometimes they even live in the same household as us.

Family

You can at least choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family members — with the exception of marriage and adoption. In a perfect world, family is always there to meet your needs. Family members shower you with unconditional love. Family members have your back. However, we do not live in a perfect world. If someone is a family member of yours, it does not mean that he/she is a good person, and it does not mean that he/she will not do anything to deliberately hurt you.

We have all heard of abusive fathers and sibling rivalry, and we have all heard of the term “domestic violence”. Nonetheless, there are many other forms of evil that can occur among family members in seemingly normal families. Family members can be verbally abusive, sabotaging, exploitative, back-stabbing, oppressive, and/or controlling, and they are not being this way “because they love you.” They may have an emotional attachment to you, but that does not mean they will always care about your better interests.

The 2011 movie Cyber Bully presents an example of how treacherous friends and family can get. In the movie Cyber Bully, a teenage girl, Taylor, is excited about getting her own laptop. She now can go on social media and mingle with the other kids at her high school; but within a day of being on social media, Taylor is in tears because someone hacked into her profile and made her look like she was willing to sleep with any guy who crosses her path. Consequently, large numbers of disparaging comments appeared all over her wall. Later on, a guy that she had friended had told a lie that Taylor not only slept with him, but also gave him a sexually transmitted disease. Such a rumor can ruin someone’s reputation and may even make it harder to find employment in the future.

So who did this to her? We find out that the person who hacked into her profile was her younger brother, and the guy who said he slept with her actually did not exist. His profile was made up by one of Taylor’s two best friends. What motivated her brother and her best friend to do this to her? Jealousy. Taylor’s brother was jealous that she had her own laptop and he did not. Taylor’s best friend was jealous because Taylor found favor with a boy at school who had previously rejected her.

While Cyber Bully is just a movie, some say it is based on a true story of a teenage girl, named Megan Meier, who actually was cyber-bullied, and ended up committing suicide. In the true story, a family friend was the one who posed as a guy who did not exist, and through this profile, the family friend terrorized Megan. A major motivation for making the movie was to raise awareness of the dangers of online bullying, but the movie also illustrates how rumors can start with the very people that are closest to you.

Based on my observations, people are more likely to feel envy for friends and family members than for strangers. For example, think of all of the famous people in Hollywood who are idolized. Are you jealous of them for having fame and fortune that you do not have? Maybe some of you are, but now imagine that the famous person that so many people idolize is your brother or sister. Would you be more likely to be jealous of them then? It is one thing if a stranger out-shines us, but when a close family member like a sibling out-shines us, we may feel like we are in his/her shadow. We may secretly wish bad on him/her.

Rivaling Siblings or Actual Enemies?

Rivalry between siblings is normal and maybe even inevitable. Innocent sibling rivalry can happen when, for example, both siblings want to play with the same toy at the same time, and do not know how to compromise. A wide array of scenarios can lead to fights. So when does sibling rivalry escalate to full-blown enmity?

An enemy is defined as “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” When a brother does something mean to his sister, not because he is upset, but rather because he just likes to watch his sister suffer, then in my opinion he is crossing the line into being his sister’s enemy. At this point, there is no toy being faught over. Nobody is competing for the parents’ attention. Instead, one sibling is deliberately doing something to the other just so that he/she can enjoy watching the other one suffer.

Sometimes sibling rivalry is so bad in childhood that siblings continue to be enemies in adulthood.

Toxic Parent-Child Relationships

Getting out of a toxic relationship can be hard enough, but it is even harder when the culture around you expects you to remain in the toxic relationship. People can especially be judged when they try to end their relationships with their mothers. Culture has a tendency to have this “but it’s your mother” attitude. Culture neglects to see that your mother is not necessarily going to be a good person. When a woman has toxic behavioral tendencies, she is especially prone to exhibiting toxic behavior towards her daughters. Conversely, when a man has a tendency to be physically abusive, he may physically abuse his sons more than his daughters because he figures that his sons need to “toughen up.”

Regardless of who is abusing you, continuing in a relationship with the abuser and tolerating the abuse does not benefit anybody. Your abuser knows how to be nice. He/she is just choosing not to be nice. If you set boundaries and make it clear to your abuser that you will not tolerate his/her bad behaviors, then he/she will find a way to be nice again if he/she wants a relationship with you that badly. If he/she is not willing to modify his/her bad behaviors, then the relationship is not important to him/her and should be terminated.

Culture seems to have more awareness of abusive fathers than of abusive mothers. Because of this, adult children are often judged more when they try to cut off ties to their abusive mothers. Though mothers are less likely to be physically abusive, they can still be quite emotionally abusive and leave emotional scars in their children.

The Fetish for Female Self-Sacrifice

Within a family can also be the fetish for female self-sacrifice. As Grace Jennings-Edquist put it, “we [women] so often say “yes” to favours, requests and unrealistic parenting expectations because we fear being accused of being rude, mean or – shock horror – selfish (one of the worst things you can call a woman in our culture that fetishises female self-sacrifice).”

While self-sacrifice can be a great virtue, it is not always the right thing to do. Basic logic: sacrificing A for B is not right if A is more important and more valuable than B.

Women historically have had more familial responsibilities, and still do today. While taking care of family is important, the fettish for female self-sacrifice becomes wrong when family members demand more from the woman than is necessary. She is given more chores and responsibilities than she can handle, and she becomes exhausted. Her family members make her feel like unless she is sacrificing her livelihood for them, she is a terrible person. Meanwhile, her self-sacrifice may not even be fulfilling the needs of her family members, but rather their wants, which only exist because of greed.

Women are often raised to be polite and are taught the virtue of self-sacrifice. Such teachings can place these women into a position where they can be taken advantage of by their family members. In such a setting, children are taught to be self-entitled monsters who expect the woman to be catering to their greedy wants to the point of exhaustion. A good person would not want someone waiting on him/her hand-and-foot to the point of exhaustion. A good person does not want anyone to have to sacrifice her livelihood for him/her. A good person wants to be a joy to others, not a burden.

Recall the previous post, Planet Loser, where losers like to create an environment around them where being a loser is the norm. In a lot of parts of the world today, women are still subservient to men. Therefore, when a man is a loser, he at least has a certain status above women that he never had to earn. Losers do not earn what they have. When they do have status or authority over others, it is often a result of something besides merit, such as inheritance or being born of a certain race or gender. Losers like to have status over others that they do not have to earn. It helps them to forget that they are losers, and to forget that they never amounted to anything. Hence, one of the last things that a male loser will want to see is a woman in his family achieving things that he could never achieve himself. So what does he do when a woman in his family aspires to something great that he does not have the courage or talents to take on? He shames her for being “selfish”. How dare she better herself! He wants her to remain in a lower-level existence below him.

There are numerous challenges facing the world today: hunger, homelessness, violence, wars, cancer, etc. We need all the talent we can get to tackle these challenges, but some of that talent will be made unavailable if a sizable portion of the world’s population is prevented from developing their true talents, and is told that they are being selfish whenever they try to better themselves.

When women take care of themselves and try to better themselves, who suffers as a result of this “selfishness”? Nobody. For example, who suffers when a woman decides not to have children? Nobody. Her parents may be disappointed that they do not get grandchildren, but having grandchildren is only a want, not a need. Conversely, who suffers when a woman does not better herself, and instead does menial work that is either unnecessary or that can be done by someone else? The world can suffer because any rare talents she has are not being utilized.

Friends

We can choose our friends, but that does not mean we cannot be deceived or manipulated. Friends can be enemies in disguise as well. One red flag for an evil friend is when your friend is the one who initiates the relationship, and initiates the relationship aggressively. Another indication of an evil friend is one who is not considerate of your time, and one who from the beginning always seems to want something from you.

When I was at a social group gathering, Krystina asked me for my phone number, saying that we should get together sometime. Later that week, the first text message I received from her was a message stating that she needed somewhere to live. It was a turn-off. It was as if she was not really interested in me as a person; rather, she just had a use for me.

Later on she began showing lack of consideration for my time. She would request that I pick her up at a certain time so I could show her my living space, and then she would not show up. When we decided that she could live with me for awhile, she seemed to only be interested in moving into my place during the week when I was at work, and not on the weekend when I had off from work. Her lack of consideration for my time was another red flag that she was not a good person, and had potentially bad intentions.

Generally when evildoers make friends with you, it is because they have a use for you. Their use for you may be to get money from you or they may see that you have a good reputation while they do not. By associating with you and allowing themselves to be seen with you, they may hope to improve their image in the eyes of others. Yet another use someone may have for you is to make another X-friend jealous.

Nepotism

Another characteristic of evil friends and family members is the false sense of entitlement to favors. For example, say you are running a business and you have to hire some people. Evil friends and/or family members may believe they are entitled to get hired before other candidates who are more qualified. In addition, if a friend or family member is already hired and is performing poorly on the job at the expense of your customers, you may be judged for firing your friend or family member “because they are family.”

The truth is that favoritism is destructive. Depending on what the job is, hiring an under-qualified person can put customers and other employees in danger, and can jeopardize the business. Hiring unqualified people can cause customers to receive defective products, which can result in safety hazards, and can lead to the loss of customers altogether. Having unqualified managers and supervisors can lead to toxic work environments ridden with harassment and low morale. Unqualified employees can also be guilty of poor adherence to safety protocols, which can place themselves and others at risk.

Are you tolerating them? Or are they tolerating you?

Sometimes an evil friend or family member will try to make you feel like you are the bad one. He/she may even tell you that you should be grateful that he/she is willing to be around you “despite how you are”. (This has happened to me a couple of times.) His/her bad treatment of you may get you upset. Rather than feel bad for getting you upset, the friend or family member may act like your being upset is the problem rather than the bad treatment that made you get upset. He/she may try to convince you that you are just too sensitive, and he/she just never knows when you will unexpectedly get upset. If you fall for this trick, then you will be unable to stand up for yourself against bad treatment. You will instead believe that you are always the problem, and you may even try to make yourself numb to the bad treatment.

Because we associate family with unconditional love, an evil family member may tell you that while he/she will always love you, the rest of the world may not. Meanwhile, you may have friends that do love you for who you are. The evil family member is just trying to convince you that you are incapable of receiving conditional love, and the only love you can ever receive is unconditional love. According to the evil family member, if others found out “who you really are”, they would leave you. So you should be grateful that the evil family member knows your true colors and is still there for you. In reality, it is not he/she who is tolerating you, but rather you are tolerating him/her. He/she does not want you to know that.

Summary

To summarize, friends and family can be your most treacherous enemies because they have easier access to you, they know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they are more prone to being jealous of you and the surrounding culture may judge you if you shun them.

Planet Loser is a subculture where being a “loser” is the norm. In other words, being screwed up and living a mediocre life is the norm, and anybody who is happy and thriving is looked upon as a alien and a threat.

In the Urban Dictionary, loser is defined as “someone who doesn’t know what they have and F-s it up”. A loser is always making bad choices and messing up his/her own life and the lives of those around him/her. Some people make much out of whatever little they are given, but the loser could be given much and still make very little of it. Even if the loser has a privileged upbringing where Mom and Dad pay for him/her to go to college, he/she can still underachieve, never accomplish much of anything and be in one dysfunctional relationship after the other.

Being the 45-year-old bagger at the grocery store does not make one a loser. The bagger at the grocery store is still a productive member of society. A person with a “lower-end” job can still be a great husband and father, and still be a great contributor to his community. The real loser, on the other hand, may have a perfectly respectable desk job, but messes up almost every relationship he is in. He hates coming in to work every day, and only does so to pay the bills. He wastes both time and money on superfluous things, and may spend hours wasting in front of the television, guzzling down alcoholic drinks.

Loserhood likes company

Losers are not happy with their own lives, so they like to be in an environment where others are not doing too well either. Sometimes losers will even project their limitations onto other people. In other words, if something is hard or impossible for them, then they may assume it is hard or impossible for everybody else even if it is not.

One woman told me that she does not like being around happy people. She preferred to be around people who are “normal.” By no coincidence, her life was a mess because of bad decisions she had made. She was the kind of person that you feel sorry for when you first meet her. She was unemployed and on disability. She had gotten into a car accident years back and has not been the same since then. She had no place to live of her own, and kept living with one person after the other. Every time I turned around, some new bad thing would seem to be happening to her.

When she lived with me for a couple of months, I saw her continually make bad decisions that kept her in her bad situation. She would turn down opportunities to find a permanent place to live. She spent whatever money she had on expensive name-brand items at Whole Foods. Then she admitted to me that the reason she got into that car wreck was that she was driving drunk at night and ran the car into a palm tree. When she went to ride with me in the car, she did not even wear a seat belt. It was as if she was setting up the next big misfortune to fall on her.

Her friend told me that he has seen her burn bridges. In addition, she was mean and exploitative towards the people who let her live with them, including me. She would sometimes drive people to fits of rage. One person after the other kicked her out of their residence. One could see why such a person cannot relate to happy people.

When losers are around people who are happy and thriving, they are reminded that they are losers. A loser likes being around people who are screwed up and full of problems. The loser may even say that he/she likes being around people with lots of problems because it means they are “human.” The reality is that being human is no excuse to be screwed up. Even when people are living in poverty in a third world country, they can at least foster good relationships with others and enjoy the simple things, and with few problems. Problems are bound to occur even when we make good decisions because some things are outside of our control. Nonetheless, actively wishing for everyone around you to have “at least some problems” is evil.

In some cases, the loser may sabotage others in order to prevent people around him/her from thriving in ways that he/she is not. An example can be found in the movie Mona Lisa Smiles where the snob, Betty Warren, marries an unloving man who is never there for her and is out having an affair. Because she is unhappy with her own life, she decides to sabotage the love life of her friend, Connie Baker, by telling her lies that her lover is only using her when he actually was not. Connie was so hurt that she would not even talk to him, and their relationship almost ended.

As Betty’s marriage crumbles, Betty becomes increasingly mean to her other friends. She makes mean remarks like “Does he pay for your sex?” and “They say you’re a whore. And pretty soon, once they’ve all sampled you, they’ll toss you aside like a used rag.” Then she says “The men you love don’t even want you! Your father doesn’t want you!” At this point, Betty breaks down and cries. She is in so much pain that being mean cannot even make her feel better anymore.

Losers Who Control Other People

Sometimes losers try to wield control over friends, family members and/or romantic partners. Controlling and/or exercising authority over another person gives the loser a sense of superiority, status and power where the loser would otherwise feel insignificant and worthless. We have all heard of controlling people — especially controlling romantic partners. People can be controlling for a variety of reasons, and not all controlling people are losers, but being controlling is still a toxic behavior.

When losers try to control others, it can be oppressive and sometimes abusive for the other person. Losers are most likely to try to control people whom they perceive as easy targets, namely vulnerable people, which includes children, disabled people, chronically ill people and women (if the loser is a man).

When a man has a desire to control someone, he often views women as easier targets because they are easier to overpower. A man who controls his girlfriend may even rationalize and say to himself that he is only controlling her “because he loves her” or because he “wants to protect her.” What he is really doing is oppressing the woman and preventing her from thriving and succeeding in ways that he himself never could.

Some losers wield oppressive control over their own children. Normally one would think that parents would want their children to thrive and succeed. If anything, parents are known to sometimes live vicariously through their children, acting as if their children’s accomplishments are their accomplishments. However, one psychologist told me that some parents do not like to see their child do something that they have neither the courage nor the self discipline to do. For example, the adult child may undergo intensive lifestyle changes to reverse a chronic disease while the parents continue to live with their chronic diseases and chronic drug dependences.

Throughout history, and throughout much of the world today, women have been subservient to men. As a result, women can sometimes feel powerless and insignificant…until they have children. When the woman has children, she is finally in a position of authority and status. She finally has power over other human beings. What she does with that power will say a lot about her character. Will she strive to give her children the best lives that she can? Will she try to get her daughters the education that she never had? Or will she try to prevent her daughters from doing great things simply because it will remind her of what she never did herself?

Hypothetical scenario: Let us say that a woman was raised in a culture where women did not enjoy as many privileges as men. Not only has she had less privilege than her male counterparts, but she also is weak in spirit and in character. She always did what the world expected of her without standing up against anything or questioning anything. She never excelled at anything. She never stood out in any way. However, her daughter is not like her. Her daughter is tenacious, and ready to take on challenges that the world does not expect her to take on; but the mother does not want to see her succeed, because her daughter’s success would remind her of the great things that she never did. So whenever her daughter tries to take on a challenge, the mother whispers into her ear “You can’t, you do not have what it takes, but I will always love you anyway.” She rationalizes and tells herself she is treating her daughter this way out of love, and to “protect her”. What she really wants is for her and her daughter to be worthless underachieving nothings together, rather than for her to be an underachieving nothing by herself.

Older women especially have seen times when women had lower status than men. Women could not even get their own credit cards in the United States until the 1970s. Some older women are glad to see young girls today enjoying privileges that they never had when they were young; but other older women may get jealous.

Hypothetical scenario: Throughout her life, a woman has had lower privilege and lower status than her male counterparts and weak character. As a result, she has not amounted to much of anything. She never even got married or had children. Now that she has gotten old, she finally has the opportunity to have a higher status than “those young people.” She wants to be known for her wisdom, but has not acquired much wisdom during her many years because of how little she has done with her life. She likes to act as the strict disciplinarian and intimidate children because it gives her a feeling of power that she never had when she was younger. She likes to control children because otherwise she feels small and insignificant.

Sometimes adults abuse children because of their own insecurities. Many of us have heard of cases of physical abuse and mental abuse; but what if the abuse is very subtle? The parent may not physically abuse the child, or even make the child cry, but the parent may oppress the child in such a way as to prevent the child from thriving and achieving his/her potential. Such an abuse can be subtle and harder to detect by adults outside the home, such as teachers and sports coaches.

Losers as Caretakers

In some relationships, the boyfriend or husband acts as the caretaker to a girlfriend or wife who is morbidly obese and can barely move. I have seen documentaries where a doctor presents a promising plan for the woman to lose weight and become more independent again. One would think that the boyfriend would want to see his girlfriend lose weight and become more attractive and independent. Indeed, more often than not, the boyfriend or husband was quite supportive of the woman’s quest to lose weight, but in some cases the boyfriend was not so supportive. Some boyfriends actually like having a girlfriend who is dependent on them. He can more easily control her, and he knows it would be next to impossible for her to leave him for another man.

When a loser is in the position of caretaker, he/she is in a position of power and control over another human being. This position gives the loser a sense of power and status. Having power over another human being helps the loser forget that he/she is a loser.

We can be sure that someone is a bad person when he/she shows signs of wanting another person to remain in a state of perpetual dependency. Good people want what is best for others, and will try to help someone achieve a state of independence if indeed they can. Bad people, especially losers, desire for the other person to remain dependent and in a decrepit state.

The good news is that if you are a truly good person, then you are not going to be a loser. Good people have too much of a passion for helping others and making the world a better place. They are bound to amount to something, even if they do not have the most prestigious career in the eyes of the world.

Summary

When you land your spaceship on Planet Loser, you will be viewed as either a fellow loser, an alien or a prisoner. If you are screwed up and have lots of problems in your life caused by your bad decisions, then Planet Loser will welcome you as one of its own. If you are happy and thriving, then you will be seen as an alien and a threat. If, however, you are vulnerable — a child, a disabled person, a sick person, etc — then Planet Loser may capture you and keep you as a prisoner. Such is the environment that losers create around themselves in order to cope with their mediocre existence.

Self-righteous and unrighteous people have one thing in common—both are bad people. The difference is that unrighteous people know that they are bad while self-righteous people do not.

Sometimes people want to be able to wear the good-person feather in their cap, but without going through the work and inconvenience of actually being good. As such, they will find loopholes in the “moral code” that will allow them to do bad things to people and yet still view themselves — and be viewed by others — as good decent people. Over time, they may bury themselves deep in delusions that their destructive behaviors are okay. Rationalization could easily be the most common tool that self-righteous people use to deceive themselves, and others, into believing that their evil behaviors are okay.

Self-righteousness can be dangerous in ways that unrighteousness is not, as is explained by a quote from C.S. Lewis, which compares robber barons (wealthy powerful businessmen) to a certain kind of self-righteous people called moral busybodies:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Here C.S. Lewis explains that the worst forms of oppression can be from the self-righteous crowd.

Destructive behaviors of the self-righteous

• Seeing fault in others that is not there
• Imposition of unnecessary behavioral standards onto others
• Hypocrisy
• A false feeling that others are indebted to them

When a bad person is buried in the delusion that he/she is righteous, and presents him/herself as the pinnacle of goodness, it is an ugly sight to see. It is analogous to a schizophrenic presenting himself as the pinnacle of mental soundness.

Self-righteous people often know deep down that they are not as good as they like to think that they are. Rather than acknowledge their shortcomings, they often project their faults onto others. For example, let us say a self-righteous person wants to get her way all the time, and yells at people if she does not get her way. She may project her faults onto her husband, telling her husband that he is such a hot head whenever he expresses the slightest bit of aggravation about anything, even if that feeling of aggravation is warranted. She may also accuse him of expecting everyone to always agree with him. Does he actually expect everyone to always agree with him? Not necessarily, but his self-righteous wife does.

By seeing fault in others that is not there, the self-righteous person can divert his/her own attention (and the attention of others) away from his/her own hidden faults. The worse the other person looks, the better the self-righteous person looks in his/her own eyes.

Self-righteous people are known for pushing unnecessary rules of behavior onto others, and they may or may not be following those rules themselves. For example, a self-righteous family member may council you to act as if you enjoy someone’s company more than you actually do. He/she may tell you to make sure that you appear very sad when the other person has to leave. After all, you want to make sure that the other person feels loved by you and walks away believing that you are just dying to see him/her again. Of course nobody benefits from this rule of behavior. If everyone behaved this way, then you would have no way of knowing whether someone wants your company! You could be around people who hate your guts and never even know.

A self-righteous person may express great disgust if you so much as slurp while you are eating your soup. The self-righteous person may roll his/her eyes when you shove food into your mouth, not caring that maybe you are in a hurry and have to eat really fast. If, heaven forbid, you violate one of their petty rules of politeness, you may get a long, cold, scornful stare.

The strict rules of behavior that are imposed by self-righteous people do not necessarily benefit anybody. Why? Because these rules of behavior are not meant to benefit anybody, but rather are meant to maintain the moral high ground of the self-righteous people who are imposing these rules. Looking behind the curtain, you may find that these self-righteous people do not always follow these rules of behavior themselves.

Self-righteous people can be bad hosts and hostesses. Just by setting foot into their house, they may believe that you are indebted to them for having their roof over your head for any length of time. If you happen to be in their house for a really long time, and you start to go hungry, judgment from your self-righteous host may be hard to avoid. If you do ask for food, then your self-righteous host may judge you for being an imposition. If you do not ask for food, then you may be insulting the host by assuming that he/she has no food to give to you and the other guests. When the self-righteous host serves food and you have diet restrictions, then you are more vulnerable prey. The self-righteous host may single you out as being more indebted to him/her than any of the other guests. Even if the self-righteous host serves you the wrong food by accident, in his/her mind, you are still indebted to him/her for just trying to accommodate you — even if you get sick afterwards.

When a self-righteous person does something nice for you, it can be uncertain whether he/she actually cares about you, or if perhaps you are just a vessel through which he/she is flaunting his/her goodness. Hint: if the deed is done in plain view of others, then the more likely motive is the latter.

Self-righteous people have a way of throwing a fuss over little things while overlooking the things that do matter. For example, say you are sending out a memo at work. The memo presents a message of high urgency about a deadline coming up. A self-righteous colleague may call attention to some minor grammatical errors in the memo, and ignore the content of the actual message.

Unrighteous people

Unrighteous people can turn good at any time, but they are most likely to turn good when they have hit rock bottom, such as when they have committed a heinous crime and are sentenced to prison for life or for a very long time. A number of criminals have turned good while in prison, most often because they have found God, the one being that will forgive them no matter how many terrible things they have done in the past.

Dave Maynard’s article presents stories of six different violent criminals who turned to God while in prison, some of whom went on to help other prisoners turn to God as well. One of these criminals was David Berkowitz who randomly shot a group of people in New York City, killing 6 and injuring 7. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison. Ten years into his prison sentence, a fellow inmate urged him to read the Bible. After reading the Bible for some time, David prayed to God: Jesus, God, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know if You have any interest in me. I don’t know if You hate me or what, but I just want you to know how sorry I am for the things that I’ve done wrong, how I hurt people, how I hurt my family.

After David Berkowitz converted to the Christian faith, he became a counselor to young people and fellow inmates. He would go to parole hearings to apologize and own responsibility for the crimes he committed. God’s forgiveness was what motivated him to turn away from his evil ways and move on to a righteous life.

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 people, and also committed rape, cannibalism and necrophilia (sexual intercourse with dead bodies). One day, a pastor sent Dahmer a Bible study course, and Dahmer completed it. Next, a pastor was visiting Dahmer once a week for Bible lessons. Dahmer eventually got baptized. In his interview with MSNBC, he said “If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?”

Karla Faye Tucker had been abusing drugs since the age of 8, and she ended up killing her friend and his girlfriend with a pickaxe. A year after she committed the crime, someone spoke about Jesus Christ at Karla’s prison. Karla accepted Jesus Christ as her savior, and afterwards she taught the Bible to fellow inmates, leading them to the faith. She also ended up apologizing to the families of the people that she had killed.

Susan Atkins participated in what was known as the Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969. She stabbed a woman 16 times who was in the later stages of pregnancy. She also participated in the killing of two grocery store owners, a music teacher and Abigail Folger (of Folger’s coffee). In 1974, when she was in her prison cell, she had a vision of Jesus and became a born-again Christian. According to the article, “She went on to write the book ‘Child of Satan, Child of God’ about her salvation testimony. She then devoted herself to Bible studies and chapel services. She prayed with other inmates and even some guards. She started an online newsletter that spoke of God’s forgiveness, love and hope. By all accounts, she became a model prisoner, ministering to many people. Even the family members of the people she killed said so and praised her efforts behind bars.”

In all of these stories, the people committed crimes that are recognized by our culture as evil. They received strong messages from the world around them that what they did was terrible. They all were sentenced to life in prison. The way that the world reacted to their crimes was probably a major factor that lead to their changes in character.

I think that a bad person can become a good moral person without converting to Christianity, but it is harder to find such stories. If a prisoner were to become good, he/she would exhibit good behavior as a prisoner no doubt, but good behavior does not attract as much attention as bad behavior. Stories of baptism, however, attract more attention and are more likely to generate stories that people write about.

Self-righteous people do not become good as easily

The process of turning good is more complicated for self-righteous people because people cannot turn good if they do not know that they are a bad people to begin with. In order to turn good, one has to know that one is not good. Hence, when it comes to turning good, self-righteous people have an extra step to take that is not necessary for the unrighteous people. That extra step is not easy because it involves putting aside one’s pride and admitting to one’s own shortcomings.

Dolores Umbridge of the Harry Potter novel series is an example of a self-righteous person. Dolores gravitated towards positions of high power, and often liked to think of herself as an unspoken hero whenever she exercised that power to pull off one of her schemes. For example, after Harry Potter witnessed the return of Lord Voldemort, wizards and witches in the Ministry of Magic wanted to silence Harry because they did not want to stir up a panic in the wizarding community; but they did not know how best to silence Harry, so Dolores took matters into her own hands and sent two dementors to Privet Drive where Harry lived with his cousin, Dudley. The goal was to force Harry to use his magical powers against the dementors, get Harry into trouble for violating the law against underage use of magic outside of school, and then get Harry expelled from Hogwarts.

For those of you who do not know, dementors are dangerous creatures who have the ability to suck the soul out of a human with a kiss. Both Harry and Dudley almost got kissed by the dementors. Harry had to use his magic to save them. Meanwhile, Dolores did not tell her superiors at the Ministry of Magic that she had sent the dementors, and she let them believe that the dementors wound up on Privet Drive by coincidence. In her self-righteousness, she thought that what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Dolores’s plan to get Harry expelled did not work, but Dolores continued to cause trouble in her new position as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. The Defense Against the Dark Arts class no longer taught students how to use magic to defend against evil. When Harry kept insisting that Lord Voldemort had returned, Dolores punished Harry by making him write in his own blood “I must not tell lies.” Harry was to write the message repeatedly until its words formed a scar on the back of Harry’s hand.

In her mind, Dolores Umbridge was just preventing Harry from stirring up trouble by telling tales that Lord Voldemort returned. In reality, she had no reason to believe that Harry was lying. She and the other witches and wizards at the Ministry of Magic simply believed what they wanted to believe.

Overlooked evil — a breeding ground for self-righteousness

Think about the self-righteous characters on television. One reason these self-righteous people are not as likely to turn good is that they are receiving messages from the world around them that their behavior is okay. Indeed, when our culture overlooks evil behaviors, or views evil behaviors as okay, a breeding ground for self-righteousness emerges.

The truly good person will refrain from behaviors that seem to hurt people — even if the surrounding culture sends messages that those behaviors are okay. The truly good person is motivated by care and compassion for fellow human beings as opposed to the individual who refrains from bad behaviors just to keep people off of their case or keep from being yelled at. Do you genuinely care about your fellow human beings? Or do you just not want to be yelled at or hated? The self-righteous person often falls somewhere in between. Self-righteous people do have some good in them, but they believe that they are much more good than they actually are.

Murderers — are they that much worse than the rest of us?

We tend to think of murderers as being among the worst of people, but some self-righteous people may not be any less evil. In actuality, there are selfish reasons to not kill people. The self-righteous person knows that if he/she kills someone, he/she can get caught, get prosecuted and either spend life in prison or get executed. Furthermore, everyone will think of him/her as a monster. These are very powerful motivations to not kill people that have nothing to do with actual goodness.

Self-righteous people will often say that they cringe at the thought of killing someone with a knife or a gun, and may even faint or become squeamish at the sight of blood, but that does not make the individual any more good of a person than someone who is desensitized to the sight of blood, such as doctors and nurses who do life-saving work or soldiers who fight for our country.

Just wanting someone to be dead is an indication of the mindset of a murderer. Alternatively, the self-righteous person may be in denial that another person’s life has value. If the self-righteous person is a narcissist, then he/she may believe that others have no value as human beings, but rather exist only for the purpose of meeting his/her wants and needs.

What our culture recognizes as some of the worst evils — murder, pedophilia, terrorism, rape — tend to be evils that have immediate bad effects. They cause harm in the very same moment that they are committed. Some evil deeds, however, have harmful effects that are delayed. Self-righteous people sometimes do acts of evil that do not cause any visible harm the moment they are committed, but cause harm perhaps years later. Because the harm caused by the evil deed is delayed, the self-righteous person can more easily evade accountability and even deny to him/herself that he/she did anything wrong.

One evil deed that can have delayed harmful effects is exposing a child to cigarette smoke over a period of many years. While the child is inhaling the cigarette smoke, the child does not show any signs of ill effects. The bad effects accumulate over time and are eventually noticeable. When the bad effects become noticeable, such as the onset of an illness, it is harder to trace the illness to cigarette smoke because there are so many other factors that can cause tobacco-related illnesses. Because of the harmful effects are so delayed, it is easier for the self-righteous person to deny to him/herself that any harm came about from the second-hand smoke.

Evil deeds with delayed bad effects could be done by an individual or an organization. For example, an employer may overwork their employees to the point that they die premature death. The employer, in their self-righteousness, may see this exploitation of workers as “business as usual.” The self-righteous employer does not necessarily care that their employees die prematurely, as long as they get the most work out of their employees while their employees are still alive. Fortunately, this kind of overwork does not happen as much in the developed world today because of the labor laws that have been passed.

Summary

To conclude, self-righteousness is farther away from turning good than unrighteousness because one cannot turn good if one does not know that one is a bad person to begin with. Certain environments that allow self-righteousness to flourish are environments that overlook certain evil behaviors and/or view certain evil behaviors as being okay. Friends and family also can be enablers of self-righteousness by not saying anything to the individual and continuing in a relationship with the individual despite harmful behaviors.

People who identify as Christian are arguably the biggest misrepresentation of Christianity. The reason is that while people who identify as Christian will acknowledge God’s existence and acknowledge Jesus as the son of God, they do not necessarily live by the teachings of the Bible. They are what we could say are “false disciples.”

In Matthew chapter 7, verses 21-23, Jesus states Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Also in the gospel of John, chapter 4, verse 15, Jesus states If you love me, you will keep my commandments. In other words, a true disciple lives his/her life in obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

It is easy to judge a belief system by observing the people who identify themselves as members of that belief system; but this is not how we should learn about a belief system. We should learn about a belief system by observing the behaviors and deeds of the founder of that belief system, and by reading the scriptures of that belief system. For example, if we want to learn about Christianity, we should study the New Testament, and read about the behaviors and deeds of Jesus, who is the founder of Christianity. If we want to learn about the Muslim faith, then we should study the Quran. If we want to learn about the Jewish faith, then we should study the Old Testament.

When we study the New Testament, we will find that there are many teachings of Jesus that are pretty different from the mainstream lifestyle in western culture. Living by the teachings of Jesus means that we are not to have any sexual relations outside of marriage. We are not to utter curse words. We are never to lie; even “white lies” are forbidden. We are not supposed to get drunk; many followers of Jesus avoid alcohol altogether. If someone is mean to us, we are not supposed to “return evil for evil”. We are not supposed to be materialistic, so getting rich is not a priority for any follower of Jesus. Furthermore, we are commanded to observe communion on the first day of the week, and we are supposed to read and study the Bible on a regular basis.

The overwhelming majority of people who identify as Christian do not live out the teachings described above. They are, therefore, a false representation of Christianity.

Christian Churches

The overwhelming majority of Christian churches also are misrepresentations of Christianity. They often tell people what they want to hear, which is that they can live whatever way they want, and as long as they are not “really bad” they will be saved.

Let us say that you commit a crime, and the sentence for your crime is life in prison; but someone who committed no crime himself decides to undergo your punishment in your place. Now you do not have to go to prison after all. Does that mean you go out and re-commit the crime? Hopefully not. Such an act would be a slap in the face to the person who went to prison in your place. Hopefully you will feel grateful that someone has undergone the punishment in your place, and you will try to make the most of your time outside of prison from now on.

This scenario is analogous to what Jesus did for us according to the Christian faith. We all did something wrong at some point in our lifetimes, and the sentence for our wrondoings is to be tormented and destroyed in hell. Jesus, however, who committed no sin in his lifetime, suffered for our sins in our place and experienced death. If we come to believe that Jesus died for our sins, and we decide to live a life of obedience to Jesus from now on, then all of our previous wrongdoings are forgiven, and we no longer have to go to hell.

According to the New Testament scriptures, Jesus is the founder and head of the Christian church, as it states in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5 verse 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body. Yet many Christian churches were founded by men. Examples include the Episcopal church, the Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Methodist church, etc.

Each of these churches has its own set of teachings that do not come from the Bible. The Catholic church has the catechism. The Episcopal church has the Book of Episcopal. The Mormon church has the Book of Mormon. Some of these man-made teachings contradict teachings of the New Testament. For example, some priests are addressed as “Father”, but the Bible states in gospel of Matthew, chapter 23 verse 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

The New Testament warns about false teachings and false prophets. It states that you can tell a true prophet from a false prophet by whether or not his/her predictions of the future come to pass. We can detect false teaching based on whether or not they match the teachings of the Bible.

Neither the Christian churches nor the people who identify as Christian are going to give you an accurate view of Christianity. You will have to read the Bible yourself. Fortunately, there is a minority of Christian churches that do operate based on the Bible teachings, and their members believe that no teachings are to be added to the Bible or taken away.

Christian Cults and Mind Control

Some people outside of the Christian faith see Christianity as a bunch of man-made mind control. This concern is understandable given that a number of Christian cults through history have manipulated otherwise good people into doing bad things, and have often used fear of hell to scare people into obedience. These cults, once again, are another false representation of Christianity. We know that a cult, or any church, is a misrepresentation of Christianity when its teachings are not in the New Testament. Another red flag that a church is corrupt is when it forbids or discourages its members from reading the Bible themselves. Indeed, if their members read the Bible themselves, they are likely to see discrepancies between the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church.

I was once in a church that was known for being a cult, though I did not know this at the time. This cult was certainly not one of the more dangerous cults, but like any cult, members believed that this church was the only true Christian church, and that members in all other churches were doomed to go to hell. They did study the Bible, but not all of it, and some of their beliefs and the way they did things went against Bible teachings, as I found out later. First, they believed that good works save you and not faith. Their reasoning was that demons will acknowledge God’s existence, and they are not saved.

While this is true, the Bible does distinguish between a saving faith and a dead faith in the book of James, chapter 2. Chapter 2 of the book of James explains that a simple acknowledgement of God’s existence does not save you, but a faith in God that drives you to action does save. When the Bible states that faith is what saves, what it is really referring to is faithfulness or loyalty to God. The saving faith is more than just acknowledging God’s existence. It is about loving God and living the lifestyle that God commands us to live. The good works that you do are simply evidence that you are saved.

Other verses such as Ephesians 2:8-9 explain that faith saves and not good works, “so that no one may boast”. In other words, getting into the kingdom of heaven is not something we can boast about because we did not earn our place in God’s kingdom ourselves. Jesus earned it for us. Even if we do the mighty works described in the gospel of Matthew, such as driving out demons in the name of Jesus, if we are not obedient to God’s commandments, then we will not have a place in the kingdom of heaven.

The problem with believing that good works is what saves us—aside from that it goes against the Bible’s teachings—is that no matter how many good works we do, we will always wonder if we are doing enough. Christian cults that teach their members to rely on good works for salvation can cause their members to pour exorbitant amounts of time and money into the church while always feeling like they could be doing more.

While I was in this church that turned out to be a cult, I had a “discipler” assigned to me. This discipler kept an eye on me and made sure I was going to every Sunday morning service and every Bible study. If I missed any, then my discipler shamed me. It felt wrong because I was an adult in my 30s, not a 9-year-old skipping school. Yet another big red flag was that when they saw that I was interested in reading more of the Bible, they told me not to. They told me to “…do what we say, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” I eventually left this church after I found out that it was known for being a cult. Although they were taking the time to teach me the Bible, I figured that they were teaching me the Bible from their perspective, and only the parts of it that they wanted me to know.

Since I had left this cult, I have only joined churches that operate based on the Bible’s teachings, and not man-made teachings. No disciplier was assigned to me in any other church I had joined, and I was encouraged to study the whole Bible.

Christianity in its true form is not mind control, but man-made institutions that associate themselves with Christianity can be mind-controlling. In reality, God gives us all free will. He wants us to follow Him because we love Him, not because of fear, or because we are robots programmed to follow Him. For example, when you have friends, you want your friends to choose to be your friends out of free will, not because they are robots that are programmed to be your friends, or because they are afraid that some terrible punishment will fall on them if they choose not to be your friends. You want them to choose to be your friends because they love you and find your company to be rewarding. God wants the same thing from us.

Faith and Evidence

Already discussed is the myth that a simple acknowledgement of God’s existence is enough to save you. Another myth about faith is that faith means believing in something despite the lack of evidence.

Biblical faith is believing in things unseen, but is still based on evidence. In other words, our God may be invisible, but we still believe that He exists because of the evidence for his existence. We were not alive in ancient times to observe the life and miracles of Jesus, but we still believe that they happened.

Atheists have faith that historical events happened even though they were not there to see them. Atheists generally believe that Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and Alexander the Great existed even though they were not alive to see them. The reason is evidence in the form of archaeological findings and historical documents. The same goes with the existance and life of Jesus. The gospels are eye-witness accounts of the life of Jesus. While some of the events of the gospels may not match everybody’s idea of realistic, eye witnesses were still there to see these miraculous events, and four of these eye-witnesses wrote the gospels.

Lee Strobel used to be an atheist who worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He thought of God as one big fairy tale that he would never believe in, and he decided to investigate where the Bible came from in order to prove that the Bible had no truth and was just a bunch of made up stories. He interviewed biblical scholars at universities, discussing with them corroborating evidence between the Bible and other historical documents; archaeological findings; the fulfillment of divine prophecy and how long the gospels were written after the events happened. Lee Strobel not only failed to prove that the Bible was wrong, he converted to Christianity himself. He saw so much evidence behind the Bible as the word of truth that he came to believe it takes faith to not believe in God. He tell his story in his book A Case for Christ.

What does it mean to convert to Christianity?

Conversion to Christianity comes by hearing the word of God in the Bible, believing it, choosing to repent from a life of sin and getting a baptism.

Baptism is a ritual that a convert goes through when the convert has decided to live the rest of his/her life for Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the baptism, the convert is briefly immersed in water. The ritual represents the death of the old sinful self and the birth of the new self that now lives for God. This is what they mean “born-again Christian”.