The Raging Religious Douche Bag

Don't step on his dogma, don't make incidental eye contact and don't talk about his God. But what ever you do, don’t mention certain facts about the Bible or how there is no evidence for a historical Jesus, or even how Gays have the right to marry. It doesn't take a whole lot to set this guy off, and after he's pissed, screaming, swinging and insulting you, you might wish you'd actually done something worthy of such a shit-fit, because the novelty wears off very quickly.


He's easy to pick out in a crowd, he'll be one man yelling, screaming and trying to make everyone’s life a living Hell! While everyone in the crowd exchanges confused glances along with sympathetic shrugging shoulders, wondering who pissed in this guys corn flakes. This douche bag makes sure that he can't or won’t be ignored.


What is it that makes this person a raging religious douche bag? Why is he so angry? Why is this guy throwing a tantrum like a titty baby? I will try to explain, the rage, the entitlement, the frustration and the hatred, which encompasses this disorder known as the Raging Religious Douche Bag.


Do you know one, maybe two, if you have spent anytime on the R&P forums of MySpace, you could easily name off 10 or 15 without thinking too long or hard. Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind right off hand. Then you have your long list of regular MySpace Religious Douche Bags These people that profess their allegiances to God and Jesus, but are so filled with piss and vinegar, they in fact do more harm to the Christian religion than any atheist ever will.


Think about it for one minute, there are people forever turned off from Christianity because these guys can't get a message across without sounding and acting like total bastards.


Lets face it. The biggest turn off to Christianity is the Raging Religious Douche Bag. Most Atheists, Jews, Buddhist and even Pagans would agree with a lot of the peaceful practices and teachings of tolerance by Jesus. But these guys always emphasize the differences. They want to feel persecuted and will project their persecution to others to reach this end. Shouldn't the holy spirit be found in their hearts and not from the hateful words of some psychotic homophobic online preacher with a stick in his ass?


Personally, from my interpretation of the bible, even a neurotic non-believer like me has a better shot at Heaven than someone who embraces hate in God's name.


I have found that these people who claim to be Christians often are most critical of those who most resemble themselves or at least reflect their own sinful tendencies. They embrace Christianity with anger and hate, they say they “hate” others, but most often it comes out as ‘Hate the sin, not the sinner,’ but if the Holy Spirit of God truly lived within them, they would be incapable of hating others and would readily forgive others of their so called sins. The revelation that they are so angry at someone else is often an indication of either false or extremely immature faith. So, what they are so threatened by is actually what they are struggling with themselves, their own failed morals, their own insecurities in their faith, their fears and short comings.


Anger


Anger is an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense wrath and rage. Like all other emotions, it's accompanied by physiological and biological changes. In anger, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, and so do the levels of your energy hormones and adrenaline. Anger is either caused by external and internal events, so you can be angry at a specific person, an event, or your anger could be caused by worrying or frustration due to not finding a solution and even feeling threatened by other human beings, either psychologically or physically.



It is a natural, although adaptive response to threats. It inspires powerful, aggressive feelings and behaviors, which allow you to fight and defend yourself when under attack. It can be a difficult emotion to express and manage, particularly because we have been taught to express all of our other emotions other than angry. Therefore, it is not uncommon to feel guilty or ashamed about being angry despite it being a very normal and necessary emotion. We are even taught to avoid angry people, so anger has become the anti-social emotion, instead of dealing with anger in a constructive manner we shun it, we avoid it, or we let it consume us.


People who are easily angered generally have a very low tolerance for frustration, aggravations and hassles of daily living and seem to overreact to the many problems of daily living. They feel that they should not be subjected to frustration, inconvenience, or annoyance. They can't take things in stride, and are particularly exasperated if the situation in some way seems unreasonable to them; for example, such people might become extremely annoyed on being corrected for a minor mistake.


Some angry people are very manipulative. They think and behave as if they can and will change the behavior of others as a result of their rage or tantrums. These people have no real sense of control. They give off the illusion of being in control. But a person with a rage/anger problem can’t be motivational or inspirational to others as anger acts like a block. Such people are believed to suffer from low self-esteem. Actually, insecurity is the bottom line. They are very much aware of the fact that they are mediocre in many aspects of their lives and try to feign control. They try to hide the truth from themselves and feel that they can camouflage their insecurities with tantrums, flare-ups, mood swings, and threats of violence.


Authoritative nature is dominate in people, who get angry easily, they will often times have a sense of entitlement. They want to be the authority on any matter they bring up and do not expect you to counter anything they have to say, but when you do it irritates them to no end. Sometimes they feel they deserve to be catered to, and expect it, but by not doing so, angers them.



Stress does aggravates anger, so, people who have frustrations or problems in their lives will make them react more strongly than the others. The pain and discomfort in their life makes them do so. So our personal situation plays a major role in our reactions to various circumstances in life. The reason we get angry is because it's a way of us trying to avoid the emotional pain that we experience. But primarily we get angry to communicate our thoughts, our feelings and frustrations to those around us.


Some people may suffer from Intermittent Explosive Disorder: There are people who react to situations with a sudden outburst without thinking about repercussions. A 2006 study by the National Institute of Mental Health has determined the condition to be more prevalent than previously thought, affecting around 2 out of every 25 adult Americans, most commonly seen in male youths.


Many people diagnosed with IED appear to have general problems with anger or other impulsive behaviors. They may experience racing thoughts or a heightened energy level during the aggressive episode, with fatigue and depression developing shortly afterward.


The Intermittent Explosive Disorder


Intermittent explosive disorder is characterized by repeated episodes of aggressive, violent behavior in which one react grossly out of proportion to the situation. People with intermittent explosive disorder may attack others physically or verbally and their possessions, causing bodily injury and property damage.


Most people with this disorder grew up in families where explosive behavior, verbal and physical abuse were common. Being exposed to this type of violence at an early age makes it more likely for these children to exhibit these same traits as they mature.


People with other mental health problems — such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders and eating disorders — may be more likely to also have intermittent explosive disorder.


People with traits that are common to personality disorders — such as dramatic, antisocial, paranoid or narcissistic behavior patterns — may be especially prone to intermittent explosive disorder. As children, they may have exhibited severe temper tantrums and other behavioral problems, such as stealing, fire setting and even bed wetting.


To be diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder you must meet criteria spelled out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS), published by the American Psychiatric Association.


Criteria for intermittent explosive disorder to be diagnosed include:


* Multiple incidents in which the person failed to resist aggressive impulses that resulted in deliberate destruction of property or assault, physical and/or verbal, of another person.

* The degree of aggressiveness expressed during the incidents is completely out of proportion with the precipitating event.

* The aggressive episodes aren't accounted for by another mental disorder and are not due to the effects of a drug or a general medical condition.


Other conditions that must be ruled out before making a diagnosis of intermittent explosive disorder include delirium, dementia, oppositional defiant disorder, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, panic attacks, substance withdrawal or intoxication.


People with intermittent explosive disorder may have an imbalance in the amount of serotonin and testosterone in their brains. They may also show some minor irregularities in neurological signs and electroencephalograms (EEGs).


Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) is now classified in DSM-IV among the "Impulse Control Disorders Not Elsewhere Classified". This has remained essentially unchanged since DSM-III, which was published in 1980. Prior to that--in DSM-II--the nearest thing to IED was the so-called Explosive Personality, which was regarded as a personality disorder.


In DSM-III, and ever since, it was recognized that some individuals have bouts of explosive behavior that are NOT part of their underlying character structure, and, indeed, are experienced as ego-alien or ego-dystonic.


There is no cure for intermittent explosive disorder, but gaining some control over an otherwise unmanageable condition through therapy and drug treatments is better than doing nothing at all. Anger disorders may require one or a combination of treatments:


* Drug Therapy

* Behavior Therapy

* Anger Management Program

* Psychotherapy


Recognizing there is a problem is the first step to getting help for IED or any other behavioral condition. Intermittent explosive disorder is a behavior condition defined by a particular pattern of anger that is profoundly exaggerated compared to the cause. Left untreated, IED can lead to major disciplinary problems for the adult with this disorder; the risks may include job loss, social rejection, and the potential for serious conflicts with the law. Repeated acts of aggression may cause damage to property, harm to the individual, and injury to anyone that tries to intervene during an outburst.


Morality


Researchers at Stanford University suggests that moralizing the behavior of other people has a lot to do with defending our own fragile egos. People will cast their selves as nobility superior in the morals department to avoid feeling naive and idiotic. Those eager to judge other people will do so, on two main axes: morality and competence. In defending their ego, if they can't impugn someone's ethics, they will simply label them as stupid.


So an atheists who threatens a Christian’s ego by posting a blog about the short comings of the Christian religion, has threatened the religious person psychologically. So the Christian feels they must lash out at this evil person anyway they can. Be it swearing, fowl language, and child-like insults; spelling and grammar errors will run amok, because the religious douche bag, has already lost the ability to reason in their rage.


A homosexual man wanting to marry another man is to the Christian mindset ‘Pure Blasphemy’. A blasphemy that was against his religion and the Christian had been taught that was unacceptable. They will flat out say its an amoral act, and an evil sin.


Now if a religious person can’t judge another person as evil, then they belittle them with insults, as a pretentious self-affirmation that this person is indeed incompetent. Just to keep from feeling idiotic their selves. This is just another attempt to blindly and sadly protect their own inflated egos and the motivation to devalue others.



Conclusion


As you can see, there is normal anger which arises from pain, frustration, and aggravations and is healthy when expressed. Of course, we are unlikely to experience anger in a truly healthy way, without a great deal of practice. And then there is abnormal unhealthy anger which arises from guilt, reflection, insecurity, failed morals, short comings and the mental condition known as IED.


Now add the religious aspects to this disorder. Fear, ignorance, intolerance, a pious self righteous judgmental attitude and a very fragile ego, all these aspects that are promoted by a zealot religious belief. These people who are willing to go that extra mile for their beliefs, from belittling insults to threats of violence to oppressing those they feel deserving of such rage and even murder.


These religious people feel justified in their anger, even thought their anger speaks volumes about their god’s fragile nature. They blame others for their anger. Jonah blamed God for his anger. He thought God was too gracious and forgiving to those whom he felt didn’t deserve it. So, Jonah placed himself in Judgment over the people of Nineveh. Just as these modern day religious douche bags place their judgment on anyone and everyone they feel is deserving of their wraith, is in reality their misplaced anger at God for subjecting them to frustrations, inconveniences, or annoyances. They believe God should have instantly struck down those that they have deemed unworthy, the homosexuals, the atheists, the pagans, the Jews, the godless heathens, the blacks, and anyone else they have set their eyes upon, but God has failed to see these sinners for what they are or recognize or even acknowledge them, so, now these unworthy people are victims of the Holy Wraith of God, by decree of these so called Christians.


Once these douche bags embrace that Holy Wraith, coupled with their judgmental attitude, their mental disorder and their moral superiority; you get the Raging Religious Douche Bag.



Resources:

www.MayoClinic.com

http://eqi.org/anger.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atTSwau9fwM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_explosive_disorder

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200811/morality-sucker-saint

The Angry Christian: A Theology for Care and Counseling

By Andrew D. Lester (Westminster, John Knox Press 2003, 2007)