Does God Have Borderline Personality Disorder?

The Bible has long presented a picture of God as contradictory. A being who inspires two creation stories that don't match, kicks Adam and Eve out of Eden for mistakes it'd knew they would make, and who destroys a good man's life just on a bet. While this may scream jerk, it appears that the being depicted in the Bible may, in fact, be mentally ill.

The disorder in question is borderline personality disorder. Here is an overview of the disorder taken from the Mayo Clinic website:

Borderline personality disorder affects how you feel about yourself, how you relate to others and how you behave.

When you have borderline personality disorder, you often have an insecure sense of who you are. That is, your self-image or sense of self often rapidly changes. You may view yourself as evil or bad, and sometimes may feel as if you don't exist at all. An unstable self-image often leads to frequent changes in jobs, friendships, goals and values.

Your relationships are usually in turmoil. You often experience a love-hate relationship with others. You may idealize someone one moment and then abruptly and dramatically shift to fury and hate over perceived slights or even minor misunderstandings. This is because people with the disorder often have difficulty accepting gray areas and things seem to be either black or white.

Borderline personality disorder symptoms may include:

•Impulsive and risky behavior, such as risky driving, unsafe sex, gambling sprees or illegal drug use (destruction of almost the entire human population or cities, impregnating 13 year olds, testing a man's commitment for unhealthy reasons)
•Strong emotions that wax and wane frequently ("I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy." (JER 13:14) vs."The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." (PSA 145:9) )
•Intense but short episodes of anxiety or depression (sorry, nothing on this one)
•Inappropriate anger, sometimes escalating into physical confrontations (flooding the Earth, Sodom and Gomorrah, kicking the money changers out of the temple)
•Difficulty controlling emotions or impulses (previous example)
•Suicidal behavior (crucifixion of yourself?)
•Fear of being alone (desiring worship?)
When is borderline personality disorder diagnosed?

When five or more of these signs and symptoms are present.

•Intense fear of abandonment (Believe in me or you're going to hell)
•A pattern of unstable relationships (Job, Moses)
•Unstable self-image or sense of identity (Contradicting messages time and again)
•Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors (Destroying cities, lives, and flooding the entire Earth)
•Suicidal behavior or self-injury (Suicide by Roman Crucifixion)
•Wide mood swings ((All-merciful vs. All-just) & (JER 13:14) vs. (PSA 145:9) )
•Chronic feelings of emptiness
•Anger-related problems, such as frequently losing your temper or having physical fights (Mauling children for mocking a bald man)
•Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality (Believing you're all powerful and created the entire universe)
It sure seems like a diagnosis is in order.

Source:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html#cruel