My Family Lie

 The problem with my family of Roman Catholics is that they require me to accept their Catholicism as a cure for their problems as infallibly true and that my claim that Catholicism caused and contributed to my own trauma is a delusion (which only their Catholicism can cure).

Hence, to have a relationship with my family, I must accept their delusion as valid and my own experience as invalid. And I was told as much by my brother, the Catholic priest. In other words, i must accept their delusion as real and my own realizations as a delusion.

To have a relationship with my Catholic family, in other words, I must accept their gaslighting as my only truth and, as a result, rely on their moral compass and distrust my own, for my entire life. For them, however, it isn't gaslighting, because as they see it - they're touched by God with infallibility about their religion.

For perspective, it works like this. 

My brother and sister insist they know their "God" is real, even as they equally insist that every other God, and indeed every other version of their Christian God but their very own, is false. 

Ask them to prove it and they will tell you they simply have "faith" that they are infallible in this belief, even as everyone else who may believe the same thing is simply mistaken - but not them. Never them. 

 Then, they insist that the onus is on me to prove their "God" is not real, and that my admission that you cannot prove a negative only proves my disbelief in their brand of God is simply my "belief," which I accept without evidence. Naturally, my brother says this all the time. like a broken parrot, even though he knows full well that my evidence for why I do not believe in his brand of God is his own rejection of everyone else's brand of God but his own. 

My brother believes without evidence, and then claims my disbelief without evidence to prove his brand of God does NOT exist proves my disbelief is as equally without evidence as his belief. He then goes on to start interpreting physical reality in ways that he claims clearly proves his God is real, even as I have already pointed out to him that his intentional interpretation of physical reality as proving the existence of his God does not mean that he is infallibly right. 

I could just as easily begin interpreting all of physical reality as proving the existence of any other God as well, but my brother wouldn't accept that as evidence until billions had accepted the same idea, and practiced it for 2000 years. For my brother, everyone who interprets physical reality in any other way different from his own is therefore wrong, and deserving of eternal torments. His perception of reality, as such, is God's perception of reality, which is why he could care less who ends up in hell, even if it happens to be victims who were sexually abused by Catholic priests. If they end up in hell, as far as he's concerned, they must therefore deserve to be there, and he won't loose a wink of sleep about it, nor will he ever dare to NOT "love" the God who saw fit to put them there.

My brother naturally ignores all of this, as he always does, because he gets his rocks off at the thought of seeing anyone who ever disagreed with him about the only thing that has ever mattered to him be tortured for all eternity. His religion is a spiritual lust for pain of those who doubt his infallibility.

To this, I reply, "prove that you are not Napoleon Bonaparte reborn and you just don't know it. Or, better yet, prove that I am not Jesus Christ, who has returned to tell you your "beliefs" about God are false."

To this, of course, they balk. But they cannot prove I am not Jesus Christ  returned in the flesh any more than I can prove their ideas of Jesus as their God are false, or even that they are Jesus and just don't know it.

So I tell them, I will prove to you that your God is false as soon as you can prove to me, to my satisfaction and not yours, that I am not Jesus Christ, and that you are not the devil.

Hence, by their own reasoning, they must obey me as their Jesus come back to life, and if they cannot prove I am NOT Jesus Christ, they should burn for all eternity in hell, as their just deserves. 

Naturally, they think I am insane to argue such a point, but boast of being both perfectly sane, and perfectly moral, for assuring me that by daring to question their "beliefs" they so love, the God they hope and pray to assures them he will torture me for all eternity for daring to everyquestion them about their Godlike power to know they are morally infallible... for their Catholicism tells them so!