I rarely mention how readers can financially support my work. I have a hard time asking for money. This goes back to my preaching days when I had an aversion to “begging” congregants to give money to the church. I never wanted to be a money-grubbing preacher. That said, it does cost me money to operate this site. I determined from the start that I would not beg readers for money; I would pay for running the site, and if I reached a place where I could no longer do so, I would stop blogging. Fortunately, year after year enough donations come in to pay site expenses and provide a little bit extra for me to make a payment two on my Lear Jet. 🙂
In 2024, seventeen people made monthly donations via Patreon, which is my largest source of income. Through the calendar year ending December 31, twenty people made one or more donations via PayPal. PayPal donations have decreased dramatically for some unknown reason in 2024, while Patreon remained static. I appreciate everyone who let go of a bit of their hard-earned cash to support me I never take such things for granted.
I recently had to purchase a new laptop to use for my writing. I bought a Macbook Air for $1,399. I must claim all donations as income and pay federal/state income and Social Security taxes on every donation. This drops the effective amount of donations by 20%. Purchasing the laptop will lower my taxes for this year since it is considered a business expense. Other costs are site hosting and software/plugins. I moved to a less expensive hosting provider this year. Lower costs mean more money in my pocket.
That said, I am not getting rich off of blogging. I have a pathological aversion to using advertising on this site, but I do need to think about different ways I can increase my cash flow. Polly will retire sometime in 2025. This will mean a significant drop in household income. I am hoping to find ways to make money that doesn’t require me pole dancing at the strip club. 🙂
You may financially support my work in four ways:
Make a credit card donation using Stripe to process your one-time, monthly, or yearly donation. This is a new donation function I added today.
I recently watched a discussion between Alex O’Connor, an atheist, and Dr. Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian and former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on YouTube. You can watch the video here:
I have heard countless discussions, debates, arguments, and brawls over the existence of God. Eighteen years in, I’m no longer interested in the “God debate.” I have heard every possible defense of or “proof” for the existence of God. Many of these arguments try to establish the existence of a creator God, a generic deity of sorts that they posit is found in every culture and religion. Such discussions are largely philosophical masturbation, for which I have no interest. I will, at times, engage Evangelicals when they try to claim and prove that the generic deity I mentioned is actually the Christian God of the Bible. Such arguments miserably fail. Why? They rely on the Bible as proof for their claims. (I am using the words proof and prove in a colloquial sense. I know proof is a mathematical term, not a theological/philosophical one.) As a former pastor and theologian, I still enjoy discussing the Bible and theology, though I no longer have the stomach for WWE-style wrassling matches over minute points of dogma. That said, I have yet to have an Evangelical make a compelling argument for their peculiar God’s existence.
Even within the framework of the Bible, there are numerous gods, beginning with multiple deities in the book of Genesis to the insurmountable differences between the God of the Old Testament and the Son of God in the New Testament. There’s no such thing as a singular Christian deity. One could argue that there are more Christian gods than we can count, with each believer shaping his or her God in their own likeness. That’s why, when talking to Evangelicals about the existence of God, the first question to ask them is “How do you define God?” What are his qualities and attributes? Typically, no two Evangelicals will give you the same answer.
During O’Connor’s discussion with Dr. Collins, one idea came up several times; that the most important question any of us can ask is “Does God exist?” I suppose in atheist-Christian debating circles this might be true, but, for me personally, and I expect for many of you who read this blog, answering the question “Does God exist?” is not at the top of your list of important questions to answer. In fact, I suspect, for those of you who have always been atheists or deconverted years ago, the God question rarely crosses your mind, that is, unless a Christian zealot is in your face trying to get you to pay attention to his God and the importance of getting saved lest you die and end up in Hell.
The only time I even think about God is when I am writing an article for this site. Otherwise, God rarely crosses my mind unless I just stepped on a Lego left on the floor by one of my grandsons, leading to me uttering “God dammit” or “Jesus Christ.” I sure hope the Lord appreciates my worship. 🙂
Pondering deep philosophical questions is largely the domain of white, affluent westerners who have time and money to sit around pondering God’s existence and the meaning of life. For most people, their lives are focused on more pressing questions such as earning a living, providing for their family, renting/buying a home, putting food on the table, and making sure they have a running automobile or reliable transportation to get where they need to go. By the time working-class/middle-class people sit down at the end of the day, the last thing on their minds is the question, “Does God exist?
How about you? Is the “Does God exist?” question important to you? Or do you find such discussions boring, reminders of the endless chattering about theology during your days as a Christian? I wonder if I am alone with my indifference towards this question. I have reached a place in life where I simply no longer care. I have far more pressing issues that vex my soul, especially matters concerning my health, family, and economic well-being. Please share your pithy thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Harold Cole, Jr., pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Farwell, Michigan, stands accused of sexually molesting a boy. Trinity Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation.
A Farwell pastor is out on bond with a tether after being charged with sexually assaulting a boy in June 2021.
Trinity Baptist Church Pastor Harold Cole Jr., 57, was arraigned Nov. 1 on second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child under 13. The church could not be reached for comment and its voicemail is not set up. Farwell is about five miles west of Clare.
….
The male victim told out-of-state authorities about the alleged assault in March. He now resides outside of Michigan. Clare County Sheriff deputies received information about the assault and began investigating.
The Sheriff’s Office said Cole Jr. is currently a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Farwell.
Detectives conducted an investigation and obtained a warrant for his arrest. He was arraigned on a charge of CSC – second degree and released on a $20,000 bond. He is currently on GPS tether.
Second degree CSC involves sexual contact with force or coercion, or with a victim who is under 13 years of age. This crime is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Joseph Mouser, a retired Catholic priest, stands accused of two counts of first-degree sodomy of a minor victim under 12, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor victim under 12, and two counts of second-degree sodomy of a child under 14 years of age. According to news reports, Mouser is allegedly a serial child molester, with accusations dating back to the 1960s. At the time of his arrest, Mouser was in a nursing home.
A former priest with a history of sexual abuse against minors has been indicted by a Washington County grand jury for alleged events that occurred 35 years ago.
Father Joseph Irvin Mouser, 86, 515 Nerinx Road, Nerinx, was indicted on two counts of first-degree sodomy of a minor-victim under 12 (a Class A felony), two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor-victim under 12) (a Class C felony), and two counts of second-degree sodomy of a child under 14 years of age (a Class C felony). The indictment noted that these events happened on or about March 8, 1989, through March 7, 1991, in Washington County.
“Fr. Mouser ended any ministry several decades ago and resides in a nursing home,” Brian Reynolds, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Louisville, said. “We have not heard anything about the indictment and cannot comment on this matter at this time.”
This isn’t the first time Mouser has been in trouble. The accusations against him date back to the late 1960s and early ‘70s. According to five lawsuits brought against him, Mouser abused four victims between 1968 and 1972 at St. Helen’s parish in Barren County and the fifth while he was at St. Francis of Assisi in Jefferson County in 1974. One lawsuit alleged he “forcibly sexually molested, abused, battered, and assaulted” a victim at St. Helen’s in 1968. Others allege forced oral sex, groping, and fondling, among other charges. Victims reported receiving gifts from Mouser in exchange for sexual favors.
Mouser was placed on leave in May 2002. A month later, five men filed separate civil lawsuits accusing him of abusing them as minors in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Those lawsuits were settled in 2003, and the Review Board deemed the allegations credible in June 2004. In October 2005, the Vatican ordered Mouser to “live a life of prayer and penance.” Then-Archbishop Thomas Kelly of Louisville (who died in 2011) sent Mouser to live in a private residence on the property of the Loretto Motherhouse in Nernix, where he was explicitly directed not to serve in active ministry. But at the request of the sisters, he began offering Mass to them privately, which Kelly permitted and the Holy See approved. According to a March 24, 2020, article in the National Catholic Reporter, Reynolds said “Father Mouser was never appointed as the chaplain for the Sisters of Loretto.” Despite these claims, the article continued, Loretto identified Mouser as their chaplain in newsletters and magazines, even featuring him in photos on their website and annual reports. Reynolds told the National Catholic Reporter that the archdiocese was unaware of the priest’s expanded role. Before moving permanently to the Motherhouse, Mouser was appointed as chaplain twice by the archdiocese — from May 1993 to July 1996, and July 1996 to May 2002. The NCR reported that Kelly was aware of the allegations against Mouser before the appointment in 2002, and in 1993, Kelly had received “credible proof that Mouser was an abuser.”
According to BishopAccountability.org, a group that monitors documents related to the sex abuse crisis in the church, in January 2020, Mouser was discovered “working as a chaplain for the Sisters of Loretto in KY, despite the Vatican’s directive that he no longer wear clerical garb, celebrate mass publicly, administer sacraments, or present himself publicly as a priest.” After publicity in February 2020, the website reports, the Sisters said they were going to remove him.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered Mouser to live a life of prayer and penance. And it’s the archdiocese’s responsibility to make sure that happens. He was not supposed to be in ministry, he was not supposed to be wearing clerical garb. So, I believe, it’s the archdiocese’s failure here,” said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org.
Joseph Mouser, 86, was arrested by Marion County Sheriff’s Department deputies Thursday morning on charges of first- and second-degree sodomy involving a child 12 or younger and first-degree child sexual abuse for the alleged occurrences that happened between 1989 and 1993.
Archdiocese records show that Mouser, one of 48 archdiocese priests and members of religious orders credibly accused of child sexual abuse, abused four boys when he was assigned to St. Helen Catholic Church from 1968 to 1972 and a fifth when he was at St. Francis of Assisi from 1973 to 1979. He was not charged criminally.
Mouser was previously ordered by the Vatican to stop functioning as a priest and asked to live a life of “prayer and penance” by the Holy See, meaning he could no longer wear clerical garb, celebrate Mass publicly, administer the sacraments or present himself publicly as a priest.
The Courier Journal confirmed he was continuing his priestly responsibilities at the Sisters of Loretto, which is south of Bardstown in Marion County, as a chaplain after being removed from ministry by the Archdiocese in 2002.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Chelsa Kinsella, a financial administrator for Trinity Lutheran Church in Bismarck, North Dakota, stands accused of stealing money from the church.
A pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church says Chelsa Kinsella was hired in September as a financial administrator. At the time, they say she’d undergone a background check, but the pastor told police Kinsella changed the spelling of her name to prevent anyone from finding any previous charges on her record.
KX News obtained court documents that show Kinsella was fired in December, but another staff member at the church says around $38,000 was unaccounted for at the time of her departure.
The pastor and a police officer talked to Kinsella, telling her to return the money. They say she returned some of it in bank deposit bags, while an officer adds he found more money in her car and a key to the church’s safe in her home. She allegedly admitted to police that she used the church’s credit card to order goods from Amazon and Walmart.
Kinsella is now being charged with felony theft and unauthorized use of personal identifying info to obtain credit, the latter of which could result in up to 20 years in prison for the more serious charge. Her trial is scheduled to happen on April 24.
On Tuesday, KX News called and spoke to Trinity Lutheran pastor Mark Narum — who says the thefts have not impacted the church’s operations outside of creating more work for the staff.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Lindsey Whiteside, a youth pastor at Getwell Church in Hernando, Mississippi, and high school basketball coach, stands accused of having sex with a minor girl under her care.
Whiteside’s church bio states:
My deepest passion is for everyone to experience Jesus in the same way I have. Through student ministry, missions, or any other ministry, I am so thankful that the Lord has called me to Getwell Hernando where I can pursue that passion both inside and outside the walls of the church. It is an honor that the Lord calls us all to participate in His Kingdom, and I am grateful to be able to do it within and alongside the community of Hernando.
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26-28
A grand jury has returned an indictment charging a former DeSoto County youth minister with having sex with a child under her guardianship.
Court documents allege Lindsey Aldy Whiteside, 26, intentionally and knowingly had sex with an underage girl between May 14 and November 6, 2024.
An indictment was returned earlier this month, charging Whiteside with one count of felony sexual battery of a minor.
Prior to the indictment, Whiteside worked at Getwell Church Hernando as a student and outreach coordinator, and also previously served as an assistant basketball coach at DeSoto Central High School.
“We can confirm that the December Grand Jury of DeSoto County has indicted Lindsey Whiteside on the charge of sexual battery of a minor child by a person of trust or authority,” DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton said in a statement. “Prior to this indictment, Lindsey Whiteside served as a youth ministry leader and basketball coach—positions that carry a profound responsibility to protect and guide others.”
Whiteside served as the assistant girls’ basketball coach at DeSoto Central High until she was hired by Getwell Church Hernando in August 2022.
Church members claim she was terminated after the sexual battery allegations arose.
Getwell Church did not immediately answer Action News 5’s calls for comment.
Whiteside faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In 2023, Francis Young, formerly a pastor at The Sanctuary Pentecostal Church (A United Pentecostal congregation) in Marble Falls, Texas was accused of sexually abusing his two grandchildren, both under the age of fourteen. His trial got underway last week.
The trial of an elderly former preacher from a Marble Falls church started this week in 424th Judicial District Court.
Francis Young is on trial for alleged sex abuse of two children that reportedly began May 2023. The trial began Jan. 6 before a 12-member jury evenly divided between men and women.
Assistant District Attorney for the 33rd Judicial District, Carson Walker, is leading the prosecution. Local attorney Austin Shell is defending Young.
During his opening statement Jan. 6, Shell declared, in the absence of their parents, the 76-year-old Young was taking care of two of his grandchildren, one boy, one girl, both under 14.
Shell explained, Young realized both children apparently suffered from bladder difficulties, which made them prone to bed-wetting and urinary tract infections.
“He would clean them up,” Shell said. “He did things a grandfather should and would do.”
During subsequent months, several professional health care providers examined both children, the attorney added.
“Not one of them said anything about sexual assault,” Shell said. “There was not a boo-boo, a scratch of anything to indicate touching in any sexual way at all. Zero. This (trial) makes no sense to me. And, I am going to ask you (jury members) to send him (Young) home.”
However, during prior testimony removed from jury presence, the mother of both children recalled both children told her Young had “touched them in a bad way down there.”
“It happened a lot,” the mother said.
According to reports, Young was a preacher in Marble Falls at The Sanctuary Pentecostal Church until December 2022. The church confirmed he was a member but not in a leadership role at the time of his indictment in 2023.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I started blogging in 2007, a year or so before I deconverted. From 2007 to today, I have received thousands of emails, comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians. Many of these believers think that God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives inside of them as their teacher and guide; that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God; that every word in the Bible is true, straight from the mouth of God; and that God either gives them messages to send me by whispering to them in a still, small voice only they can hear and having them put those messages in an email, or by directing them to certain Bible verses to send me that will bring conviction and repentance in my life if I dare but read and accept them.
As of 9:29 pm, on January 8, 2025, every Evangelical Christian who has deigned to send me a message straight from the triune God of the Bible has miserably failed. Every last one of them. Is it that I am so hardened to sin and the gospel that I am unreachable? Or is the real issue I know the Bible better than most of the Evangelicals who contact me; that their messages from God or quotes from the Bible are unpersuasive when measured by skeptical, rational, evidentiary standards?
Most Evangelicals are presuppositionalists (and all of us are to some degree or the other), presupposing without evidence that the Christian God is the one and only true God; that the Bible is the very Words of God. Evangelicals expect atheists and other unbelievers to accept these claims as true without evidence, and if we don’t, we are deliberately suppressing what we know to be true. If you have ever engaged an Evangelical presuppositionalist in a debate, you know it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion with him as long as he holds on to these unsupported beliefs. These are faith claims, and as such beyond rational debate.
You cannot prove the Bible by the Bible. That’s called circular reasoning. The Bible is a book of claims, not a compendium of evidence. When Evangelicals make claims from the Bible, I ask them for non-Biblical evidence for their claims. Just because the Bible says __________________ doesn’t mean it is true. To an atheist, the Bible is just printed words on pages. When the Bible makes a claim, the atheist is justified in asking for evidence to prove the claim. Ken Ham can say the Bible says the universe was created in six literal twenty-four-hour days, 6,027 years ago; that Adam and Eve were the first humans; that God destroyed almost every living thing on the earth with a flood a few thousand years ago; that human language variation began at the Tower of Babel, but these claims are meaningless to me apart from evidence outside of the Bible. Simply put, the Bible is a book of words, no different from countless other books I can buy from Amazon or other booksellers. When you say to me, Bruce, the BIBLE says ____________, my first response is this: “And I should care, why? “
To those God has given a message via Holy Spook ESP®, I ask you: How do you know the voice in your head is God’s? How do you know the message is from God and not the personal thoughts you want to share with me? How do you distinguish between God’s voice and yours? What empirical evidence can you provide for your claim that your message for me is a supernatural communiqué from the God of the Bible? Do you really expect me to believe you just because you SAY your message is from your peculiar deity?
I am an agnostic atheist. I am not an anti-theist. I can be convinced of a God’s existence if sufficient evidence is provided. My “heart” is open to truth, and since God knows where I live, he can cut out the middlemen and talk to me directly. Is this too much to ask for?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
David Malllinak is the pastor of Berean Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in Ogden, Utah. Several years ago, Mallinak wrote a post titled Why It Stinks to be An Atheist. As is common in such articles written by Evangelical preachers, Mallinak writes about an atheism that does not exist. He claims to have heard all the atheist arguments, yet he dismisses them out of hand.
Mallinak begins by saying:
If, as the atheist claims, all the world is a product of impersonal forces – the collision of matter and energy – or perhaps, lightning striking mud, then what we really have going on is this gigantic chemical reaction which members of the press somberly describe as “breaking news.” Sometimes the chemicals fizz; sometimes they pop; sometimes they experience diaphragm spasms; sometimes they debate. But the chemical activity from one beaker to the next really doesn’t matter because it isn’t really anything anyway. Some brains spark rationally, and some quite irrationally, and that is what chemicals do given certain temperatures and atmospheric pressures.
Atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of gods. That’s it. Any other belief added to this statement is beyond the scope of atheism proper. While most atheists accept evolution as the best explanation for our biological world and accept scientific consensus for the age of the earth and the universe, not all atheists do. Many atheists are indifferent about matters of science. I, for one, have little interest in discussions about the beginning of the universe. I am far more concerned about the here and now than what took place billions of years ago,
Mallinak would have us believe, based on his ignorant understanding of human minds, that atheists believe rationality and irrationality are based solely on chemical processes. While the brain sending and receiving chemical/electrical signals throughout our bodies controls all sorts of physical processes, including thinking, we must not ignore how external influences, education, experiences, and traumas affect our thinking too. Rationality and irrationality are affected by both nature and nurture.
Mallinak goes on to say that because atheists believe in a world of impersonal causes our lives lack wit, will, wisdom, personality, design, intention, or purpose:
Ideas have consequences. The atheist imagines a world without God – a world of impersonal causes. In the ultimate order of things, there can be no wit, no will, no wisdom, no personality, no design, no intention, no purpose. Thus, Christian apologists have pointed out that nihilism is the only consistent atheism.
While this may be true on a cosmic level, it is certainly not true as we live our day-to-day lives as godless heathens. Sure, some atheists are nihilists, but most are not. The reason for this, of course, is that most atheists are humanists. It is secular humanism that provides many atheists with an ethical and moral foundation by which to live their lives. (Mallinak writes as if he’s never heard of secular humanism.) Humanism gives them meaning, purpose, and direction. Want to call humanism a religion? Fine, I don’t care. To suggest that atheists don’t have wit, will, wisdom, personality, design, intention, or purpose is absurd, nothing more than an attempt to paint atheists in a bad light. Humanism provides a comprehensive challenge to Mallinek’s Fundamentalist worldview. And the good news for humanists is that we are free to draw from all sorts of worldviews as we build a moral and ethical framework for our lives, including Christianity. I have no problem admitting that my worldview is deeply affected by the fifty years I spent in Christianity — for good or ill. I embrace the good things I learned from Christianity while rejecting those beliefs and teachings that cause harm. I view the Bible as a book of wisdom and spiritual teachings, just as I do other religious texts.
Mallinak believes that atheists live in denial of the logical conclusions of their beliefs; those beliefs, of course, as defined by a right-wing preacher:
If we could get our atheist friends to be honest with their own worldview and to follow their premises to their logical conclusions, this is what we would get. And that’s why it stinks to be an atheist. Because once in a while, as someone else has pointed out, the atheist looks around him at all the beauty and all the splendor and all the delights of this world, and feels a strange and alien sensation creep into his heart that for a moment makes him want to contradict his own premises and feel what the Christians describe as “gratitude.” But in that moment of insanity, he stumbles over two roadblocks. First, his atheism leaves him with no way of accounting for the sensation of gratitude, aside from an exalted notion that his feelings are actually things and that they mean something. How irrational in a world of impersonal cause! And then, if those irrational sensations persist, he looks around for someone to thank and finds nobody.
Mallinak lives in a religious bubble that requires a God for goodness to exist; for beauty to exist; and for gratitude to exist. Lacking imagination, Mallinak cannot fathom a world without his peculiar version of God, one shaped by his idiosyncratic interpretations of the sixty-six books of the King James Bible. Mallinak alleges that he has talked to atheists; that he has atheist friends. I question how many intimate atheist friends he might have. IFB preachers have little room in their lives for people who disagree with them; especially people who consider their beliefs and practices harmful, both psychologically and physically.
I have been an outspoken atheist for almost seventeen years. I have answered allegations such as Mallinak’s many times. On the About page for this site you will find the following advice I give to readers:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
I try to live by these principles every day. As far as gratitude is concerned, I give thanks/praise/credit to those to whom it is due. When my partner of forty-six years cooks an awesome meal, I don’t praise a dead Jew who lies buried somewhere outside of Jerusalem. I praise the person who prepared, cooked, and served the meal. When someone does something for me, I thank them. I focus my gratitude on those who matter, and not a deity who is nowhere to be found. And wonder? I am filled with wonder everytime I see my six children and their partners, and my sixteen grandchildren. What a blessing to have a wonderful family. I have a sense of wonder when I watch our four cats run and play with nary a thought of what is happening outside. We are blessed to have lots of wildlife frequent our yard; birds, squirrels, possums, raccoons, skunks, and deer. We also have numerous feral/stray cats that come to our home for food, water, and housing. I marvel at their abilities to survive both the cruelty of their former owners, but also nature itself. Finally, when I look at the night sky I am filled with wonder, grateful that I have been given this moment in time by my ancestors to experience life to its fullest. Yes, I live with a plethora of health problems and battle unrelenting, pervasive pain every waking moment of my life, but on balance, I am grateful to be alive.
Mallinak will reject the locus of my gratitude, but that’s his problem, not mine. He needs a God, a church, and a Bible for his life to have meaning. Having been indoctrinated and conditioned to have a Christ/God-centric life, he likely cannot fathom how an atheist can have a happy, satisfying life.
Mallinak writes:
I would rather worship the Triune God in all His glory and majesty and infinite, loving power and goodness, even if He was make-believe. Yes, I prefer an imaginary God to “the unyielding despair” required by the premises of atheism.
…
But of course, the Triune God is no more make-believe than the sun in the sky. Man could not invent such a God any more than a man could invent himself. If the Triune God Who has revealed Himself in Scripture doesn’t exist, then we cannot explain the world we live in. Morality goes away. Beauty is meaningless. Reason dies. All is meaningless, purposeless. It stinks to be an atheist.
Mallinak would rather believe in a mythical God than accept the world as it is. His ignorant view of atheism has allowed him to construct an atheist straw man, one which he burns to the ground, all the while surrounded by atheists who wonder what the crazy preacher is burning. Much like the deity he worships, Mallinak is torching a myth, Instead of allowing atheists to define themselves, Mallinak insists that he knows non-believers better than they know themselves. How could it be otherwise? He believes God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives inside of him, teaching and guiding him through life. He believes this same Spirit talks to him, both personally and through the pages of the Bible. He is certain that his interpretations of the Bible are right, and that his understanding of the Scriptures perfectly aligns with the mind of God. This kind of thinking breeds certainty and arrogance, so it is not surprising that Mallinak thinks he knows how atheists think and what they believe. (Yet, I suspect it upsets him when atheists ignorantly pontificate on what Christians believe without knowildedge and understanding of the religions and its teachings>)
Mallinak concludes his screed with his version of Pascal’s Wager:
Let me invite you to a thought experiment for a moment. Think of this as a spin on Paschal’s wager. If atheism is right, it doesn’t matter whether I believe in God or not. We all die like dogs, and then the skin worms get down to business. But if Christianity is right, we can make sense of the world. If God created the world, then that explains everything – reason, morality, goodness, truth, ice cream flavors, heat and cold, dreams and ideals and disappointments and satisfaction – it all makes sense. If God made the world, then we can justify our innate desires for the good of humanity.
Sigh, right? (Please see Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”) Mallinak’s wager is built upon the foundation of a false definition of atheism and a lack of understanding the humanistic principles by which most atheists live their lives. No matter how much Mallinak protests, atheists and humanists can explain “reason, morality, goodness, truth, ice cream flavors, heat and cold, dreams and ideals and disappointments and satisfaction.” It all makes sense to atheists, without deities and religion getting in the way.
Life is good. May Loki be praised! 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Evangelical Christians believe in everlasting punishment for all those who die without faith in Jesus Christ. According to Evangelical dogma, the vast majority of humanity — past, present, and future — will end up in the Lake of Fire after they die, forever tortured by God for their sin and unbelief.
When asked where Hell is located, Evangelicals either stupidly say it’s in the center of the earth or, in a rare breath of honesty, say they don’t know. The Hell of eternal punishment exists only in the pages of the Bible. Within broader Christianity, the existence of Hell (the Lake of Fire), its purpose, and who ends up there, if anyone, is hotly debated. For unbelievers, especially agnostics and atheists, Hell is a myth, a theological concept used by clerics to promote fear among church members, knowing fearful congregants are more likely to obey their commands, attend church, and keep offering plates full. Remove the threat of Hell and I suspect scores of people will stop attending church. Without fear, they might be inclined to sleep in on Sundays, watch the NFL, and spend their tithes and offerings on personal needs instead of funding their pastors’ every whim.
When asked if I believe in the existence of Hell, I give a two-part answer. No, I don’t believe in the existence of big H Hell, but I do believe in little h hell. Little h hell is what humans do to each other, other animals, and the planet they live on.
Hell is a creation of human imagination. I explain it this way:
Good News: Hell is the creation of human imagination.
Bad News: Human imagination knows no bounds when it comes to cruelty and violence
I do not fear landing in Hell after I die. I am confident that once I draw my last draw, that will be the end for me; that I will return to the same darkness and nothingness as before I was conceived. I do, however, fear the hell that my fellow humans can and do inflict upon our planet and its inhabitants. Come January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will become president and unleash upon the American people hell that we have not seen in many years. Imagine the hell that will be unleashed by MAGA extremists such as Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), Scott Bessent (Treasury Secretary), Pete Hegseth (Defense Secretary), Pam Bondi (Attorney General), Kristi Noem (Homeland Security Secretary), Robert F. Kennedy Jr.(Health and Human Services Secretary), Doug Burgum (Interior Secretary), Chris Wright (Energy Secretary), Linda McMahon (Education Secretary), Lee Zeldin (EPA Administrator), Kash Patel (FBI Director), Tom Homan (Border Czar), Elon Musk (Department of Government Efficiency), Vivek Ramaswamy (Department of Government Efficiency), and Russ Vought (Office of Management and Budget Director). These men and women are committed to enacting and enforcing Trump’s extremist social, health, education, and economic policies, regardless of the hell they cause the American people and the world at large.
Trump relishes chaos, so we shouldn’t be surprised when his rhetoric and saber-rattling land the U.S. in new military incursions while trying to end conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East abruptly. His threat of withdrawing the U.S. from N.A.T.O. should scare all of us. Trump’s insane commitment to tariffs will certainly cause increased inflation as businesses increase prices to offset tariff costs, as will his plan to cut the social safety net. His plan calls for large-scale immigration enforcement and deportations of primarily Mexican and Latin American immigrants. Doing so will likely tank portions of our economy that rely on migrant workers (many of whom are undocumented). The new Department of Government Efficiency hopes to set much of the federal government and its agencies on fire, causing untold harm to the American people. And Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? Left to his own devices, Kennedy, Jr. will turn HHS into a health food store, and leave us largely unprepared for the next pandemic.
Of course, the United States is but one country out of 193, each with its dispensers of hell on earth. As of June 2024, there were 56 military conflicts in the world, involving 92 countries in conflicts outside their borders. Famine and lack of sufficient food, water, housing, and medical care remain a major problem in many countries. Increased world temperatures and weather extremes remain a threat to our very existence; that is if a nuclear war doesn’t destroy our planet.
Hell and threats of hell abound, and all any of us can do is help put out as many fires as we can. Yes, Trump is a major hell threat, but his ability to burn everything to the ground except his bank account remains to be seen. Will there be Republicans who will stand up to his extremism? It’s doubtful, but perhaps a few of them will wake up, get their noses out of Trump’s ass, and remember that they serve the American people. The year 2026 will provide voters will an opportunity to right the Congressional boat, thus limiting the damage Trump and his acolytes can do. However, Trump has two years to pretty much do what he wants. Democrats are largely powerless, most Republicans are MAGA devotees, and the U.S. Supreme Court is controlled by right-wing ideology. Protests are sure to come, and I fear violence will follow. Sadly, this will give leave for Trump to unleash “HIS” FBI and Justice Department on protestors and anyone else on his blacklist.
I see little that would cause me to be optimistic. We are in for hell over the next few years. I will do what I can to put out fires or at least keep them from engulfing people and institutions, while at the same time pushing back against Christian Nationalists who see Trump’s presidency as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn back sixty years of secular, social, and church-state progress.
I hope I am wrong, but so far, all I see is a raging fire on the horizon. Hell awaits us, and whether we survive remains to be seen.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Pastor Arturo Laguna Camas, pastor of the Casa De Adoración church in Phoenix, Arizona stands accused of multiple counts of voyeurism. Casa De Adoración is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. Laguna Camas allegedly put video recording equipment in the women’s restroom.
Pastor Arturo Laguna Camas of the Casa De Adoración church is being charged with multiple counts of voyeurism.
According to Arizona law, these felony charges stem from invading someone’s privacy by recording or photographing without their permission for sexual stimulation.
These charges are class 5 felonies, which can range from a couple of months to a couple of years in prison, depending on the sentencing factors.
….
Arizona’s Family stopped by the Casa de Adoracion church Friday; however, no one was inside at the time.
A grand jury indicted Laguna Camas, who already had his initial appearance.
Court records show the crimes occurred during October. He was arrested in early November.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
