According to Evangelical preachers, evangelists, missionaries, pastor’s wives, and church members who email me or leave preachy comments on this blog, I will end up in hell someday because of my unwillingness to worship their version of the Christian God. Since being told this 666,666,666 times, I have diligently scoured the universe looking for a Get Out Hell Free Card. Several years ago, a reader named Scott sent me a surefire way to escape the flames of Hell. Granted, no one has ever succeeded in doing so, but since I know about this ahead of time, I can plan. If I fail, I know it will be the squirrels who are to blame. Damn those squirrels. 🙂
Comic by Wiley Miller of Non Sequitur
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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I have solved it! So…. I win?
When we lived in upper central Michigan we rented a home in a rugged, wooded rural gated community. Wildlife in the yard was an every hour occurrence. Squirrels? Everywhere. We fed the birds and the squirrels would clean out the feeders. We tried everything, including putting tin around the trees and covering them with grease. Nothing worked. They took to hopping from tree top to tree top to get to our feeders. Short of killing them, there was nothing we could do. So, we decided to buy extra seed and corn. 🙂
We kept the seed in several metal cans on the porch. One night, I heard a bam, bam, bam noise. I got up and checked, finding a raccoon on the porch using his head to try to dislodge the can lid. He’d jump, bam, and do it over and over. Quite fun to watch.
The church I was pastoring turned out to be a miserable experience, but living where we did was one of the most enjoyable times of our life. Interacting with nature, even the damn squirrels, was the highlight of our time in Clare, Michigan.
See? Nature is the truest deity I’ve found so far!
666,666,666? Ha ha ha! I love that cartoonist.
LOL. I have started feeding some stray cats, 2 young adults (siblings?) with 4 kittens. One of the young adults is the mom. They are hiding in our shed which gives them some protection from the elements but faces north without a door. Can feeding strays get me into heaven? If so, I’m in! (Our house is full with the 5 we have so no, not going to bring another cat inside. And I’m now leery of the Humane Society after they put down 2 cats we rescued.)
The only one I know of who had such a card was Jesus. His resurrection was an entirely superfluous magic trick. If Jesus had not been resurrected, where would he have ended up? At the right hand of Yahweh, presumably.
But that resurrection actually undermined Jesus’s sacrifice. Since he had a “Get Out of Hell Free” card, then what sacrifice did he make. I would bet of there were a guaranteed resurrection, human beings would line up in great numbers to experience death, just to see what it was like.
The res makes the whole think look like a show put on for the rubes.
I am pretty good at shoveling snow so…..squirrel!!!!