Warning! Truckloads of snark ahead — a few swear words too. You have been warned!
What follows is a comment I received on the Why I Hate Jesus post from an Evangelical Christian named Wade. My response is indented and italicized. Enjoy!
Bruce, I really feel sorry for you.
Why? You don’t know me, and you didn’t make any real effort to learn more about me either. Much like thousands of Evangelicals who have come before you, you read a few posts and then rendered judgment. You might want to ponder the words of your God found in Proverbs 18:13: He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
My wife recently spent eighteen days in the hospital. She underwent major abdominal and bladder surgery. She currently has a colostomy bag and will be off work two more weeks. Now, if you had expressed your sorrow over my wife’s plight, that I would understand. However, your false sorrow is directed towards me all because of what you read in the post Why I Hate Jesus. As countless Evangelicals before you have done, you totally missed the point of the post. Go back and read it again and see if you can “discern” what it is I am writing about.
Because of your own weaknesses and failures in your own life and being let down by HUMANS you are spreading a message of HATE and atheism.
Exactly, what are my weaknesses and failures, Wade? Please list them. Not the preconceived ones you have conjured up in your mind, I want you to list my real weaknesses and failures. And believe me, I am a weak man who has failed many, many times. I am also a man who is quite honest in his blog posts. I have written thousands of posts over the past decade. I have told my story — and continue to do so — in painstaking detail.
As far as being let down by humans, I have no idea what you are talking about. Sure, I have been disappointed by the actions and words of more than a few humans. None of us is perfect. I am sure I have disappointed many people. All any of us can do is be honest, and when failings are brought to our attention, try to do better. As a humanist, that’s always my goal — to be a better person today than I was yesterday.
What is the message of HATE I am spreading? Again, something tells me that you don’t grasp the point of the Why I Hate Jesus post. As far as spreading atheism, what else would you have me do? I am, after all, an atheist. I assume you are okay with Christians taking the gospel to every creature. Isn’t that what you are trying to do here? Put in a good word for Jesus? All of us talk about what we think, know, and believe. If that offends you in some way, tough shit. Don’t read my writing if it causes you to get a Jesus boner.
Blaming God and Jesus for human faults and failures.
Umm, I don’t believe in the existence of God and I am quite sure that Jesus is dead, never to be seen again. So, it is beyond silly to suggest that I blame God for anything. Again, you have made no effort to understand me as a person or a writer, so you have grossly and ignorantly misjudged my motivations.
Obviously, you don’t really understand the Bible, or Jesus or God.
How about you give me a Bible test. I bet I can answer virtually every question on the test. I actually know the Bible quite well. I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible and devouring theological tomes. I think you will find, if we both whip out our Bible dicks, that I am a John Holmes of knowledge and you, my friend are Mr. Mushroom, 2 Corinthians Donald Trump.
And obviously you can’t distinguish between God and Man, so you give up because of men’s failures, and become a hater of Jesus and an atheist. WHAT A SAD THING.
I know the difference between human beings and God. I see human beings everywhere I look. My wife of forty-one years, six children, and twelve grandchildren are all veritable humans. The same can be said about my relatives, neighbors, friends, and readers of this blog. Humans, the lot of them.
God? He/she/it is a construct of the human imagination. He is a mythical being that no one has ever seen, heard, or spoken to. I find it quite easy, then, to distinguish between reality and myth. How about you, Wade? Do you go around talking to a deity you have never seen; a myth who only exists in your head? Now, that’s s-a-d.
Let me say, again, Jesus was born, lived, and died — end of story. Dead people don’t come back to life. If you have EVIDENCE to the contrary, I would love to see it. Not really, because you have no such evidence. You believe a mythical story in an ancient religious text — that’s your evidence. Sorry, but I am not buying it. Seeing is believing, Wade, so present a living Jesus to me and I will believe.
I know you won’t like this, but I see you in the picture and I see sadness for a man who tries to get his attention and respect and love from other haters of God and Jesus.
Dude, get over the sad/sadness bullshit. I get it, you are sad that I am sad. I get it, you see a man who has no purpose and meaning in life. I get it, you see a man without love. Would it do me any good to tell you that you are wrong; that my life is filled with purpose, meaning, and love; that I found fullness of life AFTER leaving Jesus and Christianity in the dust? Of course not. You have made your mind up about me, and nothing I say will change what you think.
Thousands of people read this blog every day. I really don’t have to try to get “attention,” I already have it. Now, being a writer, I always want MORE readers, so perhaps you can let your fellow Christians know about my site.
I know you won’t like this but I love you as a brother in Christ.
First, I am not a brother in Christ; that is unless you still think I am saved — an absurd notion if there ever was one. And even if I was still a Christian, I am definitely not your type of Jesus follower. You are monogamous as far as religion is concerned, and I would be quite polyagmous. Second, you don’t love me. How could you since you don’t know me? Don’t give me that cheap, sentimental Evangelical love that is little more than a meaningless cliché. I am sixty-two years old, Wade. I have more than enough love in my life. I really don’t need any feigned love from Christian zealots. Now, if you have money you want to give me, I will take that.
I see a man that longs to be loved, respected, and understood, but is looking to humans to give him those things, not to his creator God and Jesus…….. blaming the wrong one for problems in life. We live in a sin sick fallen world, and it rains on the just and the unjust. Jesus is not the cause of man’s problems, Jesus is the answer to man’s problems. But too many men expect Jesus to prevent all bad things from happening. He does, but that is in Heaven. The earth is not a perfect place, and you blaming Jesus for all bad things that happen on earth shows you completely don’t understand God and Jesus, and blame him for the things that MEN and HUMAN BEINGS, cause. If the earth was a perfect place, then there would be no need for Heaven, and Heaven would be nothing.
Oh my God, Wade, it is evident you missed the Bible lessons on the sovereignty of God. Much of what you say here is just regurgitation of things you have said previously. You seem Heaven-bent on protecting God’s honor. You might want to read more of my writing. You will find that I do a decent job of showing that the Biblical God is whimsical, capricious, vindictive, and violent. We all should be very glad that Christians are far better people than their God.
If you really were a real believer before, not just following a whim, you are still a believer.
Well, I was a true believer; a blood-bought, sold-out, on-fire, servant of the triune God. I guess, once-saved-always-saved, right? Sweet. Can you just make sure that you and I live in different neighborhoods? I don’t care much for your type. I prefer multicultural neighborhoods, and it sounds like you love the song White Christmas.
The Lord loves you whether you love Him or hate Him. The Lord doesn’t hate homosexuals like you said above. The Lord hates the SIN of homosexuality, just like the SIN of murder, the SIN of lying, the SIN of HATE, the SIN of disbelief. But he doesn’t hate the SINNER.
Sorry, Wade, but you really, really, really need to read the Bible. Not only does your God hate sin, he hates those who do it. You can’t separate the skunk from his smell. Again, if you dig into my writing, you will find I have done a good bit of writing on this subject.
I hate the things that MY children do that are wrong, but NOTHING they can do will ever make me hate them. That is REAL LOVE, and that is how God and Jesus are.
If one of my children was a serial killer and he murdered my wife, his siblings, and their children, trust me, I would hate him. You need to THINK before spouting cheap-ass Christian clichés. Unconditional love, as parroted by Evangelicals, is a myth. (Please see Does God Love Us Unconditionally?)
You can blame Jesus and God all you want, but the real problems on earth are caused by MAN.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. *sigh*
When you understand that, you can have peace and be relieved of all this misguided HATE you seem to have. I will keep you in my prayers, and as a brother in Christ, Jesus will love you no matter what poisonous hate you spew about Him. I have so much more to say, but I’ll stop here. I hope you have a blessed day, and a blessed life, and can one day have peace and love in your heart again.
As I said previously, I am fine in the love and peace department. Despite my wife’s latest health problems, life is good. I have no need for Jesus or what Christianity has to offer. Been there, done that. Why would I want to return to Egypt after I have entered the Promised Land? You wrongly think that I don’t know what Christianity offers me. I do. What you can’t fathom is anyone walking away from your boyfriend, Jesus. You have a wonderful love life with a mythical being, and think everyone should have the same. Why? Atheists and agnostics and other non-Christians don’t want or need what you are peddling. Did you really think that anything you said here was going to change my mind and lead me back to Jesus? Or, perhaps it is that your comment is more about you, Wade; more about hearing yourself talk; more about shoring up your faith; more about taking a stand for Jesus?
At my age, every day is blessed. I strive to enjoy every day as much as I can. I don’t need religion for my life to have meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. Life is good as it is. Well, almost. It sure would be nice if the Reds won the World Series, the Bengals won the Super Bowl, and I had a few thousand dollars to buy a new camera lens I am lusting over.
Outside of these things, Wade, my life is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Be well.
A Sinner Saved by Reason,
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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Don’t understand him addressing you as a “brother in Christ”, unless it’s because he believes OSAS. I used to believe that, when I was Southern Baptist. But by the time I became an apostate, I was doctrinally correct and knew I would split hell wide open. Good thing I stopped believing in hell too, later.
Cliffs Notes Version:
Wade: Bruce, you are a sad sack of sh!t because you hate my super duper version of a deity that I learned about at church and enhanced in my mind to be what I wanted it to be. I didn’t read much about you other than that you don’t like my deity, but I know you because of Jesus Discernment. I am going to insult you and tell you you weren’t a true Christian but if you were or weren’t you can’t escape my deity. I am going to throw fake love on you so you will see the errors in your ways. I am going to feel good about myself for proselytizing at you and will walk away praying for Holy Spirit Power because I really just wanted to have my say.
Bruce: Don’t let the door hit you on your backside on the way out. Or let it.
Bruce’s Readers: At least this one didn’t tell you you’re going to hell.
OC…
I think this version could apply to 90, maybe even 95% of those evangelicals who THINK they have something new to say. Hehe… maybe there is at least ONE true scripture verse… Song of Solomon if my memory is correct, (if not, feel free to correct me. I didn’t feel like looking it up!), “There’s nothing new under the sun”… Despite that, they’ll keep coming…
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:9,10 ?
Thanks Bruce for picking up my slack! ?
“Why would I want to return to Egypt after I have entered the Promised Land? You wrongly think that I don’t know what Christianity offers me. I do.
What you can’t fathom is anyone walking away from your boyfriend, Jesus. You have a wonderful love life with a mythical being, and think everyone should have the same. Why? ”
Best part of your response Bruce.
You’ve really hit the nail on the head . Thank you for speaking out the truth
Re “Umm, I don’t believe in the existence of God and I am quite sure that Jesus is dead, never to be seen again.” It is not at all clear that “Jesus” ever lived. If one extracts the four gospels and Acts from the NT, and earthly Jesus makes no appearance whatsoever. His teachings aren’t mentioned, nor is his mission. Jesus is spoken of as a heavenly agent, much like every other god of the time.
Then when you turn to the gospels and Acts and ask “When were these written and for what purpose?” even though definitive answers aren’t available, they are clearly fictional. Mark hearkens to OT scriptures in almost every “story” with little else but a little rhetorical glue to hold it together. Then the others borrow heavily from Mark, indicating that they didn’t know what was factual and what was fictional.
This is why, I suspect, that every attempt to “find” an historical Jesus in scripture comes up with a different result.
So, the common approach, to “give” up that Jesus was an historical figure is giving away too much. I say, let them prove it.
Coming through his words is that hot, righteous, completely fucked up thinking… “I’m standing up for YOU, Jesus! Look at me!! See? I am a really good advertisement for you!” :::preen preen::::
That stubborn, twisted thinking is really the saddest part of the whole diatribe.
I kinda feel sorry for the guy, he’s looking for approval from an imaginary being and he’s always coming up short.
@ Obstacle Chick ???
Love it !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Hs8h7Mn00
Okay children, let’s all sing together!
One door and only one and yet its sides are two
I’m on the inside
so Bruce, fuck you!
One thing that occurred to me reading the dissection of Wade’s letter is that the “love” that is often professed by Christians who feel they need to provide lip service to the Biblical edict to love one another and the “belief” that is touted by Pascal’s wager are both strictly aspirational. I should say VERY aspirational, as they don’t have any manifestation besides being the hot air as they are expelled as words.
I grew up suffering from major depression, but didn’t get diagnosed until my early 30s when I reached a point of being barely functional. (Pro tip: untreated depression can gradually worsen over time.) I was utterly amazed when that first antidepressant kicked in. The extraordinary psychological pain was dulled for the first time since I could remember. But it was a long road from there to getting the condition actually under control, and that road involved trying a lot of antidepressants to find ones that worked well AND doing a lot of talk therapy.
One thing I discovered through that process is that thoughts are indeed chemical processes in a physical brain. A chemical imbalance can cause us to lie to ourselves. But even when the chemistry is fixed, our old habits of lying to ourselves have become comfortable, and it’s easy to continue doing it. It was a LOT of work to challenge my beliefs on so many things: how to measure the true value of a person, including myself; what constituted right action; what things in life were worth worrying about; and so on. The more time I spent exploring these questions, the more ridiculous the answers offered by my Christian beliefs became. Not that I gave up on theism altogether right away, but I sure did give up on the Bible, because it got so much obviously wrong.
So when I see comments like Wade’s, I feel that he’s as stuck as I was before my depression was treated. NOT that I mean to imply he suffers from a mental illness, of course. I’m not a doc, and anyhow armchair psychoanalysis is extremely rude. But he hasn’t done the difficult work of evaluating his belief system. Most importantly, he doesn’t realize that ideas that seem to come into his head from nowhere are, in fact, easily created by his own brain and not whispers from some deity or demon–and that even perfectly healthy brains can do this all the time.
@Karen the rock whisperer on September 6, 2019 at 11:35 am:
Without using mental illness labels we can still speak in a balanced way about psych difficulties and depression as an almost universal experience; not the clinical and more severe type that you seem to have suffered for a long time but a natural depression that is the outcome more perhaps of present conditions being experienced. I suffered depression as a youngster because I lived in fear of a vengeful God who invented Hell. He threatened me because I knew from early on that I was a sinner from birth, as was my learning in a Baptist home with a preacher dad and a mom who was the progeny of a preacher. My depression, I came to realize in therapy as I got older was the direct result of being abandoned, of feeling worthless next to the energy my parents spent on church and belief. The only way I could bathe in any real acceptance was by performing, not being my authentic self but putting on the greatest show on earth, my belief in Jesus. It is natural and inevitable (as I see it now) for kids to suffer as I did when exposed to lies they must participate in to be accepted and loved. I realize as an old man (now) that my parents loved me with all their hearts and did what they believed was the only right thing to do, raise their kids in the fundamentalist Baptist church and see their souls saved from eternal torture.
The wonderful British poet, Philip Larkin, penned This Be the Verse, which begins, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad…” and I think he hit the nail square on the head with this one. I would never suggest that fundamentalist Christianity is the only culprit in these matters of fuckup but it is one of the best tools I have come across in my life to accomplish harm in acceptable, ritualistic, tax-free ways. Having parents who are abusive with alcohol or anger or many other things can do the same terrible thing that belief does and depression is a very common feeling/condition among children. And it might well be that Wade can relate to some of what is being expressed about depression here. The fact is, though, there are countless examples throughout history of people who drank the koolaid and never seemed to question things again; often went to execution by standing in their faith. My dad never turned away from his belief and before he died, long after he had only dementia to pass his time, my older brother would visit him and do memory work drills of verses so that dad could parrot them. My bro probably felt it brought dad joy and it served our Lord and Saviour too! It made me depressed to think of it for a time but we share what we are able to share and many many of us will remain pre-treatment as I see it. The President of United States, the Donald, is a good example of pre-treatment. He is living by example a grand denial that is a support for all the grand denial across the land.
Thank goodness for Science, for drugs that assist when necessary in depression, and for therapy to help us be more fully human. Thanks, Karen the rock whisperer, for your thoughtful post.
Karen,
This sentence resonated with me: “But he hasn’t done the difficult work of evaluating his belief system.”. You are absolutely right, and that’s the problem with the majority of evangelicals, because they haven’t! Like Bruce, I spent many years in the ministry, first as a youth pastor and then as a worship pastor. And up until the point before I began to question myself, I NEVER, EVER evaluated my belief system. And the main reason? Because I believed we had gawds literal word! I blindly trusted what I was told about Jesus and the gospel. And because of my personality, I was “all in”, 100%, no questions, no looking back. The concept of the Bible being a holy, “straight from its deity” text is a VERY powerful concept! Not to mention, I was 12 or 13 when I was “saved”. So I was an impressionable young man and I had no reason to doubt what I was being “sold” at that time. And for 35 years, I was steadfast in my beliefs, without question. People won’t question their belief system, because they don’t think they have a reason to, they have the so-called authority of the Bible. And along with that, you are taught to never question! Because, how dare one question the infallible, literal word of god? So you’re absolutely right! But unless “cracks” start to form, like they did for me and so many other ex evangelicals here, sadly, they never will.
These people who come to your blog are pretty wearing. Seriously, I had to stop reading his stuff as it’s the same old, same old.
You got to him. I expect he will deconvert in the next few years or will take the coward’s way out and suppress it all. I know that sounds weird. He knows the promises aren’t panning out, so he’s got to demonize YOU, instead of turning an eye to his crappy religion. Deep deep inside, he got bothered, he knows in a little place it’s all a lie.
Dear Wade:
I feel sorry for YOU.
Also: How do you know so much about everything and everyone?
Know-it-all Christians are the worst.
Perhaps the best response would be: Jesus loves you. But I think you are an asshole.
Wow…
I can’t help but think, holy shit, Wade! You have way too much free time!
I agree with you, Bruce. I think his comment is more about him and hearing himself talk.
Also, like you said, it seems that he read a few posts and thinks he knows all about you. WTF? There are people I’ve worked with for 10 years, 50+ hours a week, that I’m still learning things about. And, over time, people change. So you have to factor in that dynamic when you say, or assume, that you know someone.
Hey Wade, go read your Bible and pray and leave the atheists alone!
Hey Wade,
So you believe all the B.S. that is in the bible, do you? So do you support genocide, slavery, subjugation of women to men, and all the atrocities in the bible that are plainly immoral. If you really believe that the bible is the Word of God, then you follow a moral monster.