Recently, an Evangelical man named Gary sent me the following message:
im sorry but you are a fool…”the bible say a fool says in his heart there is no God…wait til you meet your maker one day and answer your “Maker for what you said!
First, Gary is not sorry at all. He’s angry over the fact that I said something that supposedly impugned or slandered his version of the Christian God. I have no idea what it was I said, but it sure got under Gary’s skin; so much so that he had to send a Facebook message to a stranger. What is it about Evangelicals that they think it is okay to send strangers messages or emails? I can say that I have NEVER even contemplated such a thing. It seems, at least to me, to be rude, boorish behavior.
Gary wants me to know that he considers me a FOOL! I wonder if Gary has ever read Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:22; you know, where Jesus warns people that calling someone a fool put them in danger of hell fire? I’m sure Gary will say, the Bible says in Psalm14:1:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
See, God said it, so it is okay for Gary to call me a fool. Wait a minute, God (Jesus) also said not to call people fools. Which is it? Do we have a contradiction? Tell me it ain’t so, conflicting verses in God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word? Why, I have never seen such a thing!
Gary goes on to threaten me with God. Let me translate: Bruce, someday God is going to get you for the bad things you said about him! Then, you will be so sorry. My God is going to judge your sorry ass, fit you with a special torture-tolerant body, and then afflict pain, agony, and suffering on you for all eternity. And I am going to be standing over the pit of Hell laughing at you, Bruce, as you get everything you so richly deserve. No one says bad things about my God and gets away with it!
I wonder if Gary thought that his threat would have any meaningful effect on me? Or is this more about him finding an outlet for his “righteous” anger; his outrage over the words of the Evangelical preacher-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser? Surely, Gary knows that I think his peculiar God — and all deities — is a mythical being; that I am no more scared of Jesus than I am of Bugs Bunny. Now, Elmer Fudd? I am scared of that crazy wabbit killer. But Bugs? He and Jesus are in the same category: characters created by human imagination. I don’t have the slightest worry about God “getting” me or opening a can of whoop-ass on me after I die.
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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It is always about threats with evangelicals. What a way to live, being afraid of a deity all the time and spreading that message to those who disagree.
Yes, God’ll get you for that! What, is he listening to Maude?
It’s his anger at not being thanked rather than lambasted for writing you uninvited to spread his vile religion. How dare you, Bruce!?!? Bwahaha~
https://youtu.be/X8VSSdteKqM
The doctrine of hell is where Christians get to exercise their mean sides. I had discarded it and believed in annihilation before I left the faith. I was exposed to the annihilation doctrine while arguing with some Oneness Pentecostals on a discussion forum. I saw that they were really more compassionate towards the “unsaved” than I had been taught. Funny that — heretics besting Christians at compassion.
I was out on the playground with all the other first graders about 58 years ago. Some of us girls had gone down to this clearing near the edge of the woods. (Can’t imagine that we’d be allowed to do this now.) Anyway, I said to some of the girls “Come on, you fools!” and promptly was told by another first grader that I was going to hell.
I’d probably heard the “you fools” thing on Perry Mason. I was a precocious little stinker that may have watched too much TV.
I think a large part of this guy’s problem/issue is that he wants his god to notice HIM. “LOOK AT ME!! I am standing up for you! See me poking this atheist bear? Huh God? Huh? See me???”
Scoring points for the afterlife. He wants front row seats to watch you fry.
Bless his little heart.
“See me poking this atheist bear? See me??” Ami, I think you’ve got it.
Maybe poor Gary is wondering why supernatural God doesn’t just smite Bruce and every other sinner RIGHT NOW! Just validate Gary’s desperate efforts to be noticed by God. (Maybe this is displacement because Gary wasn’t noticed by his biological father?)
Well…. Why *doesn’t* God do some sinner smiting right now? Oh, right, that was Hurricane Katrina.
No Valhalla for you, Gary! (sends all of the god-botherer’s luggage to Niflheim, where his afterlife will consist of reading and re-reading old magazines in a drafty waiting room)
There’s a point at which this sort of thing stops being at all scary and becomes merely… tedious. Most of us here, I think, crossed it years ago.
The “scary” for me is when such people live close to me, as this man does. Over the past ten years, I’ve had two people stop at my home unannounced to talk with me after reading something on my blog. (Several others stopped to talk to me about my Bernie Sanders sign in 2016, a sign which was later stolen by a local man who bragged about the theft on Facebook) While these conversations went well, I do fear an unhinged Christian someday coming to my home to straighten me out.
While I am a public figure, when I walk in the door of my home, I don’t want to be bothered. Our children know, call before stopping by. I have never stopped by someone’s home unannounced. I just don’t do it. I respect personal space and privacy.
Of course, looking like Santa Claus doesn’t help matters either. ? Hard to go anywhere without someone making a Santa comment. Two weeks ago, a man came up to me and said, “has anyone ever told you that you look like Santa?” I wanted to say, “no, dumb shit, no one has ever told me that.” Instead, I was polite. No need to be an ass, even with the clueless.
And then there is my photography work. I’m known as the Santa who takes sports photos at high school games.
I’ve said all this to say, I accept the fact that I can’t escape my writer/Santa/photographer personas in public. However, once the door closes behind me, I want to be left alone.
That’s completely sensible, though. “God’s going to get you!” isn’t scary, at least for me; it hasn’t been in a long time. If God feels that strongly about it, he’s welcome to drop by for a chat at any time; I’d especially appreciate it if He could clear up a couple of dozen other important questions while He’s at it.
“I’m going to get you for what you said about God!” on the other hand, is a legitimate and immediate danger.
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