Originally posted in 2020. Edited, updated, and revised.
A boy dreams of being a major league baseball player someday. His parents were both athletes in their younger years, having had some success at the high school and college levels.
As a youth, he grows quickly, seemingly always a head taller than everyone else. He seems more agile than others his age. He is fast on his feet, quick with his mind, and excels at baseball.
Tee-Ball. Little League. Pony League. High School Baseball. College Baseball.
At every level, he excels.
Finally, his big day comes.
A Major League baseball team makes him their number-one draft pick.
It’s not long before he works his way through the minor leagues, and two years after being drafted he makes his major league début.
He is an instant sensation, quickly showing everyone that he is an all-star in the making.
One night, during a game where he went 4-4, hit a home run, drove in 3 runs, and stole a base, the TV broadcaster explains the greatness of this talented baseball player: He has a God-given talent to play like he does.
Nary a person will question such an utterance.
It seems if people excel in life, it is because God has blessed them or God has given them a special dose of talent.
Few are the people who excel in life. Most of us have a few things we are good at, and we try to nurture those things the best we can. We know we will not be remembered for any great feat, nor will the record books make any mention of us. We live, we love, we die, and then we are forgotten.
It would seem that God doesn’t want most of us to be standouts or superstars. God only has a chosen few he blesses with God-given talent.
How does the nontheist explain the baseball player mentioned above? If it is not God-given talent, what is it?
Genetics.
Home environment.
Passion.
Hard work.
Training.
Coaches.
Scouts.
Luck.
All of these are better explanations than God-given talent.
We demean people when we reduce their hard work to something a God allegedly gives them. Here’s what I know: the few things I am good at in life are the result of my diligence, commitment, and hard work. Granted, these things come easily for me, BUT I still work hard to cultivate and improve the talents I have. I suspect it is the same for you too.
I am all for giving credit to whom credit is due. However, God is not on the credit list.
The all-star baseball player helps propel the home team to the World Series. The team handily wins the series and the little boy, now a grown-up all-star player, is voted the series’ most valuable player.
As he is interviewed after the last game of the series, he says “I want to thank God . . .”
And I say to myself or the TV, No, I want to thank YOU. Thank you for playing hard. Thank you for hustling on every play. Thank you for working hard every day to be the very best player you could be.
This subject reminds me of my all-time favorite TV prayer. In the movie Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart uttered the following prayer at the dinner table:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked Dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food were about to eat. Amen.
And all the atheists said AMEN.
Many Christians have been taught that without God/Jesus they can do nothing. Their very breath and motor skills come from God. God feeds them, clothes them, gives them a job, gives them a spouse, gives them children, and gives them, well, gives them everything. Jesus said in John 15:5, without me ye can do nothing. Many Christians take this verse to mean that without Jesus they can do absolutely NOTHING. Technically, they don’t really believe this. After all, they do sin. Does God give them the power and ability to sin? Well, that’s different, Bruce. Sin comes from Satan or the flesh. God, who created everything and gives us the breath of life and the ability to exist, gets the credit for the good, but not the bad, right? Good=God, Bad=Satan and the Flesh. But, if God is sovereign, if he is the creator of everything, isn’t he also responsible for sin and the bad things that happen? I thought God has the whole world in his hands and the universe exists because of him?
I am all for giving credit to whom credit is due. If someone can show me God did this or that or God gave so-and-so talent, then I will gladly give God the credit. One question, though. Which God? How do we know it is the Christian God handing out the talent? Does the Christian God put a Made by Jesus label on those he gives talent to? So many questions . . .
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 submit that the “god given” thing as used by many if not most people has become more of a figure of speech than giving credit to God. I take it to mean a natural ability that’s out of the ordinary. That being said, if I hear it from someone like my niece, (the one who knows God’s mind), in her case I know she means GIVEN BY GOD HIM (or her) SELF! Consider the source. Sometimes it’s just talk.
There’s value, actually great value, in cultivating gratitude. Richard Dawkins, who now seems rather disconnected from reality, in the past wrote this quote, which I cherish:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
I’m grateful to simply be here, an ordinary person, to experience being alive. Any kind of greatness that I might have achieved due to nurturing some natural talent isn’t going to happen…and in the grand scheme of things, that’s okay. No deit(y)(ies) required.
(I’m actually grateful for a whole lot more than that, but those things, too, came from some talent and lots of pure luck.)
Karen I often think of the coincidence of being this person, not one of billions of others I could have been. You write very thoughtfully about it.
Ichiro, Shohei Ohtani, and other (presumably) non-Christian baseball players are among the greatest ever in the sport – are they supposed to attribute their massive talent and skill to the evangelical deity? I suppose evangelicals would say yes. It kind of doesn’t seem fair that God would bless nonbelievers while presumably believers languish in the minor league, never making it to “the big show”. Now, we nonbelievers know that it takes a whole lot of great genetics, desire, drive, opportunity, and a hell of a lot of work to perform at the top of one’s game. I train 8-12 hours per week for obstacle racing, and while I am better than average for my age group, I am not the top athlete by far. I probably never will be, especially as I am starting to see some issues with regard to natural reduction of power due to aging. I do my best, but it is what it is.
My devout evangelical Grandma hated that scene from “”Shenandoah”. I thought it made perfect sense but wasn’t about to tell her that and hear the lecture…..
I have lots of things I’m good at and many where I’m terrible. I can remember dates from throughout my life with almost pinpoint accuracy. Then again, my brother is almost as good. We’re streets ahead of people we know on this but a) there are people everywhere who are much better than us and b) the fact that both my brother and I have this talent (?) suggests it is very much genetic. Age 71 I can still run a half marathon in around two and a quarter hours, but I’m seldom in the top half of runners of my age group, and nor can I touch my toes. In fact, I’m told by my physiotherapist that I’m one of the least flexible people he treats. Whenever I think I’m good at something I think of just how many people worldwide are better (as a kid you don’t properly realise this). Conversely, I’m nowhere near the bottom of the pile in anything, I daresay. Much like virtually everyone else out there.
God given talents indeed! He’d be better suited leaving talent to genes and spend time instead eradicating hunger, war, and suffering.
Very blasphemous prayer by Jimmy Stewart. God is the one who gives you the physical strength to get up and do anything. Your next breath is a gift from Christ. He could take it away at any second.
Time to put up or shut up. Please provide empirical evidence for your claims that “God is the one who gives you the physical strength to get up and do anything.” Just because the Bible says something doesn’t mean it is true.
Here’s a challenge for you, oh praying man. I dare you and your fellow zealots to ask God to take my breath away. If your God is all that you say he is and is as powerful as you say he is, surely he will answer your prayer. You have until Monday at 9:00 am. If I am still breathing, I will conclude that God either doesn’t hear your prayers — which is likely since you are not really a Christian — he said no, Bruce is my prophet, or he doesn’t exist. Game on, buddy.
The Jimmy Stewart prayer to me is perfect- of course I’m not an evangelical Christian. The way I see it, the prayer acknowledges “God” for the “big things” (existence, air, water, gravity, etc), but also acknowledges two important things: 1). Life is not perfect. It can suck for the righteous person and be awesome for the tyrant. You can see this in both history and the Bible actually. 2). God does nothing for those who do nothing for themselves. And even then, he may still do nothing. This goes back to my first point. Religious history is replete with times where a zealot felt God was “speaking to him”, and it turned out bad. The first and second Jewish revolt (both brutally put down by the Romans); the Great Disappointment in early America. Jim Jones and Jonestown. All of these movements took faith and effort, and they all went down in flames.
I personally believe in God and Jesus, etc. but as a modern Catholic I also am well aware of the stories of Catholic martyrs-not just in ancient times but in the 20th century. They lived devout lives, probably during tolerant times that suddenly turned intolerant. And no amount of praying, etc kept them from being martyred. It was just their time. Life is not assured regardless of your religious belief or non-belief.
Jimmy Stewart’s prayer sounds like someone who is being real with his concept of God as he and his family live on the razors edge of life and death, which was the reality during the time the movie was set in. It is not a Yay-Jesus we love you! Evangelical prayer with the praise and worship band, hand waiving and laser show.
Just my imperfect opinion. Hopefully it is not too far from the mark.
Thanks as always, Bruce.
You don’t want Christ to take your life.
In fact I strongly encourage you to do everything it takes to stay alive when that time does come…. 😭
Thank you for showing, yet again, that you are a liar. You do know that the Bible says that no liar will inherit the Kingdom of God. Instead of worrying about my soul, I suggest you worry about your own.
So, are you going to pray, Buddy Boy? Let’s see the power of God demonstrated through your prayer. Or are you afraid of being exposed as a fraud, a blowhard who would know God if he met him in the middle of the road.
Keep harassing people, Buddy Boy, but some day you will face the consequences of your behavior. Shit, who am I kidding? You will die alone, having run off anyone who remotely cares about you. You will be forgotten, a man who spend his life shitting on other people.
Odd that I would meet God who doesn’t exist in the middle of the road or how God who doesn’t exist is going to throw me in the lake of fire next to you and the readers here.
Those statements show you are a LIAR as well. All “atheists “ are lying to themselves and others.
Those statements show you’re not an atheist but rather an angry misotheist for whatever reason I don’t know.
How someone preaches for 30 years and is highly involved in evangelism and gets to this point is scary! Obviously never truly born again. And fail to see the truth that me David Tee and every other evangelical who has emailed you in 15 years has tried graciously to show you. Hope you think on it. Have blessed day.
Yes, you and David Tee — two peas 🫛 in a pod; two impotent men who wouldn’t know Jesus if he met you in the middle of the road. Both of you are frauds, hiding as pathetic cowards behind fake names, fake email addresses, and fake IP addresses. What are you two so afraid of? I know . . . being exposed for who and what you really are.
If God exists, you have much to answer for, and I have no doubt you will spend eternity in Hell. Of course, God doesn’t exist, so all I can hope for is your soon demise. You constantly harass me and my family, and you even harass my friends. Your behavior reveals you know nothing about the teachings of Christ. You use religion as a cudgel to bludgeon people. And to what end? Think about all the vile, violent, pornographic things you have written on this site and on social media. Do you seriously think you are a Christian? Child, please.
Revival fires, you’re a twerp. Nothing Bruce said implied that he believes in any god: he was being sarcastic, pointing out that you are suffering delusions, amongst other things. And I resent your assertion that I’m a liar. I’m an atheist and I don’t think any thing or any person in the world could persuade me otherwise. The concept of god, to me, is incoherent and creates far more problems than it solves. Maybe I’m wrong but liar I am not.
Revival Liars, since you lack the intellectual capacity for irony, I think Bruce is pointing out your hypocrisy to you by using God as an allegory. You claim to be a devout Christian yet have your posts continually edited or deleted due to posting inappropriate content. One that Bruce recently posted talked about how a husband and wife whom you amusingly “claimed” were raped as soon as they arrived in prison, and how the wife “cried” after being sexually abused. This is never amusing or relevant for any Christian to post in a comment. So I’m inclined to believe Bruce when he speaks about your poisoned mind and heart.
So how can you judge him? You don’t have the spirit of Christ within you if you fetishize sexual abuse, any more than the priest (or IFB Youth Pastor) who abused children and/or adults.
So compare yourself (and “Dr.” Tee) to Bruce. Someone who devoted the great part of his life to pastoring churches in poor rural areas of Ohio. The one place where folks who had nothing could go to hear a message of hope, regardless of whether you believe or not. Bruce took his calling seriously, and not only preached to his parishioners but helped them financially, etc. He made himself poor to help others. He reflected over time and has found religious belief to be lacking. In this moment of honesty he resolved to live his life in an authentic manner. Today he is helping people resolve religious trauma. In my view, he is like the Centurion who sought out Jesus because his servant was dying. The centurion didn’t care about religion, he cared about his servant’s life (Bruce I apologize if this is not a perfect comparison). I am not perfect, but I am fairly good at discerning the heart of a person. Bruce’s heart is good. That’s good enough for me.
Sheesh. What a maroon.
I’ve never liked the “thanking God for my accomplishments” shtick. It always struck me as poor self esteem. As for the Jimmy Stewart prayer, I think it’s funny! His character strikes me as someone with very healthy self esteem. After all, he’s just reminding God of how he and his family worked their asses off to avoid starvation. He doesn’t believe for one minute that God would have sent manna raining down from Heaven no matter how much his family was suffering.
Disgusting comment about male genitalia deleted. Revival Fires 🔥 loves male penises and assholes.
Yep- but he is also praying for you Bruce! Revival Liars is saved through faith and grace alone!
Not long ago, someone asked me, “What God-given talents do you have?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Oh, come on! You must have some talent you were born with.”
“Perhaps. But what’s God got to do with it?” (Apologies to Tina Turner.)
“Then how do you explain it?”
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I can’t. Maybe nobody can.”
The funny thing is that the person with whom I had that exchange never struck me as much of a believer. Then again, I hadn’t shared my non-belief.