JM Ballister, an Evangelical Christian who either deleted his email account or blocked me (coward), sent me the following email. My response is indented and italicized.
Judas betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
Ballister begins his missive by telling me that Judas, a disciple of Christ, betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
Judas is the betrayer of Jesus — worse than Hitler, in the minds of Evangelicals. I wonder if Ballister and his fellow Christians have bothered to look at the contradictions in the Biblical text on how/where Judas killed himself and what, exactly, the thirty pieces of silver were used for? Contradictions abound. So why should we trust anything the Bible says about Judas — or anything else, for that matter? If an inerrant book has one error, it is no longer inerrant.
The Bible calls Judas the “son of perdition.” Judas didn’t “choose” to betray Jesus. God chose him from before the foundation of the world to be the man who would betray the Son of God. Judas never had a chance to be saved. In fact, he couldn’t be saved. It would have been better if he had never been born. You see, Ballister forgets that I have actually read the Bible numerous times; that I spent thousands and thousands of hours studying the Word of God. I KNOW the story of Judas.
What did you and every other “former Christian” betray him for?
I can’t speak for other atheists, but I know exactly what I “betrayed” Jesus for: reason, skepticism, rationalism, science, freedom, and sleeping in on Sundays.
There is no such thing as a Christian “turned atheist”.
Memo to Evangelicals: just because you say something doesn’t make it so. Ballister denies what is right in front of him: an increasing number of devout Evangelical Christians are leaving the church and embracing atheism, agnosticism, Christian liberalism, or numbering themselves with those who are indifferent towards organized religion. We exist, and no amount of posturing and denial will change this fact.
Sadly they were never born again spiritually.
Ballister has a theological dilemma on his hands. He sees droves of committed followers of Jesus Christ exiting the church stage left — Christ-loving, sanctified, Holy Spirit-filled people — and he is befuddled by their departures. How can these things be? True Christian® Ballister says to himself. Unable to fit these people into his once-saved-always-saved theological box, Ballister concludes these Judases must never have been saved. Using the No True Scotsman Fallacy, Ballister dismisses out of hand millions of former Christians, labeling them liars and deceivers.
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. Think, for a moment, about how many Christians I came in contact with. Thousands, including Evangelicals pastors, professors, evangelists, and missionaries. Some of these clerics were personal friends. Yet, not one of them EVER said that they thought I was unsaved. Not one. Either I was a master deceiver, tricking thousands of people into believing I was a God-called, born-again preacher of the gospel, or Ballister is full of shit. My money is on the latter.
Just like Judas.
Here’s the problem with Ballister’s Judas illustration: Judas was pre-ordained by God to betray Jesus. Therefore, Judas could not be saved. He was a reprobate from the beginning. Thus, if Evangelicals-turned-atheists are Judases, it is impossible for us to be saved. Thus, the blame for our unbelief rests on God — he made us this way. God chose to withhold his grace from us. Why? Who knows, but Ballister is blaming the wrong people. Evangelicals-turned-atheists are heathens today because, from before the foundation of the world, God determined they would be atheists. Perhaps Ballister should be emailing Jesus, and not me. Oh wait, Jesus is dead or has a Juno account.
Jesus loves you he never stopped and is waiting for you and many others here to come to him in true salvation
What a pathetic God Ballister serves. Jesus lurks in the shadows, helpless to save atheists and agnostics unless we come running to him. He could call out to us, but he says nothing. He could come running to us and miraculously save us from the wrath to come, but he has no legs. Everything an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God should be able to do, Jesus is helpless to do. How can it be said that Jesus loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives, yet he either cannot or refuses to use his magical powers to bring us to saving faith? Instead, Jesus sends Christian Assholes like JM Ballister. Do better, Jesus, do better.
Saved by Reason,
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 got rid of some of those things. Ohh, and guilt. No more bullshit Christian guilt. No more worry about all the horrible sins I committed every week, thus needing to ‘get right with gawd’.
And sleeping in on Sundays! Always wondered if there was some all-powerful being, why didn’t he do something about me having to get out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, get dressed up and waste every damn Sunday with a bunch of hypocritical assholes and lecherous, grabby old men. Snotty bitches who were more interested in who was wearing what. Goodness, there’s a whole long list. I should write it down sometime.
Funny that people like this guy can’t rationalize the fact that many people simply no longer believe in fairy tales.
Somehow we must never have been saved.
M’kay.
What a doorknob.
Mr Ballister is another such evangelical in the mold of the fundies. It’s amazing while tiresome. Not one of these types can be bothered to even try to understand another person’s POV. THIS is why our country is screwed. Fundies have gotten a great deal of power in our government and they want to turn it into a theocracy. I imagine most of these types would also be breaking as many of the commandments in secret as they could while forcing the rest of us to live uinder their Christian Sharia code.
I’m not interested in ONE SINGLE THING Ballister has to say, as he doesn’t give a FUCK about what true unconditional love is. Instead, he believes in a cruel, coercive kind of “love” that gives him power to condemn his fellow men and women. Isn’t there something in the Bible about “judge not, lest ye be judged?” Almost all white American evangelicals deserve the uttermost condemnation over their actions in the last 5 years. They will bring this country and world to a ruin, as long as they gain power.
This “power of God” stuff… I dunno. I remember back in Marietta Georgia in the early 90s. I saw a tote board sign that someone had put up protesting some new school curriculum that I’d never heard of. They described it as “Dangerous for Jesus!”
Hold on a minute! Okay, if they’re talking about newborn Jesus in the manger, maybe. If they’re talking about Jesus on the cross, maybe. I mean, he was pretty busy at the moment, what would the nails and the crown of thorns and all. But if Jesus is actually God, then how can anything be dangerous for Jesus or God? I think that was one of the moments that added up to my ultimate de-conversion in 2002. Took a little longer than it should have!
Re “Judas betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver.” Really? According to “the story” if Judas doesn’t “betray” Jesus, then Jesus doesn’t get crucified, resurrected, et. al. and there is no Christianity. So, Judas is actually doing Jesus a solid.
But this story has holes in it. According to Biblical accounts, it was known that Jesus and his crew frequented the garden after meals. The Romans, with their advanced spy network surely knew this and could have found them easily . . . in fact they did! But was Judas needed to “finger” Jesus in that crowd? Hardly. These are the Romans. They would have gathered up the whole bunch and taken them to a black site where they could interrogate them comfortably. They would soon find out who was who. Plus, they never would have let the others go as the story indicates. They are co-conspirators in an insurrection. They would have been hung up along with Jesus.
This “story” has more holes in it that a wheel of Swiss cheese, including when one “gospel” has Jesus walking around Jerusalem for 40 days after his resurrection, attracting crowds, of course. Had this actually happened, Roman spies would have gotten wind of it, Jesus would have been recaptures and strung up a second time and not taken down until there were just bones hanging.
If someone said all this to me my answer would be, “Just because you want to sell me a ticket for a guilt trip, it doesn’t mean I have to buy it.”
Ballsy also forgets that his god needs satan for his “forgiveness” to work and damned someone for doing what needed done per this god. This god is quite a jackass.
How, exactly, does Mr. Ballister know that Judas wasn’t saved? Jesus needed Judas to turn him over to the Romans in order for the rest of the Evangelicals’ “substitutionary atonement” reasoning to work. Maybe Judas was utterly miserable at his assigned role in Jesus’ life, and killed himself out of guilt after it was done. I’ve always thought that, if Judas were real, he should be a saint, for forcing himself to do what was necessary for Jesus, however difficult it was for him personally..
Pro tip. Mr. Ballister: If your precious widdle saviour can be “betrayed” by a mere mortal, you probably shouldn’t trust it to save you from, well, anything. 😀
I was a die hard Christian for years. During a serious health crisis I cried out to Jesus for a dose of that peace that passes all understanding but got nothing but silence and blackness. I worked in the health care field and begged Jesus to heal the people I worked with every day but he couldn’t be bothered. When my faith began to falter I asked Jesus to renew my faith and not let me fall away but he remained silent. If any betrayal happened Jesus was the culprit. But in reality I now realize I was duped from an early age into believing a lie and I am free from religious superstition. And like Bruce I am not mad at a god that does not exist and I am not killing and raping because I have no moral compass. In fact I like my godless self a whole lot more than my old self
What a strange thing. I never turned this Jesus over to the authorities. If anything it’s a Demas. Although, these are characters that are long gone, and we may as well be arguing over Bilbo Baggins.
” just because you say something doesn’t make it so”
apply those words to your anti God, Anti Jesus and anti hell comments
Oh and you are a coward as you keep deleting my posts. You are afraid of the truth
So persecuted, David. 😂 You delete or refuse to approve comments on your blog — which you have every right to do. I guess that makes you a coward too; a man afraid of the truth. (And I know exactly how you will justify your hypocritical behavior, so don’t bother.)
I’m not afraid of the “truth” you peddle, David. Most often, your comments are personal attacks or attempts to smear my character. I hope you will forgive me for not wanting to subject myself or the readers of this blog to your continued assholery.
As far as me being a coward, nothing could be farther from the truth. Unlike you, I don’t hide behind a fake name. Unlike you, I don’t hide who I am. I put my real name on every blog post and social media post. You are the one hiding behind a computer screen.
You mistake preaching for dialog. Want to object to something I have written? Use facts, evidence, and thoughtful arguments. As long as you continue to personally attack me, post sermons, or Bible zingers, I will delete your comments. I would have permanently blocked you already, but you are using a VPN or another service that randomizes your IP address. Thus, you are a hemorrhoid that won’t go away. All I can do is apply Preparation H to lessen the swelling and pain. Jesus say, Do better, David, do better.
He just can’t do it, Bruce. Instead of trying reason, he has to attack you. It’s getting tedious.
None of us here believe that the things we say are true just because we say them. We all have reasons. Some of us have very comprehensive lists of reasons. (I’ll share them, if you want. If you… proselytizers tend to say it? If you “dare to seek the truth”?)
Get God to answer me. That’s all you have to do. Entreat Him to reveal Himself, and you’ll have an instant convert and I’ll say so right here on Bruce’s blog, and on my own. (But I still won’t be an asshole about it.)
But He won’t. He doesn’t. He never has. If He truly exists, then He’s as comfortable with my lack of belief as I am with His active lack of participation in the events of the world around us and His silence in the face of sincere, ardent prayers. If God exists, He understands — perfectly — why I don’t believe in him, and He chooses not to change that. And if He’s even half of what I was taught in my childhood, then He understands it with love, grace, and acceptance.
If God is out there, He’s not the one who has a problem with us. That? That would be you. And there is not enough power, money, fame, or success in the world to make me care what you think of us.
I freed.myself from the bondage of Christianity for the same reasons as Bruce, along with the desire to simply exist as the person I am. No more guilt for not being able to fit into narrow, man made definitions.
I’ve always found the vilification of Judas problematic. Isn’t he, in a sense, making a far greater sacrifice than Christ himself? He’s doomed to an eternity in hell, to be known as the betrayer of the best guy who ever lived, in order that humanity might have salvation… sounds to me like either–as you’re suggesting here–Judas is predestined by god to do what he does, in which case we should pity him; or that he makes a choice to do what has to be done in order to trigger the events of Christ’s death and resurrection, knowing that it dooms him in the process. In which case, he should probably be considered among the saints and martyrs.
That’s what I’d wonder about if I were actually a Christian, anyway. As a non-Christian I think Judas is a made-up figure being used as another way of cementing early Christian antisemitism into the Gospel stories, but that’s just my take.
THEOLOGYARCHAEOLOGY: Almighty said, “You mistake preaching for dialog.”
Read this three times, slowly into the mirror and you will feel the two-edged sword of Denial taking your tongue. (That is only true if you have some tiny sliver of self-awareness left in you.) All my life I have witnessed harmed humans reducing themselves to shit-spray for Jesus, heaping disdain on their simple humanity and saying they are freed by Jesus.
Well, what I hear is the same old gobbledegook,THEOLOGYARCHAEOLOGY, Mister CAPS. You don’t have one original idea to share and just barf memory-work from the back book manual of destruction.
They used to give us yearly pins, medals to wear on our suit lapels for perfect Sunday School attendance. I had five or six years of childhood buried there and then more that came without the medals… You cannot allow yourself to live, you babbler. You just spout like a flag-waver, an empty heart hollering in the wind. Please go away. You have made it your bloggy business to harm others but it is your own demise you trumpet with every post. You sound so like the previous American president to me, proud and blunted.
Bruce Gerencser: “You mistake preaching for dialog.”
Zoe: That’s it.