In yet another post about the Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser, “Dr.” David Tee (David Thiessen, Theologyarcheology, TEWSNBN) said:
Even though atheists do not accept the reality of this life, they are the ones who are deceived and lost. The Christian is not. There is nothing to fear from an atheist because they have no secret information, no inside scoop of what goes on in this world, and so on.
The atheist can make all the denials they want about God, Jesus, and the Bible but their denials do not tell the truth. It is evil using those people to side-track, confuse and hopefully destroy the believer and their faith.
The believer has to be strong in their faith to withstand these attacks. God is not wrong, Jesus did live, die and rise again for us and the Bible is not a myth. They are the only truth you will find in this world.
Yet, the atheist will take the time and spend the energy to accuse the Christian of every sin under the sun and act like they are the perfect people. While there are Christians who do commit sins, have trouble living the Christian life and some who are fake Christians pretending to follow God, we are not to blame for everything that goes wrong in this world.
The fault lies with the atheist and other unbelievers because they fight and hinder the only solution for the problems of this world. Atheism could not stop Stalin from killing 15,000,000 of his own people.
Atheism has not stopped Mao and the subsequent rulers of China from killing and torturing untold millions of Chinese people. In fact, atheists should not point a finger at anyone because their sins are greater than those they accuse the Christian of committing.
They certainly are not better than anyone else and they have no objective standard to offer anyone. Instead, they encourage people to sin and live depraved lives. That is not a better solution than the one offered by Christians and God through the Bible.
— “Dr.” David Tee, Theologyarcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, Painting With a Broad Brush, December 29, 2021
Yup, DDT is losing it. Maybe one day we’ll get to find out why.
It reads like he’s projecting here, actually. Also speaking about that which he does not know is not a flattering trait, but perhaps he is simply lying.
Give me one “Christian” country that wasn’t rife with witch hunts, inquisitions, abuse and in general a degradation of society in the name of Jesus without those at the top being a bunch of hypocritical self righteous corrupt assholes covering up some type of criminal enterprise. Occasionally there is the exception to the rule but theocracies(of any religious flavor, not just Christianity) tend to be miserable places to live for most people trying to get by in life. This guy would of course love to bring this all those fun things back.
A wise-beyond-her years (She’s young enough to be my granddaughter) friend recently said, “One things about people who are as dumb as fuck: They’re consistent. They’re usually dumb as fuck about everything.”
Case in point: This DT character. He now shows he’s as dumb as fuck about history as he is about everything else he’s talked about.
Mao and Stalin were atheists. But to say that their atheism didn’t stop them from committing atrocities is one of DT’s reddest herrings yet—and that’s saying something.
Neither Mao nor Stalin killed in the name of atheism. They did it because of their ruthlessness and megalomania. To say that their atheism didn’t stop them is like dismissing environmentalism or animal welfare because Hitler’s and other Nazi officials’ concern them didn’t prevent the Holocaust.
Moreover, most of the western world’s conflicts of the past 1500 years or so were done in the name of Christianity—including all of those Christians who slaughtered other Christians because they believed they are the only “true” Christians.
Oh, and in 1452 and 1455 Nicholas V issued bulls authorizing the colonization of sub-Saharan African lands and the enslavement of their people.
To be fair, Nicholas V wasn’t the first Pope to use his putative divine authority to authorize slaughter. Pope Innocent III deputized armies to put down Muslims and others who didn’t submit to the Church. Among them were the Cathars, also known as the Albigensians because they lived in and around Albi, in southwestern France. When the papal legate, Arnaud Amairic, was how to distinguish true Christians (which meant, in that milieu, Catholics), he reportedly said, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.” That, in translation has become the unofficial slogan of military members who fought for God.
What I’ve mentioned are just a few instances in which people’s Christian faith didn’t stop them from killing.
If DT sends us any more red herrings, we can have the world’s most colorful fish fry!
TEWSNBN isn’t the first to employ the fallacy that atheism = communism (or other ideologies responsible for causing carnage). It seems to be a recurring theme from the religious right in general. They cannot believe for a second that someone who isn’t religious can be moral, just as they cannot believe a religious person can be immoral. There is a great post by a guy called Michael – http://www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/blog/atheist-rule-4/ – that dismantles the Stalin argument – I steered TEWSNBN to a post of my own where I quoted Michael’s arguments and added a few… and guess what he said? He said I was… wait for it…. distorting the issue.
https://meerkatmusings.co.uk/atheism-kills-or-does-it/
Lisbeth, your examples are excellent, and a reminder that one can be holding one of the highest offices one can hold in religion – and still order atrocities – worse, they’ll suggest their orders are justified in the name of God. An awful lot of atrocities get justified for that reason.
Has he ever one time said to you “thanks for the information, I was wrong”? I find it impossible to engage with him in any meaningful way. Granted, I’ve met scores of Evangelicals who act similarly, so he’s not “special” in that regard. There’s just something about how he goes about it that irritates the Heaven 😂😈 out of me. I even talked to my counselor about this today.
Oh he’s never (well, I have no memory of it) said to me ‘Oh, you were right, sorry’. Even on matters of fact he hasn’t done so! I’ve got a couple of upcoming blog posts that will show yet again how factually incorrect he is on a couple of matters… what’s the betting he says ‘distortion?!’ I’ll bet you… um… an ice cream flavour of your choosing!
“There is nothing to fear from an atheist…” And yet, DT writes as if he’s scared of Bruce. Big, bad Bruce is the evil scary man of DT’s dreams. It’s almost like DT doesn’t feel protected by his precious God.
most theists are terrified of atheists, especially those as eloquent as Bruce. One contented, confident atheist shows that they are wrong in the most basic way.
As someone with a degree in medieval history and a pretty solid working knowledge of the early church, I must inform Mr. T that Christianity is not, in fact, the solution for all the problems of this world. It may solve problems for some people on a personal level, which is what religion is for, after all. But it certainly didn’t solve much of anything on a large scale, even when the church was more or less in charge of the entirety of Europe. (Not to imply that Christian Europe = The World, but you’d think if Christianity was the answer for everything it would have made more progress when it was more or less unchallenged.)
My friend Cat left the following comment on Tee’s post:
#1. This post is rather projecting and outright silly. Atheists don’t care if you worship your God. The problem occurs when you try to pass laws according to the Bible and force society to abide by “Christian” ideals. We live in a nation that is by design secular, and any religious intrusion is by definition unconstitutional.
#2. Telling children they are going to hell because they don’t believe as you do is emotional abuse, you know. It’s not kindness, it’s disgusting. If you say you do this because it’s what Jesus commanded, then you are admitting you are doing it, which means you are the one who is the problem.
#3 In this country, we are free to worship as we see fit. We are free not to worship. Intruding on others because they don’t believe what you do or behave as you wish is against the very premise on which our nation was founded. THAT is the law of the land. Not some god.
#4. Please, by all means, worship as you please, but leave us out of it.
In classic Tee fashion, he replied:
#1. This is untrue. If you are limiting the actions of the atheists to a simple worship issue then you are being disingenuous and do not know what atheists do. Why should the unbeliever make all the laws? The Christian has the right to live in a society that is governed by an objective standard that protects everyone. The atheist does not have the right to dictate to everyone how a society should be run.
#2. That is untrue and none of your business. Telling them the truth is far better than lying to your children which ruins their trust in people and God. Telling the people the truth is not disgusting but lying to them like atheists do is very disgusting.
#3. The only people I see doing the intruding are the atheists. Look in the mirror before you accuse other people.
#4. You are left out of it but it is the atheist that does the interfering. Oh and you are always invited to attend a true Christian church and you have the freedom to turn down that invitation.
And Bruce says, “sigh.”
Tee makes the mistake of conflating a secular constitution, which is what the American constitution is, with the idea that those who operate it are necessarily secular in their views. This, indeed, is one of the problems that is dragging on American progress, hindering its cultural development. ‘Unbelievers’ don’t make the laws and therein is the pity. Those with religious belief are doing their level best to wreck America by their determination to bring religion into government, which has the effect of bringing irrationality in a much wider sense. Religion and irrational are very much bedfellows.
Incidentally, being religious does not mean following objective standards. Quite the reverse, as Tee consistently demonstrates.
Tee is beyond self-introspection. He thinks that he’s the Truest Christian ever, not realising that other zealous Christians may believe differently – and will have him burned at a stake when they gain power. I wonder what he’ll think if he ends up in a Catholic theocracy.
As one of my church acquaintances once said, ‘Calvin was not for religious freedom, he was for the freedom to practise TRUE religion’. His version of course.
yawn same old. He really needs some new material.
“Atheism has not stopped Mao and the subsequent rulers of China from killing and torturing untold millions of Chinese people. In fact, atheists should not point a finger at anyone because their sins are greater than those they accuse the Christian of committing.”
most importantly, poor dear T’s god hasn’t done this, despite the claims it will do so per the silly bible.
Mr T wants a government and society dominated by fundamentalist evangelical Christians and wants everyone who isn’t one to be silent and submissive.
I am sure that if pressed for an answer about the crusades and inquisition, Mr T would say that the Catholic Church at that time were not True Christians – though it’s possible that he could flip the narrative and justify those horrible actions with some handwaving about how God ordered those actions because of something something righteousness ….
Basically there would be some excuse…