Here’s an email I received several years from a Michigan man by the name of Dave Victor:
When I look at your face, I see hurt. I see a person who has had a lot of disappointments. A lot of rejection. And this all created a lot of bitterness, rage, hatred, anger.
Don’t take this life so personally and seriously. This life is short…eternity is forever. How one handles disappointment, rejection, hurt, health problems, whatever, is the test of who we are.
You have a choice of becoming a bitter atheist, or saying, ok Lord, I don’t understand it, but I will trust You to help turn this trash around, from lemons into lemonade…even if it takes years and years. Patience, crying to Him, watching not the circumstances, but how He can help change our hearts and attitude by His grace.
Yes, I could be you. But it’s not worth throwing Jesus out when horrors even hit. Not worth getting all bent out of shape and hateful. Keep your eyes on Him…He’s worth it all. Too heavenly minded? You bet…it’s for eternity, forever and ever. It will be so worth it, so glorious!
There is a hell. Why have you chosen to go there? Not worth it…all that bitterness and desire for revenge. Let it go! Who cares? A right relationship with Jesus is ….EVERYTHING.
Victor, using some sort of remote viewing technique, purportedly looked into my eyes and discerned that I am “hurt.” Damn right, Davey boy. I AM hurt. I have fibromyalgia (widespread fatigue, pain), osteoarthritis (pain in spine, feet, neck, shoulders, hands, knees), gastroparesis (nausea, vomiting), peripheral neuropathy (nerve pain in feet/legs), and four herniated discs in my upper back that have left me in excruciating pain. Persistent, constant pain is part of my everyday life, I haven’t had a pain-free day in over a decade. So yes, I am “hurting.”
Victor isn’t interested in my physical suffering. He’s far more concerned about the “hurt” that only diviners such as he can see. When Victor looks into the eyes of the “real” Bruce Gerencser, he sees bitterness, rage, hatred, and anger. Never mind the fact that my wife, family, and counselor — people who actually have intimate personal contact with me — don’t see what Victor sees. Never mind the fact that I am someone who is quite honest about his emotions, and I am emotionally nothing like Victor describes in his email. Victor sees what others cannot see: that Bruce Gerencser is a psychologically damaged man who desperately needs J-e-s-u-s.
Surely Victor spent some time reading my story, right? Nope. Here’s what he read:
- He read the post Holy Spirit Tells Jeremiah Johnson That Donald Trump is the Trumpet of God
- He read the page Why I Hate Jesus
- He accessed the contact page and sent me an email
That’s it.
Is there anything in Victor’s email that would cause me to reconsider my decision to walk away from God/Jesus/ Christianity? Of course not. His email is yet another reminder of the fact that most Christian zealots who contact me aren’t the least bit interested in my story. This is why I don’t waste my time on them. I periodically post these emails because they provide reminders of what many of us have left behind. Thank Loki we are free!
Victor asks why I have chosen to go to Hell. I haven’t. Hell is what I left behind.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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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if you got paid a dollar for every crappy email you got…
These are entertaining. Unfortunately a relationship with jesus is really like a relationship with that one friend who is always all about themselves and all that you do is give give give… The main difference being that jesus is dead(some theorize he never existed but that is a different debate) and the friend is actually there in front of you. Its a waste of time either way
“Don’t take this life so personally and seriously. This life is short…eternity is forever.”
This sentence really bugged me. Knowing how fervently you fought for Jesus, which requires seriousness, how does he have the guts to even say such a thing?
Honestly, these people… Seriousness is what they ff-ing preach all the time. Eternity = forever is precisely why they preach seriousness. It means everyone who’s not saved will go to hell! How is that not serious?! And now you are accused of being too serious? They can’t have it both.
Being serious is good. Perhaps being too serious isn’t, however, it was being serious that made me a serious Christian. It was being serious that got me out of it as well. I generally think that seriousness may be underrated in our infotainment kind of world. Even the news isn’t all that informative anymore.
Perhaps that’s just me with my far too serious rant…
I think that as long as you can laugh and have a sense of humor, you won’t be too serious anyway. And, to preach for the last time, seriousness is good 😉
Yeah, that sentence popped out at me too. It’s the Christians that take life too seriously. All that hell and eternal punishment crap. “Better be good or else.” And as far as taking life too personally goes, how else are you supposed to take life that god himself has supposedly set you up with? And how many pastor’s have told us that the Bible is gods PERSONAL “love letter” to us? Ridiculous.
What baffles me about these sorts of emails is the weird insistence that atheists have chosen to “oppose” God (in this case, out of a “desire for revenge”). Isn’t God supposed to be all-powerful? Aren’t we supposed to secretly know that, in our heart of hearts? So how is this supposed to work, exactly? How does one “oppose” an all-powerful, all-knowing and possibly omnipresent entity? How does one “take revenge” on the Almighty? What would that even look like?
Unfortunately, it would look like you’re just living a ‘normal’ life, and enjoying it, to boot. There’s nothing more threatening to a fundie than someone living their life as they please.
I found the comment to not take life so seriously kind of confusing. It seems this Christian warns that hell, eternity are serious things, and he’s telling Bruce to not let hurt, etc. sidetrack him from these serious concerns.
But, he also seems to suggest that atheists take it all too seriously and become angry and bitter, therefore implying that one should instead remain a Christian but be happy and maybe take Christianity stuff with a grain of salt. iow, don’t worry too much about it all, don’t take it all so seriously, just be happy and trust God.
I can attest that I did take Christianity very seriously, and that’s what messed me up. I also know that I tend to be a serious person (personality test showed this also,) but, thankfully, also enjoy a good sense of humor. We naturally serious people tend to take our religion seriously and start analyzing and observing others, and it all starts to fall apart.
I’m vaguely considering returning to religion, MAYBE, but I’d be a very different person than when I was in it before. Would I want to analyze it and need it to make sense totally? Hell, no! That’s what got me out of it. Maybe the writer is unknowingly saying this same thing. Anybody else at this point in their life?
This e-mail reminds me so much of my fundie relatives; I live with some chronic health problems myself, and if I had a dollar for every time one of my relatives insisted that “Jesus can heal your pain,” or “Turn to god and he will help you deal with your illness”…well, let’s just day I’d have a tidy sum of money.
Prayer and religion did (and does) exactly NOTHING to help me cope with my illness, much less cure it. There are not enough “fuck yous” in the world for these people. Sometimes, I just can’t help but wish that they would develop some painful, debilitating health conditions of their own, just so they can find out for themselves how puny and useless their made-up god truly is.
Of course, the sad and truly pathetic thing is that some them actually do have debilitating problems, but continue to cling to their god belief…like my aunt who is in diabetes-induced kidney failure, but is just totally convinced that Jesus is gonna heal her and therefore she doesn’t need to listen to those mean ol’ doctors…*sigh* I just can’t cope with these people anymore….
What a very strange statement, “don’t take life so personally and seriously”. I take this to mean “quit being so serious about trying to get others to believe in reality! “. Because, obviously, what you do is a direct threat to the mindless, cultish belief in the myth that Jesus is gonna come back after 2000+ years, and right every wrong, and that praying to an imaginary friend is going to do one damned thing! He wants you to back off, of course. You threaten the Christian’s Pied Piper like hold on the desperate, the seeking, the lonely, the searching. They find no real answers and no real truth, but they haven’t enough strength to find Reality. So why not give them false hope? And pocket a little cash for the offering plate while doing so? So, back off, Bruce! You’re a direct threat to the mindless foolishness of simple Christians!
Ooooooh. I get to be the first in the 2022 update to say it!
Dear Dave Victor: “Sigh.”
😉 and xox
DAAAAAVE. STOP DAVE. STOP. YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY UPSET DAAAAVE. STOP.
“Don’t take this life so personally and seriously”. Yah. Right Dave. Fuck the homeless. Who cares ? Fuck the medical world trying to save you every time you have a hurt. Fuck people who risk their lives to save others. Typical evangelical. A real deadweight in this cosmos.
“There is a hell. Why have you chosen to go there? Not worth it…all that bitterness and desire for revenge. Let it go! Who cares? A right relationship with Jesus is ….EVERYTHING”. DAVE !!! Don’t take the “after nothing” so personally and seriously. Let your fears, rage and hatred for atheism go. Bruce did ! Look at him now ! He has learned to deal with it. All that bitterness that he enveloped as an evangelical has been lifted from him. He simply quit. He went back to liking people again.
Dave Victor ! Look at your bitter life ! You can do the same as Bruce did ! Let all that bitter evangelical shit that is making you such a hate-filled, rage inspired, miserable, angry and tormented young man go !!! You’ll burn up if you don’t !
ATHEISM SAVES ! ATHEISM IS FREEDOM ! WHO DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE ?!?
Does each Christian that comes to your blog read off a template…”How to talk to an evil, Hell-bound atheist?” Because not one of them has a particle of empathy. Not a fucking one.
BJW—You’re so right. And because they never seem to read anything but the title of Bruce’s “Why I Hate Jesus” post, they don’t understand that one of the reasons why he is in so much physical pain is that he devoted more of his life to their God, their Jesus, than they ever did. As for anger…If Bruce is angry, he’s earned it. But in his personal communication with me, he has always been loving.
Christianity is designed to harm humans and it is quite successful. You should not agree with this statement unless you have read just how many utterly convinced believers come by this place and rotate the same words like angry parrots! When you discover the completely homogenized state of belief that exists, then, only then admit that my statement might approach reality: Christianity is DESIGNED TO HARM in the good ol’ USA.
There’s always a hell threat, isn’t there? That’s really all they’ve got.
It is interesting that so many evangelicals come to Bruce’s site already KNOWING Bruce’s story, so why should they bother to read it? ((Sarcasm))
Yep,😂😂
This Dave Victor claims to be a Christian. His Jesus is full of venom and hatred towards atheists, and Bruce in particular. His Jesus isn’t a Jesus of compassion, mercy and kindness.
His God is a moral monster who burns people in hell. His God is an intolerant bigot, created Dave Victor’s image, even if it is supported by some of the repugnant passages of the bible. Why doesn’t Dave Victor quote from the more compassionate parts of the bible? He simply does not want to.