Why Do Atheists Write About Jesus? An Evangelical Christian Asks

Several years ago, an Evangelical Christian sent me the following message via Facebook Messenger (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):

The things posted on this very sad antitheistic, misotheistic atheist page is spewing hatred for Jesus Christ whom you say you disbelieve in!

If so why not leave it alone?

Why does this page and other atheist pages exist??

We all know bugs bunny isn’t real.

We all know the tooth fairy isn’t real.

We all know Santa Claus isn’t real.

We all know there is no leprechauns or Easter bunny or Mickey Mouse!

But there is not one page running them down!

Not one group meets in a coffee shop or library or had a convention to run them down and take them out of schools or public venues!

Jesus Christ is God! He is real and this is misotheism not atheism!

He loves you and died and rose again to give you eternal life in heaven and forgiveness of sins.

I pray each person here will eventually allow the Holy Spirit to convict them and will accept his gift!

BEternity separated

Eternity separated from God will be horrendous!

Fire! Screaming and crying and torment! Forever ! No one will get out of hell and yes it is real!

You will curse the day you were born!

You will curse the second you were conceived!!!

You will wish you were murdered (aborted) an atrocity that many of you support!

You will wish your daddy would have pulled out of your momma!

That’s how unimaginably horrible hell will be!

You don’t want to go there and Jesus died for you so you would not have to go there!

God bless!

The sender of this message seems to think that I “hate” God, thus I am a misotheist, and not an atheist. What’s with Christians refusing to let me self-identify? I have never told a professing Christian that he or she is NOT a Christian. I accept at face value their claim of faith in Jesus. It’s not up to me to say, “Oh, you are not a True Christian®.” I leave it to Christians to fight among themselves about who is the real Christian and who is not. I just wish that Christians — Evangelicals, in particular — would respect me enough to accept at face value my story — that I am an atheist. How hard can this be, right?

I don’t hate the Christian God, nor do I hate Satan, Jesus, or countless other deities. Jesus died almost 2,000 years ago — end of discussion. Why would I waste my time hating a dead person? God and Satan, on the other hand, are myths. Again, why would I waste my time hating mythical beings? Such behavior is silly and absurd.

This commenter confuses the deity Christians worship with the beliefs and behaviors of said Christians. My objection is to what is done in the name of God/Jesus. My objection is to the theocratic tendencies of Evangelical churches, pastors, and parachurch organizations. A mythical deity can’t harm anyone. However, works done in his name can, and do, cause psychological and physical harm. (Please see Why I Hate Jesus.)

I will leave Christianity alone when Evangelicals, Mormons, and conservative Catholics retreat to their churches and stop trying to turn the United States into a “Christian” nation. As long as True Christians® attempt to force their theology and interpretation of the Bible on unbelievers, I am going to object. One need only watch former President Trump’s attempt to ingratiate himself to Evangelicals to see how dangerous Evangelical Christianity really is. Who is it that is trying to abolish abortion, LGBTQ rights, same-sex marriage, and is integral to the rise of white supremacy in the United States? Evangelicals. You see, their God is not the problem, they are.

The last part of this man’s message is one assertion after another. Blah, blah, blah … either accept what I am saying or you will forever burn in Hell. I love it when Evangelicals threaten me with God’s punishment and eternal torture. Refuse to repent? God is going to get you! In fact, you will wish you had never been born. Again, blah, blah, blah . . . I have heard such nonsense more times than I can count. God doesn’t exist and Jesus is dead. What do I have to worry about?

I don’t fear what God may do to me any more than I fear Santa Claus making a list and checking it twice, looking to see who has been naughty or nice. It is flesh-and-blood Evangelical zealots I fear, especially those who are gun-toting white supremacists. We need not fear God, but God’s people? Foolish is the person who doesn’t recognize that Evangelicals are an existential threat to our republic; that given enough power, they will either incarcerate or kill atheists, agnostics, pagans, and other unbelievers.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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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Comments

24 responses to “Why Do Atheists Write About Jesus? An Evangelical Christian Asks”

September 28, 2020

dale M

So. Why R pastors writing about atheists all the time? I thought they didn’t believe in it. Bruce is correct. “God” is not the problem … never has been. These Nazified Christians R never, ever going to give up until the final day when they invoke their “Trial by Fire”. On that day, one side is going to be burned to the ground in their own Hell Fire making.

September 28, 2020

Diane

I loved all the threats with a God bless at the end. What a drama queen.

September 28, 2020

darcyinsatx

Dale, good point… A non-existent god is not the problem. People trying to gain power over others is the problem.

1. September 29, 2020
  
  dale M
  
  A point here Darcyinsatx. Even if there is a God, that entity is still not the problem. There still could be a Q-Continuum out there. And they still wouldn’t be “directly” involved. It’s the “human” gods that have been created by humans to represent their twisted, non-rational concepts. These self created icons that these folk hide behind R the problem. These folk pander all responsibility off on these imaginary icons that they created. Again, if there is a Q out there, I’m glad they let Nature take care of us. It’s more interesting to a Q level organization …. don’t you think ?!?
  
September 28, 2020

BJW

I guess we’re going to get it, that person says we’re going to burn forever. Funny how this Christian person seems to be gleeful about it.

1. September 28, 2020
  
  Bruce Gerencser
  
  “God bless,” right? ?
  
September 29, 2020

… Zoe ~

Ah, the Good Grief Gospel.

September 29, 2020

ObstacleChick

“You’re going to hell! I wish unspeakably horrible things happen to you because you don’t believe in the magical deity I believe in! May my deity bless you after it forces you to give up your evil ways!”

What a great marketing message! Makes me want to switch to believing in their magical mythology! It sounds so wholesome! ((Sarcasm))

September 29, 2020

Steve Ruis

After stating that Bugs Bunny and Santa Claus aren’t real, so why write against his Jesus, he goes on to say … what was it … oh yeah:

Fire! Screaming and crying and torment! Forever ! No one will get out of hell and yes it is real!

You will curse the day you were born!

You will curse the second you were conceived!!!

You will wish you were murdered (aborted) an atrocity that many of you support!

You will wish your daddy would have pulled out of your momma!

That’s how unimaginably horrible hell will be!

Well, I never heard Bugs or Santa or the Tooth Fairy scream at me saying I will be punished, severely, forever and ever, amen, either. If these people were a little less accusatory, I would find many fewer reasons to rail against the perfidy.

September 29, 2020

Steve Ruis

On a more serious tone, I often wondered why these good folks couldn’t just just let their god do all of the punishing in the afterlife. Then some consideration of the existence of Trump-supporting Evangelicals explained it all for me. These people belong to churches that preach that terrible things will happen to them if they defect. But here we are flaunting our atheism and nothing bad happens to us. There are no consequences in the modern world to defectors from their particular brand of religion.

The reason these Evangelicals support Trump, who is as far from being a Christian as an atheist can get, is that he is punishing the transgressors: the gays, the illegals, the queers, the lazy, the shiftless (wink, wink), the liberals, etc. Trump is making it easier for Evangelicals to support their church’s cost-benefit argument. (The Heaven and Hell argument backfired on them because no one can see whether that “carrot and stick” system actually works. In other words, what was a feature of their system has become a bug.) Stay in the Church and you won’t be ostracized or punished like all those other transgressors of their god’s laws.

Bruce, this is why they ever so much want to see you punished for all of your poor decisions. This is why people were burned at the stake, crucified, etc. The remains were left up for a good long time for the message they delivered to others. The elites went so far as to construct metal cages and hung the remains of the egregious over the ramparts in site of the surrounds for months, even years. This is the same message ranchers send coyotes by draping coyote pelts over their barbed wire fences. (See what you get if you mess with us!)

If they could, they would hang your body from a tree outside one of their churches. The sign would be “Let this be a lesson to all non-believers.” This was the same message that Black lynchings gave in the South (their group was white supremacists and not a church, but there was little to separate those at the time).

1. September 29, 2020
  
  clubschadenfreude
  
  “their group was white supremacists and not a church, but there was little to separate those at the time)”
  
  there still isn’t.
  
2. September 29, 2020
  
  dale M
  
  Whooooaa ! Steve Ruis ! Re-think that comment U made “….. Trump, who is as far from being a Christian as an atheist can get …” is dead wrong ! When I hear atheists say this, it strikes me that it is some sort of inborn reflex to avoid criticizing the Evangelical Icon. Trump is NOT a baby Christian. He is cognizant of what he is doing and Evangelicals know this. In the NT, Jesus explained that His arrival and purpose was to set father against son, mother against daughter, families against families. This is politics ! This is Jesus ! Trump is following Jesus to the letter !
  
September 29, 2020

clubschadenfreude

“I pray each person here will eventually allow the Holy Spirit to convict them and will accept his gift!”

aw, poor Christian, and now finding out that his prayers fail, exactly the opposite of what JC promised.

and then the threats. I do laugh every time some idiot theist thinks I’ll be impressed.

September 29, 2020

Yulya Sevelova

The only way what the un- named seemingly Southern weirdo suggests could work, is if you avoid the churches afterward, like the plague. Yes, there’s always that spiteful qualifier. Why does this site exist, he rails // Because all the B.S. churches and preachers, and the traumas they launch, have driven so many away !! And people need to talk about what happened, what was done to them. How can this guy not get that fact ? Again, and again, you can’t hammer people with proclamations like his, and expect a favorable response. I wonder how many times someone may have said this to him, anyway ? Ah, by the way, I don’t go for Disney, and ,if he is truly fearful of people going to hell…..it should inspire him/ them to really emphasize contraception !

September 30, 2020

John Arthur

Hi Bruce,

This person is completely lacking in compassion and kindness in his attitudes towards atheists. He holds to a god who is so angry with those who don’t believe, like he says he believes, that he promotes a god who tortures atheists forever without even recognising that many atheists are compassionate and kind.

If people like this ever held political power, many of hem would use that power to vent their anger on non-Theists with all the cruelty that they could muster. When the (Roman) Catholic church had considerable power in the Middle Ages, they sometimes used that power to burn heretics at the stake, with cheering crowds looking on.

People need to be vigilant that that ultra right wing Evangelicals, like Christian Theocrats, don’t obtain political power in your country. Such forms of Evangelicalism lack compassion, kindness and humaneness. People need to flee these.

If people insist on believing in religion, why can’t many of them practice loving kindness and seek to uplift, inspire and encourage all they meet of like’s journey, no matter what those they meet believe? Why can’t many of these religionists show generosity towards others in their interaction with them? If love was their guide, these people would accept your story as you tell it, instead of trying to impose their own ignorant views of what your story is. Bruce, your story is yours, and yours alone to tell. These folk that write their nasty comments to you lack the grace (graciousness) to let you tell it on your own terms.

October 5, 2020

Yulya Sevelova

I’d really love to find out who this very strange person is, and what part of the country he is from. I was reading about Doug and Beal Philips, and his organization, Vision Forum. It was through a non- fiction book, “Quiverfull” that I learned who they were. Oh, talk about crazy !! They most definitely are these aggressive theocrat types(Dominionists) who plan to force this country into a ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ style political system. No doubt this is why the opposition to the separation of church and state. Separation of powers protects us from Sharia Law, for one. I ask the Fundies, are you willing to risk going under Sharia,if you think it would end this legal statute ?? Because that risk would become very real indeed ! There are people living on the States who believe that it would be the best thing for the country. Talk about coming under persecution ! That, and worse would happen– so butt out and leave this separation intact.

October 18, 2020

jabrown1216J. Alan

Growing up in the IFB, us sheeple were constantly bombarded from the pulpit with the ‘Communist Threat’. “If they take over the USA and come to your door…demanding you renounce God or face execution…what will you do as a believer?”

In reality here in 2020 we may be facing just the opposite situation if the evangelical right retains or wins additional power in 17 days.” Profess our God as savior of your life or face execution!”

I didn’t know what I would do as a Christian with the ‘Communist threat’ but as an atheist I’m perfectly capable to ‘fake’ Christianity’s absurd beliefs about their non-existent god to keep fighting underground against these insane zealots.

1. October 19, 2020
  
  Brian Vanderlip
  
  JABROWN1216J. ALAN, yeah, me too and like you, it would be done fully consciously, knowing what’s what, so unlike the lies one is forced to tell as a youngster being raised up in the way he should go, so to speak. Children are not just bombarded but immersed, full immersion without choice. Makes a human coo-coo for half his life. I will always be in recovery in some fashion or other and that really ain’t okay. Zealots are damaged bullies who will stop at nothing to ‘save’.
  
October 19, 2020

dale M

Short answer John Arthur is FEAR. Not of us but of what we R representing. We R seen as taking away hope, justice and altruism. If there is no afterlife, then it goes against the ‘struggle for survival”. They would have to stand up all by themselves against the absolute terrors of the cosmos. It’s a backlash. The problem here, as I see it, is that we still have nothing to offer non-humanists. We just R not that advanced yet. This is something we too must endure. The Middle Era of all this may last 1-3 centuries before the monster is finally slain.

July 30, 2024

ObstacleChick

I’m here to say that I rail against fundamentalist Christians and trad Catholics and their allies who are trying to make USA into a real-life Handmaid’s Tale through Project 2025 and Agenda 47. Most US citizens don’t want to become the Western Christian Iran.

July 31, 2024

Yulya Sevelova

Speaking of Iran, after hearing about Iran’s man on the ground,being killed while attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president there- a drone was used(?)I fear that Netanyahu has once again upped the ante to avoid a corruption trial and prison, by pushing us and the Axis powers in that region into a major war. The theocrats lead by Mike Johnson, actually have a lot in common with Hamas and Iran, mentally.

July 31, 2024

Yulya Sevelova

Oops ! Typo, I mean led by Mike Johnson.

August 4, 2024

Barbara L. Jackson

I fear these absolutist Christian Fascists. One only needs to read history to see when religious groups have killed each other. For a long time in Europe Catholics had rule and killed Protestants. Then Protestants ruled and killed Catholics. Either group will kill me for being different.

October 18, 2025

Asphalt-Type Person

“Tell me you love me or I’ll kill you!!!
Why don’t you love me anymore?
Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going?”