I started blogging in 2007, a year or so before I deconverted. From 2007 to today, I have received thousands of emails, comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians. Many of these believers think that God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lives inside of them as their teacher and guide; that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God; that every word in the Bible is true, straight from the mouth of God; and that God either gives them messages to send me by whispering to them in a still, small voice only they can hear and having them put those messages in an email, or by directing them to certain Bible verses to send me that will bring conviction and repentance in my life if I dare but read and accept them.
As of 9:29 pm, on January 8, 2025, every Evangelical Christian who has deigned to send me a message straight from the triune God of the Bible has miserably failed. Every last one of them. Is it that I am so hardened to sin and the gospel that I am unreachable? Or is the real issue I know the Bible better than most of the Evangelicals who contact me; that their messages from God or quotes from the Bible are unpersuasive when measured by skeptical, rational, evidentiary standards?
Most Evangelicals are presuppositionalists (and all of us are to some degree or the other), presupposing without evidence that the Christian God is the one and only true God; that the Bible is the very Words of God. Evangelicals expect atheists and other unbelievers to accept these claims as true without evidence, and if we don’t, we are deliberately suppressing what we know to be true. If you have ever engaged an Evangelical presuppositionalist in a debate, you know it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion with him as long as he holds on to these unsupported beliefs. These are faith claims, and as such beyond rational debate.
You cannot prove the Bible by the Bible. That’s called circular reasoning. The Bible is a book of claims, not a compendium of evidence. When Evangelicals make claims from the Bible, I ask them for non-Biblical evidence for their claims. Just because the Bible says __________________ doesn’t mean it is true. To an atheist, the Bible is just printed words on pages. When the Bible makes a claim, the atheist is justified in asking for evidence to prove the claim. Ken Ham can say the Bible says the universe was created in six literal twenty-four-hour days, 6,027 years ago; that Adam and Eve were the first humans; that God destroyed almost every living thing on the earth with a flood a few thousand years ago; that human language variation began at the Tower of Babel, but these claims are meaningless to me apart from evidence outside of the Bible. Simply put, the Bible is a book of words, no different from countless other books I can buy from Amazon or other booksellers. When you say to me, Bruce, the BIBLE says ____________, my first response is this: “And I should care, why? “
To those God has given a message via Holy Spook ESP®, I ask you: How do you know the voice in your head is God’s? How do you know the message is from God and not the personal thoughts you want to share with me? How do you distinguish between God’s voice and yours? What empirical evidence can you provide for your claim that your message for me is a supernatural communiqué from the God of the Bible? Do you really expect me to believe you just because you SAY your message is from your peculiar deity?
I am an agnostic atheist. I am not an anti-theist. I can be convinced of a God’s existence if sufficient evidence is provided. My “heart” is open to truth, and since God knows where I live, he can cut out the middlemen and talk to me directly. Is this too much to ask for?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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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But, but, but, MY EXPERIENCE is DIFFERENT! I KNOW the Bible is true in every detail/the Holy Spirit lives within me/if you don’t believe the way I do, you will SUFFER for ALL ETERNITY! GOD has sent me to bring you back onto the Lord’s Path!
/snark
If they even get that far with me now, I just cut ’em off with, “Until I see some evidence for your deity or anyone else’s deity published in a top-tier scientific journal (like Nature), I’m simply not going to believe faith claims. I’m not saying that your faith is misplaced, but it is pure faith, and I’m not buying without evidence.” If they push me, I simply repeat “top-tier journal” and walk away. I’m 65 years old. I want to spend the rest of my life on more important things than someone else’s faith claims.
Faith – pretending to know something you don’t really know.
I told my brother that I’d believe his god is real if he knocks on my door and brings me a plate of cookies.
That was 15 years ago. Still waiting for cookies.