Hey, Jesus,
You and your religion (Christianity) have a PR problem. Evangelicals claim that you wrote the Bible — remember, Jesus is God — so I conclude that you agree with and condone everything written in it. Your followers have cooked up all sorts of apologetical tricks to absolve you of culpability for the decidedly immoral behaviors attributed to you in the Bible. These fail, of course, because you are God, and as the sovereign God of the universe, you had and still have the power to change what happens on Earth and in the lives of its inhabitants. Again, apologists cook up all sorts of lame excuses for the violence and immorality attributed to you in the Bible, but the fact remains that you are God, and you have the power to change circumstances and outcomes. Your devoted followers claim humans have free will, making them culpable for what you commanded them to do. I have no doubt, Jesus, that if Abraham had murdered his son Isaac on your command, modern-day apologists would find ways to absolve you of all accountability. Awesome gig, Jesus. Much like the current American king, Donald Trump, you are free to issue executive orders without any concern for what might happen as a result of your orders.
Jesus, I heard countless stories in Sunday school about how much you love children. Countless American children have sung the song “Jesus Loves the Little Children”:
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
I gotta wonder, Jesus, do you really love all the little children in the world? I have my doubts.
The book of Exodus records the Ten Plagues that you plagued Pharaoh and the Egyptians with. In Exodus 11:1-6, we find your tenth plague, Jesus. Do you remember what you did? I do:
The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; afterward, he will let you go from here; indeed, when he lets you go, he will drive you away. Tell the people that every man is to ask his neighbor and every woman is to ask her neighbor for objects of silver and gold.” The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself was a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials and in the sight of the people. Moses said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill and all the firstborn of the livestock. Then there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again.
According to the book you wrote, Jesus, you killed the firstborn of every family except those who killed animals and put their blood over the doorposts of their homes. Uncounted Egyptian firstborn children were killed, along with the firstborn of every female slave and the firstborn of the livestock. Geez, Jesus, what did the animals ever do to you?
Throughout the Bible, Jesus, we find stories of God — that’s you, in case you need to be reminded — commanding the Israelites to murder the children, babies, and fetuses of their enemies. Your chosen ones sure were bloodthirsty killers. Imagine if they had followed your command to love your enemies, Jesus? Explain to me, Jesus, all the bloodshed recorded in the Bible with your command to slaughter their enemies, including children.
Even your birth was celebrated by Herod killing all the male children under the age of two. Couldn’t you do anything about this, Jesus? Evangelicals say you know everything and are everywhere. They say you know the end from the beginning. Nothing escapes you, yet it seems you were AWOL when Herod slaughtered the innocent ones.
Even in the New Testament, Jesus, you are portrayed in the book of Revelation as a blood-thirsty deity. More slaughter, more deaths of innocent children, babies, and fetuses. From cover to cover, Jesus, you are portrayed as a deity who uses the murder of children to punish and judge offending adults and nations. This confuses me, Jesus. I thought you didn’t punish people for bad behavior toward others; that each of us is accountable for our own sins.
So, I ask you, Jesus, is it ever okay to kill children?
I await your response, Jesus. And while I am waiting, you might want to consider what to say about the genocide your chosen people are perpetrating on the Palestinian people. The Israelis have murdered thousands of children in the name of protecting and controlling the land the Bible says you gave them centuries ago.
I ask you again, Jesus, why?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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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Oh, and BTW Jesus, also, since babies, toddlers and young children have the same sin nature inherited from Adam, is it OK for you to destine them to hell with all its eternal torment following their unfortunate premature demise, simply because they weren’t old enough to understand that repentance was a necessary requirement to cleanse and erase their sin nature?
In the UK, only the baptised could be buried in ‘consecrated ground’, parish churchyards. There was an area outside that for the dead who’d not been baptised into the CofE. Parish priests were on call 27/7 to rush to baptise a stillborn or dying newborn. I think that legacy continues occasionally. My curate daughter, just ten years ago got called to hospitals a few times in the night to go to perform the ceremony. (A terrible experience for parents in that situation, so I’m not criticising them if this gave them comfort in their unimagineable grief, but god, really? You’re supposed to be a loving father!)
Good point, Benny. Many Christians have understandably struggled with this over the years so they came up with the age of accountability which has no scriptural basis. For the sake of argument what’s the age at which this takes effect? Is it seven? Does that mean seven years and one day means it’s off to hell for this child? Or does it mean once the child reaches the “age of reason” she has no excuse. But what is the age of reason? Could it be when the frontal lobe is fully developed which is likely beyond the teenage years? If you’re truly using reason you see that religion is complete nonsense. So many questions, so few answers.
I get accused in online forums of celebrating baby killing because I support the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion. I should refer them to this article!
If the story really happened, the God who chose to direct his attack against the babies of Egypt, rather than the enemy military might, was in violation of the Geneva Convention.
…which goes to show how much more moral we are than the god who supposedly looks over us.
I’m recalling that for the last years of being deeply fundy, Secretly, I read the OT as little as possible, to keep from confronting the huge dissonance of all the brutality and genocide. I still managed to tell the nicer, cuter OT stories in Sunday School and to the local primary school assemblies – it was affiliated to my church and welcomed our religious input. (It gave them brownie points in regular government inspections, they were visibly ‘part of the community of faith’ as they should be.)
As my faith was draining away, I was still producing the annual nativity play, but began to feel I was lying to the audience about our wonderful saviour’s birth. The bible says Herod ordered the slaughter of all babies in Ramah. I wanted to add that to my production for heathen parents to see. As well as their nice little children acting as angels, shepherds and magi, maybe I could incorporate a group of them into the stable – as blood-stained, inconsolable mothers, coming to confront the happy couple about their own terrible losses – and they could describe graphically the horrendous way their 0-2yos were put to the sword and brutally murdered.
Well Jesus I hate the idea of killing babies. According to the scriptures, you may disagree. Abortion is revolting to me but those are my feelings and as such are not controlling of anyone’s rights. We have our Constitution declaring we in the United States are to be governed by law and not men and I defer to the law. That being so, my, or anyone else’s, feelings, beliefs, or ideologies, are not, and should not be, anyone’s laws. Our Constitution is the primary law of this country that grants and protects all our rights. Our rights are under perpetual attack by men who interpret contradictory scriptural writings (ascribed to you, Jesus) to direct them to invade and control the privacy and the very bodies of other persons. They have made inroads but thus far have failed and hopefully they will continue to fail because our Constitutional rights are the very essence of our freedom and our democracy. No hard feelings though, Jesus, OK?
Off topic: It’s obvious you hate Christianity. What about other religions? What about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists? What about other far eastern religions such as Taoism? Are you afraid to criticize other religions, because you think you will be seen as a bigot of sorts? I have zipped through many of your posts, I have never (correct me if I am wrong) seen you criticize any other religion but Christianity. I have never seen you criticize the Kohran, the Jewish texts, the philosophies of Buddha, and the Hindus with their array of gods, many which are human/animal hybrids. What do you think about reincarnation? If you are an atheist/humanist shouldn’t you hate all religions equally?
my response:
https://brucegerencser.net/2025/05/bruce-why-dont-you-criticize-other-hamburgers/
My siblings and I read the Bible aloud every morning, a couple chapters at a time, front to back, plus extra on our own. I’ve read it more times than any preacher I know. The stories of death and murder were incredibly traumatizing. I asked a couple times (even though questions weren’t exactly welcomed) how God could be OK with killing children. The only answer I got was God knew they would grow up to be evil, so it was basically a mercy killing.
To believe in that god, I had to suppress my empathy. I had to mentally divide the “good” from the “evil.” The evil were deserving of death. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, agnostics, atheist, Moabites, Hittites, the other ites, etc. were evil and deserving of hell. The good were Evangelicals, and only Evangelicals. The other major Christian religions might somehow get you into heaven, but they were still very messed up, didn’t adhere to the True Bible, and were deserving of our scorn.