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Category: Atheism

Songs of Sacrilege: Saved by Shelley Segal

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

This is the twenty-ninth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Saved by Shelley Segal, an Australian musician.

Video Link

Lyrics

Say that i need to be saved
Say with me the devils got his way
I want to know how when you are praying
And when you are dooms-daying
How you think you know that someone is listening to what you are saying

So you think that you
Can tell us how to live our lives
Never questioning the source from which your moral code derives
You think that suffering is part of some great plan that’s been devised
I wonder, I wonder
When we’ll be rid of your lies

Say I need to hear the truth
A sales-pitch of eternal life and eternal youth
All these blessings you are bestowing
Upon the one you say is all-knowing
Are they really deserved if ‘He’ is sending me where you say I am going?

So you think that you
Can tell us how to live our lives
Never questioning the source from which your moral code derives
You think that suffering is part of some great plan that’s been devised
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder

What will it take for you
To start opening your eyes
To start questioning the bullshit everyone around you buys
You think it’s any of your business what goes on between my thighs?
I wonder, I wonder,
When we’ll be rid of your lies

 

Atheists Talk: Radio Interview on Sunday June 28, 2015

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments

am950

This Sunday, I am scheduled to be interviewed on Atheists Talk, a program broadcast on AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. The program, a production of Minnesota Atheists, is one hour-long and will be broadcast live from 9AM to 10AM Central time. Scott Lohman will be conducting the interview. Scott is a friend of mine. He regularly comments on this blog.

You can listen to the program here.  After the broadcast, a podcast will be available. I am not sure how long it takes for them to make the podcast available. You can access it here.

If asked for a zip code, please use 55412

Local Christian Takes Courageous Stand for Jesus 

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

Snark ahead!

As you know, here in rural NW Ohio, religious persecution is quite severe.  Never mind that there is a Christian church on every street corner and the overwhelmingly majority of local residents profess faith in Jesus Christ. In the mind of God’s chosen ones, being forced to even think about two people of the same-sex being married in a ceremony performed by the notorious atheist Bruce Gerencser is enough for them to think they are being persecuted nigh unto death.

While their paranoid delusions have no basis in fact, I do think many Christian zealots have a persecution complex. Why, just the other day I drove though Pulaski, a spot along US HWY 127 noted for Bruce Gerencser having attended third grade there, and noticed the following:

believer lives here

This sign is akin to having a sign that says White Person Lives Here or Republican Lives Here.

Everyone in rural NW Ohio is a Christian. Yet, I am sure this bold as Daniel in the lion’s den Christian thinks that they are making a courageous statement of faith. They should expect persecution to befall them. In fact it already has. An atheist and his agnostic wife drove by this believer’s house and snickered. Such persecution has not been seen since the days the Romans slaughtered Christians in the Coliseum. How will this believer survive the withering persecution of a snickering atheist and his wife?

Stay tuned for updated reports.

Note:

Now, if I put a sign up in my yard that says, God is a Fiction, an Atheist Lives Here, I doubt the sign would survive the night. I know of only three or four out of the closet atheists in this area. I am sure there are more, but most local atheists stay in the closet lest they face social condemnation and economic harm.

 

Songs of Sacrilege: The Easy Confidence (What I Would Say to You Now) by Quiet Company

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

This is the twenty-eighth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is The Easy Confidence (What I Would Say to You Now) by Quiet Company, an American rock band from Austin, Texas.

Video Link

Lyrics

I was screaming out your name. I guess you never heard me, but I was screaming it for years, and I think I deserve a reason for why you’ve been so elusive. Now I’ve been thinking about my life and I can’t believe that I have wasted so much time trying to be what everyone loves, the prodigal son returning. Oh, what a sight, the prodigal son returning.

If Jesus Christ ever reached down and touched my life, he certainly left no sign to let me know he had. And I wouldn’t mind that he couldn’t find the time, it’s just that now my heart longs for things that probably don’t exist. But now I think I see this for what it is.

Oh my soul! Oh, my soul is tired, but I’ve got an itch to scratch, I’ve got a stone to throw, and I want to sink my teeth into your hollow bones. I’ve got a bone to pick, and I want to pick it clean! Oh, the prodigal son and his shameful disbelief.

I want something better. I want something real. And this is the part where my exit starts, because I caught a glimpse of the father’s heart. Do we want something we can’t have? So come on, friends, count up your sins: one for being human, two for being born like this. This isn’t love. We’re not in love. If you wanted love, you just should’ve spoken up.

Sacrilegious Humor: Jibbers Crabst by Matt Inman

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments

This is the second installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s bit is Jibbers Crabst by Matt Inman, a cartoonist and creator of The Oatmeal.

Warning! Many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity and/or adult humor. You have been warned.

Video Link

Songs of Sacrilege: Hard to Be by David Bazan

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

This is the twenty-seventh installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Hard to Be by David Bazan, an indie rock singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington.

Video Link

Lyrics

You’ve heard the story
You know how it goes
Once upon a garden
We were lovers with no clothes

Fresh from the soil
We were beautiful and true
In control of our emotions
‘Til we ate the poison fruit

And now it’s hard to be
Hard to be
Hard to be a decent human being

Wait just a minute
You expect me to believe
That all this misbehaving
Grew from one enchanted tree?

And helpless to fight it
We should all be satisfied
With this magical explanation
For why the living die

And why it’s hard to be
Hard to be
Hard to be a decent human being

Childbirth is painful
We toil to grow our food
Ignorance made us hungry
Information made us no good
Every burden misunderstood

So I swung my tassel
To the left side of my cap
Knowing after graduation
There would be no going back

Because it’s…

 

 

 

I’ve Always Wondered What Bruce Gerencser Looked Like

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments

Yes, this is what it has come to in rural Ohio. *sigh*

Recently, I attended a grandchild’s sporting event and someone asked my son how our last name was pronounced and if he was related to the Gerencser who wrote in the newspaper.

Yes, he’s my Dad.

He sure is opinionated…

All of my children know that they are free to disown me. So far, when put in situations that requires establishing paternity, they have been willing to say the DNA is a match.

The inquisitor in question proceeded to ask if I was at the ballgame and my son said, Yes, he’s over there with the red hat on.

I always wondered what he looked like…

I think local Christians are shocked when they see or meet me. They expect to see

satan
What many local Christians think Bruce Gerencser looks like
Imagine their surprise when they see

bruce gerencser 2015
What Bruce Gerencser really looks likes
Shocking, I know. A political liberal and an atheist that looks like Santa Claus and roots for the Cincinnati Bengals. Little do locals know that under my hat are small, growing horn buds. Just biding my time until Team Satan takes on Team Jesus at the Battle of Armageddon. Until then, what time is the baseball game on?

There Are No Flowers in Hell, a Local Man Tells Me

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
tulips 2015
Tulips, yard of Bruce and Polly Gerencser, 2015

In response to a letter I wrote to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News, an elderly local Christian sent me the following letter:

Bruce,

Please reconsider. Even if we choose to believe there is no hell, doesn’t make it so. I saw the pictures of flowers you posted and it showed how you enjoyed them. In Hell, you will never be able to enjoy anything. There will only be torment forever and ever. I don’t want anyone to go to that place and certainly God does not want that for you either. When you truly come to know Jesus, you will gladly and willingly surrender your all to Him and following His commands will not be burdensome to you. It will just flow out of your heart of love for Him.

Perhaps you were a religious person who never truly had a relationship with Him. I beg you – please reconsider before it is too late for you. He loves you so much. The precious blood of Jesus was shed for you, don’t let it be in vain. What about your wife, children, and grandchildren? If you die and go to hell, you will regret that you had a part in taking them there with you, and you will want someone to go and tell them the truth.

Please reconsider. Count the cost. This life is so short, but eternity is forever. Wouldn’t it be better to endure this life and all it’s problems with Jesus, than to be in hell for eternity and have to bow down to the authority of God anyway? I pray God give revelation to you and your family regarding heaven and hell. I say all this in the love of Jesus. I know this will be considered as evangelism, but please read it. I pray you make the right decision.

Let me summarize. Why should I become a Christian?

  • I love flowers and there are no flowers in hell.
  • Because I was a religious person who never really knew Jesus.
  • So I don’t have to be accountable for my wife, children, and grandchildren going to hell.

Is this the best that Christianity offers theses days? As the writer said:

Wouldn’t it be better to endure this life and all it’s problems with Jesus, than to be in hell for eternity and have to bow down to the authority of God anyway?

My answer is no. I would rather endure this life and all its problems without a deity, knowing that when I draw my last breath I have lived my life well and that I can, with peaceful assurance say, this is enough.

I have no doubt that the person who sent me this is sincerely concerned for my spiritual welfare. Been there, done that. Christians need to understand that I am an intractable atheist. Arguments like those found in this letter are shallow, contradictory, and easily refuted.  Better for this man to seek after those who have some interest in the Christian message . There is nothing a Christian can say to me that is going to make me suddenly see the error of my way and cause me to repent. Experts have tried, but here I am, wallowing in my depravity, enjoying my last few moments on earth before I step out into eternity and join Hitch in hell.

As Seen on Social Media: Why Atheists Are Praying for the Rapture

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments

Graphics, Memes, Quotes, and Comments I’ve spotted on Facebook or Twitter.  Today’s graphic comes from Facebook. I think it accurately describes how many atheists feel about the rapture. That great day, sometime in the near future, when every Evangelical will be raptured from the earth and taken to their reserved seat in Heaven where they will gleefully watch God savagely maim and kill the majority of the human race.

rapture

Bruce Gerencser