This is the one hundred and seventieth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of an unnamed Evangelical youth evangelist “explaining” evolution to a group of teenagers. The video also shows the evangelist inappropriately touching a teen girl on the front row of the meeting place.
Why would somebody think they saw the risen Christ. I do not understand the phenomena going on there. Do you have any insight from your readings? Granted, Islam claims Mohammad flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse and on the way back, saw a caravan – which he then told people the next day and the caravan arrived when he said it would. I am not sure if you know the story, but in general, it is a claim that cannot be easily explained away other than it is just bogus in general.
Why would people say they saw a resurrected Jesus if, in fact, they hadn’t seen him? What possible reason could they have had for lying, right? For some people, this one issue keeps them awake at night and keeps them from walking away from Christianity. Worried that they might have wrong beliefs or might end up in hell for not believing in the risen Christ, people hang on to ancient myths, thinking that it is better to be safe than eternally sorry.
I could write thousands of words on this subject, but with this post, all I want to do is give a few of the reasons why I think Jesus still lies buried somewhere in Palestine.
First, human history and personal experience tell me that when people die they stay dead. Cemeteries are reminders of the fact that once people die, they ain’t coming back. It’s all about probabilities. If I died today and were buried in a ground, what are the odds that I would miraculously reappear alive three days later? Zero. Nada. Zip. None. Not going to happen. So it is for Jesus.
Second, the only places we find reports about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead are the Bible or from later Christian sources. There are no purely secular reports attesting to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. All we have is the Bible. Christians, out of hand, reject the notion that Muhammad flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse because it appears in the Quran, a religious text they deem to be mythical and false. Yet, when it comes to the Bible, its stories are viewed as historical facts, narratives of what really happened. Why the duplicity in belief? The simple answer, of course, it that all of us tend to believe as true the stories of our tribes. Christians believe that Jesus resurrected from the dead because they have been told from their youth onward that God’s son, Jesus, died on the cross for their sins, and three days later resurrected from the dead, thereby vanquishing sin and death, and granting to all those who believe eternal life. When this story is drilled into Christians’ head over and over and over again, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, it should come no as surprise, then, that Christians believe Jesus is still alive, biding his time until he returns to earth to make all things new.
Take, for example, Mormonism. Talk about a crackpot, bat-shit crazy, religion, yet millions of Americans believe that Joseph Smith found golden plates translated them. Wikipedia describes the “historical” narrative of Mormonism this way:
Joseph Smith claimed The Book of Mormon was translated from writing on golden plates in a reformed Egyptian language, translated with the assistance of the Urim and Thummim and seer stones. Both the special spectacles and the seer stone were at times referred to as the “Urim and Thummim”. He said an angel first showed him the location of the plates in 1823, buried in a nearby hill, but he was not allowed to take the plates until 1827. Smith began dictating the text of The Book of Mormon around the fall of 1827 until the summer of 1828 when 116 pages were lost. Translation began again in April 1829 and finished in June 1829, saying that he translated it “by the gift and power of God”. After the translation was completed, Smith said the plates were returned to the angel. During Smith’s supposed possession, very few people were allowed to “witness” the plates.
The book described itself as a chronicle of an early Israelite diaspora, integrating with the pre-existing indigenous peoples of the Americas, written by a people called the Nephites. According to The Book of Mormon, Lehi’s family left Jerusalem at the urging of God c. 600 BC, and later sailed to the Americas c. 589 BC. The Nephites are described as descendants of Nephi, the fourth son of the prophet Lehi. The Nephites are portrayed as having a belief in Christ hundreds of years before his birth. Historical accuracy and veracity of the Book of Mormon was and continues to be hotly contested. No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of the use of Egyptian writing in ancient America has been discovered.
How is Mormonism any different from Christianity? Shouldn’t we accept their stories as true? After all, they are found in a divine religious text. So it is with the Bible and the resurrection of Jesus. Just because something is found in the Bible doesn’t make it true. There’s no historical reason for anyone to believe that Jesus not only resurrected from the dead two thousand years ago, but is still alive today. I am not saying that Jesus, as a man, is a work of fiction, but the supernatural events attributed to him have no historical foundation. As such, I am free to reject them out of hand. This is why believing in the resurrection of Jesus requires faith, a faith I do not have.
Third, the gospels are not eyewitness accounts, nor were they likely written by the likes of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Whatever the original authors of the gospels might have written, we will never know. Those original documents no longer exist. All we have are copies of copies of copies of copies, with thousands of variants among them. This is why I snort and laugh when Evangelical pastors, thinking they are taking some sort of intellectually superior high road, say that they believe the original documents were inerrant. How can they know this, not having seen the original manuscripts? Again, belief in inerrancy requires faith, a faith I do not have.
While it is possible that extant gospel manuscripts accurately reflect what actually happened, it is far more likely that the stories about the resurrected Jesus were added after the fact. This includes stories about Jesus walking through walls, appearing to his disciples/public without Roman/Jewish authorities finding out, and countless graves being opened, people arising from the dead, and walking the streets of Jerusalem. All of these stories were meant to turn Jesus into a supernatural being. Supernatural religions require mythical stories, so it doesn’t surprise me that Christianity is rife with such beliefs (beliefs, by the way, that continue to change and evolve).
Fourth, why didn’t reports of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, his post-resurrection exploits, and the dead walking the streets of Jerusalem make it into the news? Surely, a Roman or Jewish writer would have written something down about these earth-shattering events. Yet, apart from the Bible and a handful of Christians sources, history is silent. Why is that? Perhaps, the silence reflects the fact that these things never happened, that they are, at best, myths used to convey some sort of spiritual meaning.
Fifth, if the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central belief of Christianity, why did God make sure that no one wrote anything about it outside of the Bible and a handful of Christian sources? Why hide in obscurity the biggest event in human history? This, of course, can be said about most of the big events recorded in the Bible: Moses and the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, the story of King David, the story of Abraham, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah and flood, and countless other stories many Christians believe are historical facts. Why did the God of creation, the God who controls everything, leave blank the pages of human history when it comes to Jesus’ resurrection and the other important events previously mentioned?
Let me conclude by saying that the reason that I am not a Christian is that Christianity doesn’t make sense to me. Last April, I wrote a post titled The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense. Here’s some of what I said:
In recent months, I have started using The Michael Mock Rule when engaging Evangelicals who have their hearts set on winning me back to Jesus. Instead of endlessly debating and discussing this or that doctrine, I invoke The Michael Mock Rule : It just doesn’t make sense.
Consider the following Evangelical beliefs. Do they make sense to you?
The Bible is a divine text? Inerrant text? Infallible text?
God is one person, in three parts: Father, son, and Holy Spirit?
Universe created in six twenty-four-hour days?
Adam and Eve the first humans and the mother and father of the human race?
Adam and Eve were tempted to sin by a talking snake who walked upright?
All humans are sinners because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate fruit from a forbidden tree?
The story of Noah, the Ark, and universal flood?
The Tower of Babel?
Fallen angels having sex with human women, producing hybrid children?
Jesus is God in the flesh?
Jesus was born of a virgin? His mother was impregnated by the Holy Spirit?
Jesus walked on water? Turned water into wine? Healed blindness? Walked through walls?
Jesus died and resurrected from the dead three days later?
Jesus ascended to heaven?
Jesus will return to earth someday, destroying the earth and making all things new?
All humans are sinners in need of salvation, broken in need of fixing?
Blood atonement for sin?
Life without Jesus is meaningless and without purpose?
All that matters in life is Jesus?
If I believe in Jesus I go to heaven when I die, if don’t believe I go to hell?
Rapture? Dead people coming back to life?
Evangelicals routinely make the above assertions without presenting any evidence for their claims — and quoting the Bible is not evidence. These claims are reinforced Sunday after Sunday through sermons, Sunday school lessons, and songs. Through the week, Evangelicals read Christian literature, listen to Christian podcasts and music, and tune in to Christian radio and TV stations. These followers of Jesus are surrounded by people who, minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day, reinforce these “truth” claims. Having been immersed in Evangelicalism their entire lives, Christians find that these beliefs make perfect sense.
But for those who have never lived in the Evangelical bubble or no longer do so, these beliefs just don’t make sense. Believing them requires a suspension of rational thought. Believing them requires putting faith above facts, knowledge, and evidence. Believing them requires setting skepticism aside. Believing them requires accepting the most outlandish of things as true. The Michael Mock Rule says to all of these beliefs: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.
Making sense of Christianity requires faith, a faith that I do not have. I am unwilling (and anyone using Pascal’s Wager in a comment will immediately be banned) to surrender the only life I will ever have in the minuscule hope that Jesus really did resurrect from the dead and that an eternal home in heaven awaits me if I will but believe the gospel and be saved. Besides, based on what I read in the Bible and hear from Christians, heaven doesn’t appeal to me. Spending eternity worshiping a narcissistic deity who consigned billions of people to endless torture for believing in the wrong deity doesn’t sound like something I want to do.
What are your thoughts on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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This is the one hundred sixty-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.
You’re such an inspiration for the ways
That I’ll never ever choose to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your savior has abandoned you
Fuck your God
Your Lord and your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, you never stray
Never taste of the fruit
You never thought to question why
It’s not like you killed someone
It’s not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you
Broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you
He did it all for you
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your dogma has abandoned you
Pray to your Christ, to your God
Never taste of the fruit
Never stray, never break
Never choke on a lie
Even though he’s the one who did this to you
You never thought to question why
Not like you killed someone
It’s Not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side
Talk to Jesus Christ
As if he knows the reasons why
He did it all for you
Let’s look at the whole ‘Me Too” movement and let’s look at the ‘Time’s Up’ movement. Who was kind of driving that campaign? It was CAA [Creative Artists Agency]. I’m sure you are familiar with CAA, that is the biggest talent agency in Hollywood, powerful, run by Illuminati scum.
You have CAA, this horrific, evil company that was driving this campaign. They are actually trying to distract from the bigger picture and the bigger picture is that these elites are involved in raping little kids, eating babies, drinking blood, sacrificing and that kind of stuff. So they are using the ‘Time’s Up’ and the ‘Me Too’ movement as a distraction.
Don’t tell me that all of a sudden CAA cares about sexual assault…They are just trying to distract from what’s deeper down the rabbit hole and what’s deeper down the rabbit hole is what they do to children, it’s the spirit cooking, it’s the sacrificing, it’s these sick, crazy, twisted rituals they do, it’s the witchcraft, it’s the occult, and that’s what they’re trying to distract from.
My conservative opponents sometimes press the fact that we are well informed about the text of the New Testament in a ridiculous way – ridiculous possibly because they simply don’t know any better. They point out that with all this evidence for the New Testament, if I (crazy liberal that I am) don’t think we can know exactly what the authors of the NT wrote (in places) then I’d have to say the same thing about Plato, or Homer, or Cicero, or … or any other author!
Their view is that any such claim would be on the face of it completely bizarre and that this is why, in their view, no one says any such thing. Which shows that they simply don’t know what they’re talking about.
Most of my conservative opponents were trained in theological seminaries and teach in conservative evangelical settings, not in research universities, and their academic ties tend to be with scholars who work in theological fields: church history, systematic theology, and the like. They don’t work in a secular setting where the natural ties are more in the fields of classics and ancient history. Anyone who says that scholars don’t have any questions about what Plato, Homer, Cicero, or any other author actually (which words they used) is simply ignorant.
I don’t mean that they are being willfully stupid; I just mean they (apparently) just don’t know any better. Reconstructing the words of any ancient author is massively complicated, given their problematic textual histories, and there are indeed scholars who devote their lives to the task for one author or another. It’s much harder to establish the text of Homer than the text of the New Testament, and no one is completely confident we have the “original” wording of the Iliad or the Odyssey. That’s true for all ancient books. (And by the way, is especially the case with the Hebrew Bible!)
My second response to this claim that we already know what the authors of the New Testament originally wrote is that I simply can’t see how that could be true. Take Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He wrote it probably in the early to mid 50s of the common era. The first copy we have it of it is called P46 (called this because it is written on papyrus – hence the P – and is the 46th papyrus to have been discovered and catalogued). It dates from around 200 CE. That is, the letter was copied, recopied, and recopied for 150 years before we have a copy. And P46 is not a complete copy. The first full and complete copy of Philippians we have is codex Vaticanus from the middle of the fourth century – some three hundred years after the original.
So it’s great (really, I mean it, it’s great) that we have so many hundreds of copies of Philippians from the Middle Ages. That shows us how the letter was being copied, say, seven hundred or a thousand years or more after the original. But what we are interested in is knowing how it was copied, say, one year after the original. And for that how much evidence do we have? We have zero evidence.
How old was the copy that the 200-CE P46 itself was copying? Was it from the year 190? 150? 130? We don’t know. How old was the copy that copy was copying? We don’t know. How old was the copy that that copy of a copy was copying? We don’t know. And worse, we don’t know how close to the original wording any of those copies was, how accurate its scribe was in what he copied, or how accurate the copyist of the copy that he copied was.
Suppose Paul sent his letter to Philippi in 56 CE. Someone there wanted a copy and so made it. Two other people decided they wanted copies of that copy. So they copied that copy, rather than the original (maybe the original had been sent do Thessalonica or someplace). And then copies of those copies were made. And the original – this is hypothetical, but any reconstruction is hypothetical – was lost in a house fire. That would mean that all the copies of the copies of the copies go back not to the original but to the first copy. What if the first copyist changed things? What if he changed a lot? What if he decided to whomp up a section or two of Paul’s prose? What if he really didn’t like one paragraph/passage (or more) and so simply omitted it? We would have precisely NO way of knowing. The entire manuscript tradition in this case descended from the copy, not from the original.
That is one hypothetical to show how we don’t KNOW what the original said. I could easily come up with a hundred other hypotheticals without thinking hard that would lead to the same result.
….
— Bart Ehrman, Do we KNOW the Original Words of the New Testament? February 5, 2018
Kate [Mallory Millett’s sister] announced her atheism very early on and the vacuum created sucked in even more corruption, lying, stealing, fury and domination of others. If God and the afterlife are abandoned then you’re going to be cranky, morose, generally angry, and it’s simple to toss out the Ten Commandments. I would venture that her mental instability created her affinity for the atheism of Marxism. To quote Dennis Prager: “My belief in God and the afterlife keeps me sane. The thought that just this life is all there is would mean that life is random and pointless. It means I will never again see those I love. This would drive me mad. I don’t see how it wouldn’t drive anyone mad who cares about suffering and who loves anyone. So, is there an afterlife? If there is a God, of course there’s an afterlife.”
Most everyone on the left is atheistic, depressed, dark and miserable, and they want us all to be miserable. Winston Churchill said, “Socialism results in the equal sharing of misery.” They detest happiness. Nothing makes them more miserable than another’s happiness. There is no more comedy! Since they swooped in and took over Hollywood and Broadway, everywhere you search for comic relief is dark, dark, dark. Surf through 200 TV channels and it is grim, grim, grim and then there’s a dismemberment. Our “entertainment” has become death, terror, horror and filth. Americans were funny people – funniest in the world after the Brits. First, they lost humor and then we followed. Tina Fey? Major funny-killer. Lena Dunham? A disgrace! Saturday Night Live? David Letterman? Kill me, just shoot me.
I love the term “Feminazi,” as these humorless women are, indeed, fascists, killers of faith and society. So many people think the rise of women and the evisceration of our culture are somehow coincidental. But it’s been calculated and deliberate. It’s the only way America can be “fundamentally transformed” into the Marxist test-tube to dazzle the world. It’s the result of HATE: hating God, hating life, hating society, hating men, hating babies, hating history, hating our fathers, hating our families, hating our white male Founders, hating happiness, hating heterosexuality, hating Western civ. Is this not madness?
— Mallory Millett, Front Page Magazine, My Sister Kate: The Destructive Feminist Legacy of Kate Millett, February 7, 2018
A guest post by Neil Robinson. You can read more of Neil’s writing on the Rejecting Jesus blog.
I often feel I’ve run out of thing to say about Christianity, or rather, I think I’ve said all I want to say about it. It’s not much of a challenge to show how insubstantial, inconsistent and spurious religious faith is. None of it actually works, even though Christians, in the face of all the evidence, continue to insist it does.
On his Theological Rationalism blog, James Bishop smugly tells his readers how he can ‘defeat atheism’ with three questions, chief of which is asking, ‘What would you count as “actual, credible, real world evidence for God?”’ Although I’ve already responded directly on his blog, for me it would be if any of the promises Jesus made (or was made to make) actually came true in the ‘real world’.
Jesus said that Kingdom of God would descend on the Earth within the lifetime of his original followers, in Luke 21:27-28, 33-34; Matthew 24:27, 30-31, 34 and here in Matthew 16:27-28:
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels… I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.
Did this come true when he said it would?
He claimed that the judgement of the nations and their peoples would immediately follow, with the righteous going on to populate the new Earth while the wicked were sent to eternal punishment:
But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25.31-46).
Did this?
He promised that whatever his followers pray for in his name, God would grant. No ifs and buts, he would do it. Matthew 17.21, Matthew 21.21-22, John 14.12-14 and here in Mark 11:24:
…if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’
Does this ever happen?
He said that with enough faith, believers would literally be able to move mountains. (Matthew 17.20).
They literally don’t.
He guaranteed that his followers would be able to drink poison and handle serpents with impunity (Mark 16:18).
Those who are stupid enough to take him at his word find they can’t.
He said ‘very truly’ that believers would be able to do even greater miracles than he himself did:
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14.12).
Where’s the evidence of this?
The fulfillment of any of these promises would be enough to convince atheists – well, me anyway – that Jesus’ God exists. If those about the Kingdom and judgement had come to pass when Jesus said they would, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. I could still be convinced, however, if his guarantees of miracles and answered prayers regularly came about in the spectacular ways he said they would. The fact is, they never have done and they don’t; the world would be a very different place if they did.
All that the ridiculous claims Jesus makes for his God convince me of is that Jesus himself was, at best, deluded, and at worst, an utter fraud – a traveling salesman who promised the Earth and delivered absolutely nothing. His unfulfilled, empty promises are evidence enough that his God, like all the others, does not exist.
Missionary Kid: How I Learned to Say Goodbye details the fascinating life of a friend of mine, John Haines. Raised in a devoutly Evangelical home, John spent much of his life on the foreign mission field as his parents attempted to win Moroccan Muslims for Christ. John later returned to the United States, and is now a professor at the University of Toronto where he teaches music, film, and things medieval.
John’s book is memoir, but written in a delightful conversational form. I prefer this style of writing. Far too often, memoirs are page after page of boring minute details. Missionary Kid, instead, tells John’s life story in a way that allows readers to enter the story and travel along with the author as goes from Morocco to France and from Germany to the United States. If you are interested in reading a first person account of what it was like growing up in the home of Evangelical missionaries, this book is for you.
Missionary Kid: How I Learned to Say Goodbye comes in at 202 pages and can be purchased from Amazon, either in print ($9.95) or Kindle ($4.95) form.
Christian women are floundering today. They have no idea what they are supposed to do with their lives? Should they work after having children or be home full time? But if they don’t work outside of the home, they will probably get bored and won’t make any money so they will feel useless. Oh, what should they do?
Mark Taspon did an interview with Mallory Millet who is the sister of Kate Millet. Kate is one of the founders of the second wave of feminism. Mallory admits that Kate was mentally ill and was a terror to live with:
I was with them at that table as they founded the Women’s Movement and NOW. The entire stated point of their activities was to destroy the American family and with that, Western Civilization. Is this not crazy? They were tooth-grittingly determined.
They were driven by destruction and deeply violent impulses toward men and the patriarchy. Their goal? To establish a matriarchy in order to end all war because that’s what men do, wage war. They believed that if women ran everything there would be no more war. In their madness they have conspired to destroy masculinity, drugging our little boys while trying to remake them into little girls and thus, emboldening our enemies who now see us as easy pickings. No nation is easier to overwhelm than one which has feminized the men and put females at the head of the tribe. Matriarchies never survive – never have, never will!
God tells us that those who “hold the truth in unrighteousness” (they know the truth but rebel against it) are given over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1). Reprobate means “a person abandoned to sin; one lost to virtue and religion.” This completely describes the founders of feminism since they were against all of God’s beautiful ways and they deceived women, even Christian women, into believing that leaving their homes all day and their children in the care of others is best
….
Instead of following culture and the lies of the mentally ill, young women should consider this when making life decisions:“If all mothers based their choices on whether to return to work by asking the questions, ‘What does the Bible say?’ and ‘What is best for my child spiritually?’ different choices would be made” (Judy Turner)
….
Christian women need to wake up and understand that they need to stop following women who had and have reprobate minds and begin following Jesus and His ways instead. Our culture is a mess and it’s because women have left their God-ordained roles at home and pursued their own selfish gain at the expense of their children.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
What follows is a short video of journalist Kurt Andersen explaining how Fundamentalist Christianity has made the United States (especially the Republican Party) lose its marbles.
Kate [Mallory Millett’s sister] announced her atheism very early on and the vacuum created sucked in even more corruption, lying, stealing, fury and domination of others. If God and the afterlife are abandoned then you’re going to be cranky, morose, generally angry, and it’s simple to toss out the Ten Commandments. I would venture that her mental instability created her affinity for the atheism of Marxism. To quote Dennis Prager: “My belief in God and the afterlife keeps me sane. The thought that just this life is all there is would mean that life is random and pointless. It means I will never again see those I love. This would drive me mad. I don’t see how it wouldn’t drive anyone mad who cares about suffering and who loves anyone. So, is there an afterlife? If there is a God, of course there’s an afterlife.”
