As an atheist, what do you make of the supernatural experiences of Marjoe Gortner who admits to being an evangelical fraud who was in it for the money, yet said he did experience healings and things he could not explain? I think also of a man named Richard Gallagher who is a well-respected psychiatrist trained at Columbia University. Gallagher is a Roman Catholic who definitely believes in demonic possession and professes to have seen it many times and has worked with Catholic exorcists. I ask this not to argue with your atheism, but what is your opinion? Did you ever experience demonic possession or any kind of supernatural things when you were a minister?
I have written about Marjoe Gortner in the past, Bruce, What Do Think of the Marjoe Gortner Story? While Gortner has repudiated his fraudulent past, he did have allegedly supernatural experiences he could not explain. What should we make of these unexplainable experiences?
Before attributing healings to God, proof of his existence must be provided. As a skeptic, I am not going to believe anything without sufficient evidence to justify a claim. When someone claims God did something, I am going to ask, “How do you know it was God that did this?” What empirical evidence can you provide that justifies your claim? Quoting the Bible is not evidence. The Bible is a book of claims; claims that require sufficient evidence to warrant belief. Gortner experienced things he couldn’t explain, but a lack of explanation doesn’t mean “God did it.” Gortner should continue to investigate these claims, but until he has evidence for them, at best, he should say, “I don’t know.” Of course, this approach is antithetical to how many, if not most Evangelicals, navigate the world. Questions and doubts are frowned upon. Certainty of belief is foundational to Evangelical Christianity. When is the last time you have heard a preacher say, “I don’t know.” Oh, these so-called men of God may privately have doubts and questions, but when they mount their respective pulpits, their words exude confidence and certainty.
The same goes for Robert Gallagher’s claims to have seen demonic possessions and exorcisms. How do we know Satan/demons exist? Are there other explanations for alleged possession behavior? As a pastor at Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, I encountered several people the church and my fellow co-pastor, Pat Horner, claimed were demon-possessed. I concluded otherwise, believing both men were mentally ill. Prayers were uttered and exorcisms were performed, without success. What these men needed — professional psychological help — was never encouraged or offered. Horner regaled church members with stories of demonic possession from his missionary work in India and Mexico; of how he cast demons out of people. I questioned the truthfulness of these stories, but kept my doubts to myself.
Did I experience supernatural experiences as an Evangelical pastor? Sure, but I now understand that I was indoctrinated and conditioned to see the supernatural anytime I couldn’t explain something. “God did it” or “Satan did it” were common refrains when confronted with what I perceived to be experiences or behaviors I could not explain or understand. Instead of withholding judgment until sufficient evidence was garnered, I automatically assumed God or Satan/demons were the cause. Parishioners never heard me say from the pulpit, “I don’t know.” Not wanting to cause church members to lose their faith, I felt I needed to exude confidence, even when it was unwarranted.
During the deconversion process, my partner and I took a close look at the prayers we believed God answered on our behalf. We concluded that, with a handful of exceptions, our answered prayers could be explained without supernatural intervention. Either we answered our own prayers or other people did — no God needed. But, Bruce, you admit that there were a handful of answered prayers you could not explain! “God did it, right?” Certainly, that’s statistically possible, but not sufficient to convince us that a supernatural God supernaturally answered our prayers. If the existence of God hangs on a few unexplainable circumstances, that’s not sufficient evidence to convince us that said deity exists and is personally involved in our lives.
I am a skeptic and a materialist. If you want to convince me of the supernatural, I am going to insist you provide sufficient evidence for your claims. Anecdotes and personal experiences won’t cut it.
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.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, has been busy writing about me and my British friend, Ben Berwick. Thiessen swore off using our content for “teaching,” but much like a crack addict, he failed to remain drug-free. Our posts are a drug he just can’t give up. I largely ignore his posts, but I thought I would share with readers a few excerpts from his recent posts about me. Ben has also responded to Thiessen. You can read his posts here, here, and here.
What follows are excerpts from four posts Thiessen has written about me since October 28, 2024. All spelling, grammar, punctuation, and irrationality in the originals.
As for BG [Bruce Gerencser], we wonder how his health is doing as he is taking longer breaks between writing content. We hope his health has not deteriorated too much.
Sometimes we wonder if he is trying to assuage some guilt by posting content that seems more positive toward Christianity than negative. He doesn’t really critique our content anymore and publishes other topics that seem to spread the good news about Christ and Christian living rather than oppose it.
We checked the BG and MM websites to see what they had to say about the election results. Needless to say, their responses have been consistent with a majority of athletes and celebrities who have, as Sky News labels their reactions, had meltdowns.
It is actually quite disturbing to read their responses as their treatment of Mr. Trump violates a lot of characteristics they claim to have about treating others, as well as violating the scriptures, ‘do unto others as you would like to be treated’.
We find their responses to be on the verge of delivering them into the realm of insanity. Some responses had youtubers screaming and wailing toward their viewers in a totally unhinged reaction to losing. All of them, including, BG and MM, have forgotten about how to be good losers.
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He [Bruce Gerencser] must have been watching a different Former President Trump than we saw as none of that is true. In fact, he just appointed a female head of staff so the accusations do not fit. But this is the way it is with democrats, liberals, and leftists. They hold minor things over people’s heads forever depriving them of the right to change and be better people.
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G should also look in the mirror when he describes MR. Trump in those terms as he has treated evangelicals and other Christians in the same manner. He is not perfect so he should not be saying one word.
Plus, his words show that BG is part of the problem much like the New York and New Jersey Governors, along with the female NY Attorney General who have made public statements containing threats against Mr. Trump.
The problem is not Mr. Trump, but the attitude of those who oppose him. We listened to his victory speech and none of those words ring true as Mr. Trump seeks to heal the nation not continue the divisiveness that the democrats have caused.
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This is nothing but lies as Mr. Trump praised his wife as well as other women working for him throughout the campaign. Since he has been faithful to one wife for a long time, it is doubtful he is a predator. But democrats, etc., ignore the good and only focus on the bad to dehumanize others while trying to bully them into submission.
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Except for the last line, none of this is true. Harris got over 65 million votes and some of those had to be men. or all the celebrities and athletes who said they would vote for her changed their minds and voted for Trump. But this is the level of nonsense the left brings to America.
They [Bruce Gerencser and Ben Berwick] look for excuses to blame anyone or anything for their candidate’s failure. The loss rests solely on Harris and her advisors shoulders for hiding away from press conferences and saying she would not change a thing from what Biden had done.
The mere fact that both people were unqualified & uneducated seems to be outside of the democrats scope and view. They suffer too much from TDS to see the real picture.
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This is just another lie as it ignores Mr. Trump’s accomplishments in his first term. It is amazing that BG ignores all the people who have been killed by illegal aliens under Biden’s & Harris’ watch. The country has been through 4 years of dark times already and Mr. Trump, with God’s help, will change that.
No one cares which party BG will support. He is just a speck of sand in a sea of sand hills. His insane rhetoric puts him on the fringe and is in need of some therapy. Then there is MM who did not write as much but felt he had to attack Mr. Trump as well.
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This is just stupid and not dealing with reality. It is also not true. It is a waste of time proving how wrong he is. YOu can read some of the accomplishments here. Besides building a wall to protect the country and fellow citizens he loves, Mr. Trump had a great first term. As for cognitive decay, that is just wishful thinking by anti-Trump people.
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The evidence that BG and MM have decided against following god and his way is seen in their quotes. They think they are better by forcing or bullying others to do as they want. But in reality, that makes them worse than they accuse Mr. Trump and evangelicals of being.
We have often said you cannot be Christian and vote for or support democrats but as you can see by the reaction of the athletes, celebrities, and politicians, as well as their supporters, there is nothing Christian in the democrat party or side of politics.
It is best for Christians to stay away from them and the misguided ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ and similar people. Do unto others does not exclude those you disagree with and Mr. Trump seems to be extending the fig leaf of peace to save the nation he loves and protect his fellow citizens. He gets it while many of the democrat supporters, etc., do not.
No matter where Christians turn, there is always some unbeliever putting forth often refuted arguments and thinking those arguments are true. BG is just one of those people and he continues to proclaim long-dead arguments that go nowhere and prove nothing. Here are some samples of his attempts to persuade himself that God does not exist.
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He is wrong of course. Atheists have tried for millennia to produce alternative answers to the Biblical record. They have always failed every time. Our origins is just one subject that atheists can’t answer as they cannot produce one shred of credible evidence supporting their point of view.
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Bg actually does know as he preached about it for 25 years. He just won’t admit it. Christians know because we have all the evidence supporting the biblical record. He won’t admit that either.
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Being a ‘faith claim’ does not exclude the answer from being true. Especially since all research fields have produced more evidence supporting the biblical record, this is more than a faith claim. It is proclaiming what truly happened.
The question ‘Were you there…’ is not illogical because it points out the fact that unbelievers are making faith claims of their own. They were not there, they did not see life develop thus their claims about life development are all based on faith.
Unbelieving scientists do not know what took place as they have no verifiable or credible evidence supporting their views. Since the Big Bang and Evolutionary theories violate the observable principle of science, these so-called learned men and women cannot come to the truth. They do not know if their mechanisms actually work or not.
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Sure it is fair to ask that question of Christians. We may not have been there BUT we got the word from someone who was. The scientists do not even have that advantage. His point i smoot as everyone has to take the scientists’ claims on faith as no one but scientists were in their laboratories when the experiments were conducted.
In other words, BG and other unbelievers do not have a leg to stand on. Their conclusions are based on faith as they cannot go back in time to see if their results matched their historical claims about life development. Evolution and the Big Bang are nothing but faith claims.
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Evolutionary scientists do the same thing. They do special pleading as everyone is supposed to take their word for it, an action Bg and other unbelievers hate when asked to do it for God. Then, all of science’s claims are human-written making their argument against biblical authors and God, moot.
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Yes, there is but BG won’t admit it.
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Not true.
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Also not true and we have heard of more scientific lies and distortion of scientific facts committed by unbelievers than by Christians. The only people trying to fit the ‘evidence’ to their theory are those who accept and believe the evolutionary theory.
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We know of many cases where forensic scientists have altered, distorted, and misrepresented science and scientific results to get convictions than Christians have been accused of. BG has no argument because he keeps repeating the same old tired arguments that have been refuted for millennia.
No unbeliever has any smoking gun evidence hidden away that would destroy or prove the Bible untrue. They are desperately grabbing at straws knowing they cannot win this debate.
BG has written an article lambasting Christians and God over a lack of supposed healing/
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He and other unbelievers will never understand how God works. The main reason is that they do not believe in God or that he exists. So how can they understand? They will reject any legitimate explanation in favor of trashing spiritual beliefs.
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But again, unbelievers do not accept these facts so they continue to criticize the Christian faith. The Bible also tells us that God’s ways and thinking are higher than ours, so how can Christians fully understand something that is beyond their capacity to grasp? It is for sure that unbelievers cannot grasp the reasons God does what he does.
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They would rather insult and attack than take the time to honestly learn about God. It is not up to us to criticize God’s decisions rather we are to learn from our experience and see how God works everything together for his good and ours.
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Yes, God could have healed her and millions of other Christians immediately. Would that have brought the person to a greater knowledge of God or to a level of trust? Not always. There may be lessons God wants the woman and other Christians to learn. We just are not privy to God’s intentions and he does not answer to us.
Instead, we learn to be patient until it is time to learn the correct lesson. But one of the most important lessons is that Christians are under, the verse, ‘it is appointed unto man once to die’ In other words Christians die and there is no escaping that event just because they believe in Jesus.
Yes, Jesus will heal people but when it is their time to pass on, there is no more healing in the works for those individuals.
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We could say the same thing about modern secular medicine. Many doctors are great diagnosticians, but when it comes to healing, their track record thanthey claim God is in this department. Has BG looked at himself lately?
He claims to have several diseases and trusts medical science to find a cure. Yet he has suffered for approx., 14 years, and medical science has no cure for many of his ailments. WHy does he trust medical science and suffer through such great pain and discomfort when medical science has failed him?
Non-Christians like to point fingers and accuse God of the failures that medical science has. Unfortunately for BG, medical science is not greater than he is and has no higher purpose in keeping him sick.
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They may avoid healing him so they can have a continuous cash income from his insurance but they are no better than he accuses God.
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No, not true. The bad light is caused by unbelievers as they fail to understand how life works. The Bible tells us that both the righteous and unrighteous will suffer so we were warned about this in advance. We accept the fact that there will be Christians who suffer medically. It is a fact of life.
We just leave these things in God’s hands and look for the solution with his guidance. As the Bible says, we are not to worry about these things.
The unbeliever will rarely grasp these truths and when they recognize that they don’t it is best that they just ask questions and consider the answers honestly. They are in no position to criticize as they do not have an alternative to God. BG says:
For the atheist, in science we trust.
That is a misplaced trust for 100% of all medical science patients have died from day one of human existence till now. That is a lousy statistic to build trust in something that has no power over life or death. The track record of science is dismal and at no time should Christians trust science over God.
— end of excerpts.
As you can readily see, Thiessen doesn’t critique or respond to my posts. He quotes Bible verses, personally attacks me, and pompously and arrogantly says I am wrong. His comments about my health were offensive, well beyond thoughtful dialog. Why he refuses to thoughtfully and intelligently respond to my writing is a question for him to answer. I have my own opinion on the matter, but I will refrain from sharing it.
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.
Recently, a Christian sent me the following question:
Do you think your mother-in-law was ridiculously stupid for loving Jesus? Or brainwashed and just really dumb?
I have written a handful of posts over the years about my late mother-in-law. While I deeply loved Polly’s parents, I had a strained, acrimonious relationship with Mom. There are many reasons for this, but they are not the subject of this post today. Mom was a lifelong Fundamentalist Christian, both as a member of the Church of the Nazarene and several Independent Fundamentalist Baptist congregations. Mom attended the Newark Baptist Temple, pastored by her brother-in-law James Dennis (The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis), from 1976 to her death in 2023. Mom and Dad left the Baptist Temple for eight years to start a new IFB church in Buckeye Lake. Actually, Dad and I started the church, but Mom was there in “spirit.” She never wanted to leave the Baptist Temple, but felt her duty was to support her husband. The church eventually closed its doors and Mom and Dad returned to the Baptist Temple.
Mom was a devoted follower of Jesus. She daily read her Bible and prayed, sang in the choir, and faithfully attended church on Sundays and Wednesdays. That said, the sum of her understanding of the Bible and Christian theology came from whatever her pastor said from the pulpit. Dad, a pastor, was not much better. I don’t fault them for their lack of knowledge. I pastored countless Moms and Dads over the years; good people who loved Jesus, but lacked a comprehensive understanding of Christianity. They believed whatever their pastor believed. He would never steer them wrong, right?
a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.
Brainwashed people lack the will and power to believe differently from their church and pastor. Mom willingly believed what she did, even though indoctrination and conditioning played a significant part in her beliefs. Outside of hearing me preach from time to time, Mom never heard anything from the pulpit that challenged her beliefs. As far as I know, Mom never changed her beliefs, going to the grave believing the same things she did as a young adult.
So, was Mom stupid or dumb? No. She was a product of her religious/social environment. She was, however, ignorant about the history and nature of the Bible, Christianity, and science. As far as I know, outside of devotionally reading the Bible, the only other books Mom read were Christian romance and historical novels. She had little to no interest in the complexities of the world, choosing instead to fix her mind on Jesus and church. Politically, Mom was a right-wing Republican. She voted for Donald Trump twice, as did almost everyone in her church. Yet, when asked about specific Trump policy positions, she was largely ignorant and indifferent.
I could have, over the years, eviscerated Mom’s beliefs, but to what end? Nothing I could say would move her from her rigid Fundamentalist Christian beliefs. And so I didn’t try. She went to her grave believing she was going to Heaven and would see her dead Christian relatives again. Sadly, we will never see her again since there is no life after death.
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.
Come January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the forty-seventh president of the United States. A grossly unfit, vulgar man, Trump won both the popular vote and the electoral college. Worse, Republicans took back the U.S. Senate and will likely continue to narrowly control the House of Representatives. With full knowledge of Trump’s racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, and criminal conduct, a majority of voting Americans voted him into office. Rational, thoughtful people saw Trump as unfit for office, but tens of millions of rural white working-class people and Latinos thought differently. Even women, knowing Trump is a sexual predator who routinely and frequently dehumanizes women, voted for him. We want to blame white Evangelicals for blessing the United States with a second term of Trump’s lunacy, but the fact is, Trump won virtually every demographic category that matters.
Kamala Harris had a hard road to walk in her attempt to defeat Donald Trump:
Harris, largely an unknown candidate, had 100 days to mount an effective campaign. Trump has spent the past nine years, from the trip down the escalator to today, campaigning and promoting the MAGA/Trump brand.
Harris refused to distance herself from Joe Biden, saying that there wasn’t anything she would do differently from President Joe Biden. Hooking her wagon to a President with a 40 percent approval rating was a bad idea.
Harris is a woman. Some men won’t vote for a female candidate regardless of her party and policies.
Harris is Black. Many Americans won’t vote for a Black candidate regardless of his or her party and policies.
Both Harris and Tim Walz failed to adequately address the skeletons in their respective closets.
Harris made several mistakes that cost her votes.
First, Harris chose to ignore and distance herself from Israel’s war against the Palestinian people. Not allowing pro-Palestinians to speak at the Democratic Convention was a big mistake. Not supporting an Israeli arms embargo was a bad idea.
Second, Harris flip-flopped on numerous policies, abandoning the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and attempting to position herself as a centrist (as Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton before her).
Third, Biden, Harris, and the Democratic Party as a whole, ignored the economic plight of working-class Americans, telling them that their struggles with inflation and never-ending price increases were not a big deal; and that the U.S. economy was booming. Democratic politicians and cable news pundits — especially on MSNBC — ignored the plight of the poor and working-class people, choosing instead to tout and preach up Bidenomics.
Fourth, Americans are tired of endless wars. The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan was, by any measure, a debacle. Harris uttered not a word about the American war machine, the military-industrial complex, and runaway defense/security budgets. My God, Harris climbed in bed with Dick Cheney — a war criminal.
Fifth, Harris provided no comprehensive answer to the illegal immigration crisis at our southern border. Trump is right to point out we have an immigration problem even if his “answers” are racist and immoral.
I do not doubt that Trump will cause untold harm to our Republic and standing in the world. With Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as trusted advisors, it is likely the American people have hard times ahead. How Democrats respond remains to be seen. Personally, I am unsure of my continued support of the Democrats. I need time and distance before I decide who I want to support with my vote and money. As of today, I wonder if I should refocus my efforts on local/state issues. It’s been three presidential elections since the Democratic candidate for president was someone I voted for in the primary. Clinton, Biden, and Harris were not my first, second, or third candidates. I increasingly think that I have become too progressive/liberal for the Democratic Party.
In the end, the election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism or embrace New Deal type programs that will ameliorate this suffering. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.
This despair has been played out on the bodies of the disenfranchised through opioid and alcoholism addictions, gambling, mass shootings, suicides — especially among middle-aged white males — morbid obesity, and the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the Oprah-like belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires. These are the pathologies of a deeply diseased culture, what Friedrich Nietzsche calls an aggressive despiritualized nihilism.
Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay. He expresses a childish yearning to be an omnipotent god. This yearning resonates with Americans who feel they have been treated like human refuse. But the impossibility of being a god, as Ernest Becker writes, leads to its dark alternative — destroying like a god. This self-immolation is what comes next.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, along with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which allied itself with Harris, live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumped her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13 percent approval rating. The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic, and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base – 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
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The American dream has become an American nightmare.
The social bonds, including jobs that gave working Americans a sense of purpose and stability, that gave them meaning and hope, have been sundered. The stagnation of tens of millions of lives, the realization that it will not be better for their children, the predatory nature of our institutions, including education, health care, and prisons, have engendered, along with despair, feelings of powerlessness, and humiliation. It has bred loneliness, frustration, anger, and a sense of worthlessness.
“When life is not worth living, everything becomes a pretext for ridding ourselves of it … ,” Émile Durkheim wrote. “There is a collective mood, as there is an individual mood, that inclines nations to sadness. … For individuals are too closely involved in the life of society for it to be sick without their being affected. Its suffering inevitably becomes theirs.”
Decayed societies, where a population is stripped of political, social, and economic power, instinctively reach out for cult leaders. I watched this during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The cult leader promises a return to a mythical golden age and vows, as Trump does, to crush the forces embodied in demonized groups and individuals that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous cult leaders become, the more cult leaders flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity. Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders seek total power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the desperate hope that the cult leaders will save them.
All cults are personality cults. Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment, and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
We will not convince those who have surrendered their agency to a cult leader and embraced magical thinking through rational argument. We will not coerce them into submission. We will not find salvation for them or ourselves by supporting the Democratic Party. Whole segments of American society are now bent on self-immolation. They despise this world and what it has done to them. Their personal and political behavior is willfully suicidal. They seek to destroy, even if destruction leads to violence and death. They are no longer sustained by the comforting illusion of human progress, losing the only antidote to nihilism.
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We must invest our energy into organizing mass movements to overthrow the corporate state through sustained acts of mass civil disobedience. This includes the most powerful weapon we possess – the strike. By turning our ire on the corporate state, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, or Blacks. We give people an alternative to a corporate-indentured Democratic Party that cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society, one that serves the common good rather than corporate profit. We must demand nothing less than full employment, guaranteed minimum incomes, universal health insurance, free education at all levels, robust protection of the natural world, and an end to militarism and imperialism. We must create the possibility for a life of dignity, purpose, and self-esteem. If we do not, it will ensure a Christianized fascism and ultimately, with the accelerating ecocide, our obliteration.
As you might surmise, I will have a lot more to say on these issues in the days/months/years that lie ahead. Today, I am depressed, filled with despair and anger towards millions of stupid Americans. In time, I will reorientate myself to the present reality. I am not ready to quit fighting, though I do plan to rethink my methodologies and support of the Democratic Party.
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.
Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.
Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse.
Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health care to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave.
Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children.
Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.
In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.
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.
CHARISMA News posted a story titled How the Holy Spirit Prepared This Woman for Her Leukemia Diagnosis. While I certainly sympathize with this woman who has a life-threatening illness, her recounting of what God told her about her affliction provides an excellent example of the schizophrenic, contradictory view many Christians have of God. Here’s what the Holy Spirit — the favorite “God” of Charismatics — purportedly said:
Here, you are about to walk through something. I didn’t do it to you. I’m not causing this. You know, a good Father doesn’t inflict pain on His children, but you’re about to walk through something. But do you trust that I’ve already been where you’re going? Do you trust that I’ve already walked the journey you’re about to walk?
As an atheist, I don’t believe in the existence of deities. Thus, when Christians say they talk to God and God talks to them, I know the only voices they hear are their own; and the only answered prayers are those that are fulfilled by those doing the praying. In other words, for many people, prayer is a mental activity of great value; one that leads them to believe that their peculiar God is not only hearing their prayers, but answering them. There’s no evidence for the claim that God hears and answers prayers. Either you believe he does, or you don’t. Either you have faith, or you don’t. Any cursory examination of one’s prayer life will lead even the most devoted petitioner to conclude that either God doesn’t exist or he is indifferent to the plight of his children. If God is anything, he is like Robert Tilton. You may remember Tilton as the TV evangelist who was caught removing the cash/checks from prayer requests sent to him, and throwing the unread requests in the dumpster.
I know that nothing I say will reach Evangelicals who sincerely believe God is their best friend/buddy/lover. For such people, they just “know” that their God is listening to and talking to them (in a still small voice). They just “know” that the triune God is personally and intimately involved in their lives, even though the evidence suggests otherwise. These beliefs are reinforced weekly at countless Evangelical houses of worship, and on social media, news sites, and blogs. Everything believers hear and read tells them that their presuppositions about God, the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are true. An atheistic curmudgeon such as myself will be dismissed out of hand as a hater of God/Christianity/Christians. All I know to do is point out the contradictions and absurdities in their claims.
The woman with leukemia in the CHARISMA article believes God told her:
You are going to walk through “something.”
Whatever happens, I didn’t cause it.
Whatever happens, I didn’t do it.
A good Father doesn’t inflict pain on his children.
Trust me.
God could have immediately healed this woman, but he didn’t. Why? Why do Evangelicals go through untold pain and suffering, all the while believing that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives; that God only wants what is “best” for them? It seems to me that Jesus, the Great Physician, has great diagnostic skills but is a miserable failure when it comes to stopping pain and delivering Evangelicals from physical afflictions. Well, except for death, anyway. The Bible says Jesus holds the keys to life and death. Based on the obituaries I read, God’s not into healing people. But, killing them? Now that’s a gig he can get into.
Evangelicals supposedly believe God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. In other words, God is all-powerful and sees, hears, and knows everything. Evangelicals supposedly believe God is the sovereign creator and ruler of the universe; that nothing happens that isn’t according to God’s purpose and plan. Evangelicals supposedly believe that God is intimately involved in their lives. How do we square these commonly held beliefs with what the Holy Spirit allegedly said to the woman with leukemia?
According to the Bible, God uses pain, suffering, and loss to test, try, and chastise his children. Unless God has outsourced these things, he alone is responsible for what this woman went through, and what every Christian goes through when facing the various maladies that afflict the human race. If God is not responsible for these things, who is? And should whomever the person/being is, be the God we worship? Shouldn’t worship be reserved for whoever is in charge?
The real issue is that Christians such as this woman know that believers with cancer and other dreaded diseases put God in a bad light. Evangelicals say God loves and cares for them, hears their every prayer, and promises to never leave or forsake them. It is clear, at least to me, that God is nothing, if not indifferent and negligent. Again, this woman knows how things look, so she goes out of her way to defend God’s honor and to exempt him from any culpability. God said, Hey, don’t blame me for your leukemia. I didn’t do it!
According to this woman, the Holy Spirit told her that God never inflicts pain on his children. Evidently, her Bible must not contain the plethora of verses that show a violent God raining down all sorts of pain and suffering on Christians and non-Christians alike. And if the Bible is not enough evidence, go to any Evangelical church and you will find countless people in pain — be it physical or emotional. The Holy Spirit lied to this woman. Pain is very much a part of the human experience. One’s faith or lack thereof does not exempt one from pain and suffering. If God is who Evangelicals say he is, then he’s to blame for the afflictions of the human race.
The voice this woman heard in her head was her own. The Holy Spirit’s words reflect how she views God, not some message from him. At best, God “speaking” to her is a coping mechanism; a way to make sense of what she was going through. All of us find ways to deal with pain and suffering — even atheists. The difference for the atheist, of course, is that he or she lives in a world where human afflictions are explained scientifically, not through appeals to magic. It sucks that this woman had leukemia. However, any healing that comes her way will be the result of human instrumentality, not divine intervention. For the atheist, in science we trust. While certain forms of spirituality might have a cathartic effect, when it comes to treatment, what we need are trained medical professionals, not ancient imaginary deities.
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.
Several days ago, I received the following email from an Evangelical man:
So where did it all come from. The known universe before the bang?
Over the past seventeen years, I have received scores of emails from Evangelicals posing this very question or something similar. Evangelicals think that this question is some sort of “gotcha” question atheists can’t answer; that by being unable to answer this question, atheists show the bankruptcy of atheism.
I am going to surprise the man who wrote this email by answering his question: I DON’T KNOW! No one knows where “it” came from; where the universe came from before the Big Bang. Atheists can’t answer this question, but neither can Christians. Saying GOD DID IT! is a faith claim, as is quoting verses from Genesis 1-3. To quote the great intellectual and scholar Ken “Hambo” Ham, “Were you there?” Ham loves to use this line of illogic when challenging evolutionists and other scientists. Since these learned men and women didn’t observe firsthand the beginning of the universe (and what became before the Big Bang), they can’t possibly “know” what happened. However, what’s good for the proverbial goose is good for the gander. When Evangelicals say GOD DID IT! it is fair for scientists to ask, “Were you there?” If not, then Christians cannot possibly know whether the Christian God created the universe or exists outside of space and time. These are faith claims, not science.
Of course, Ham and other creationists resort to special pleading to defend and justify their beliefs. The Bible is different from any other book, Evangelicals say. Written by God through human instrumentality, the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Thus, we can KNOW who created the universe and when and how he did it by reading the Bible! The problem with this argument is that there is no evidence for the claim that the Christian God wrote the Bible. There’s a plethora of evidence, however, that suggests the Bible is the work of fallible men. Believing the Bible was written by God and is somehow, in some way, a one-of-a-kind divine text requires faith. Deep down, creationists know this, and that’s why Answers in Genesis, Creation Research Society, Institute for Creation Research, and dozens of other groups, spend countless hours trying to make science “fit” the creationist narrative. Faith is not enough for these zealots. They desperately want respectability and are willing to lie, distort scientific facts, and misrepresent science to get it. Yet, despite all their “scientific” work, creationism remains a matter of faith, not science.
Creationists can no more answer the aforementioned questions than atheists can. The difference between Evangelicals and evolutionists (a derogatory term often used by Evangelicals as a label for science in general) however, is that scientists continue to work towards answering the question of how the universe began and explaining what existed before the Big Bang. Science may never satisfactorily and completely answer these questions, and I am fine with that. Not every question — presently — is answerable. Evangelicals, armed with arrogance and certainty, think the Bible reveals to them everything they need to know about life. “The Bible says” becomes the answer to countless complex, difficult science questions. The underlying issue is that Evangelicals need to be right; to have “Biblical” answers for every question. Evangelicals have become the insufferable man at a party who dominates the discussion and has answers for every question. Or at least he thinks he does, anyway.
Let me conclude this post with this: atheism and evolution are not the same, any more than atheism and liberalism are the same. Atheism is defined this way: disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. While it is certainly true that many atheists are evolutionists and political liberals, that cannot be said of all atheists. Atheism is a singular statement about the existence of deities. From there, atheists go in all sorts of ways.
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.
Sometime before the Christian God created the world, he created angels. Higher created beings than humans, angels are God’s gofers — doing whatever God commands them to do. Angels are sexless beings, spirits that cannot be seen unless they take on a corporeal (i.e. human) form. The most famous angel in the Bible is Lucifer (Satan, Devil, Beelzebub, Dragon, Serpent, Abaddon, Morningstar). Lucifer, along with one-third of the angels in Heaven, rebelled against God. The rebellion proved to be a failure. God cast Lucifer and his followers out of Heaven. These fallen angels (demons, devils, unclean spirits) made Earth their home. According to the book of Job, Lucifer, called the accuser of the brethren (Christians), still has access to Heaven. He’s considered the god of this world, the prince and power of the air. Lucifer walks to and fro on the face of the earth, looking for people whom he may fuck up (devour). Some day, Lucifer will once again wage war against God. This war will fail, just as the last one did. After Lucifer is defeated, and Jesus renovates — what a great show for the Home and Garden TV channel! — the heavens and the earth, Lucifer will be cast into the Lake of Fire — the final home for Lucifer, fallen angels, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Hawking, Steve Gupton, Bruce Gerencser, and all (billions and billions) non-Christians.
I typed the previous paragraph from memory. It’s been almost twenty years since I preached my last sermon, but the vestiges of a lifetime of serving Jesus live on in my mind. I can’t remember what I did an hour ago or yesterday, but religious beliefs learned over the first fifty years of my life live on. Some days, I wish I could have a Men in Black mind wipe, erasing all the religious nonsense that clutters my mind. Other days, I am glad I still remember this stuff. Thanks to a lifetime of reading and studying the Bible, I don’t have to spend much time researching Bible verses or Christian theology. I may be an apostate reprobate, but Christianity lives on in my mind.
Ask Evangelicals about what Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus believe, most of them will tell you that these groups are cults, sects that believe all sorts of crazy nonsense. When asked if their beliefs are just as crazy, Evangelicals will take offense, saying that their God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is the one true God, and there is nothing bizarre, fantastic, or foolish about Christianity. After reading what I write next, readers are invited to decide whether a room should be booked for Christianity at an insane asylum.
Evangelicals believe that there is a spiritual dimension all around us. We can’t see or hear what goes on in this dimension, but it is as real as the Twilight Zone. How do Christians know this spiritual dimension exists? The Bible, on more than a few occasions, speaks of this dimension. Christians are already used to believing in an imaginary God, so it is not a stretch for them to believe in the existence of a non-corporeal spiritual dimension.
Evangelicals believe that this spiritual dimension is inhabited by Lucifer, fallen angels (demons), and heavenly angels. Day and night, God’s angels and Lucifer’s angels fight one another. Think of it as an endless MMA match. According to the Bible, non-Christians are influenced and controlled by Lucifer and his minions. These fallen angels can and do possess humans, causing them to do all sorts of abominable things — you know, like voting Democrat. Evangelicals are fond of blaming Lucifer and fallen angels for much of the evil we see in the world. Never mind the fact that the book of Job teaches that Lucifer can’t do anything unless God permits him to do so. Remember that the next time an NRA-loving Republican senator blames Lucifer and his followers for a mass shooting. Lucifer may have pulled the trigger, but it was God who gave him the order to fire.
Lucifer also tempts, corrupts, influences, and leads Christians astray. While most Evangelicals don’t believe fallen angels (demons) can possess followers of Jesus, they can and do oppress them. In fact, the more godly Evangelicals are, the more likely they are to come under demonic attack. Charismatics, in particular, have wild imaginations when it comes to Lucifer and his influence over Christians and non-Christians alike. Spend an hour or two reading the CHARISMA website and you’ll come away wondering how the whole lot of them haven’t ended up being locked up in padded cells.
I am sure many Evangelicals believe that I am under the influence of Lucifer; that I am more than likely demon-possessed. Maybe I am, but just remember that if I am, it’s Jesus’ fault. He’s the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He holds the world in the palm of his hands. He possesses the keys to life and death. No one, according to Evangelicals, is born or dies before God says so.
Take a moment to stand in your front yard or in the middle of your living room. Glance left, right, forward, back, up, and down. According to Evangelicals, all around you is a spiritual dimension filled with God’s and Lucifer’s angels. Sure would be nice to see these angels and not have to take their word for it. If an angel showed up at my bedside tonight with an authenticated message from God, why I might, for a moment, ponder the existence of spiritual beings. I say “for a moment” because if I do happen to see an angel, it is more than likely that I am either drunk or high on drugs.
Rational, skeptical humans know that there’s no such thing as angels. Believing in the existence of such beings is a hangover from our pre-science past; back in a time when the unexplainable was attributed to God, Satan, or angels. We now know better — well some of us do anyway. Sadly, millions (billions?) of people believe that we are surrounded by invisible angels. They have never seen an angel (and if you say you have seen one, pictures or I don’t believe you) but because of religious indoc . . . as I was typing this, my browser crashed. Was this an angel trying to stop me from making fun of him? Anyway, because of religious indoctrination, Christians believe without seeing. That’s the essence of faith. If people believe in a virgin-born, resurrected-from-the-dead Jesus whom they have never seen, believing we are surrounded by angels is not too much of a stretch for them.
Just remember, with FAITH all things are possible.
What were you taught by your parents and pastors about angels and an unseen spiritual dimension? Did you read books such as Frank Peretti’s novel, This Present Darkness? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
I came of age listening to Evangelical pastors who repeatedly told congregants that EVERYTHING happened for a reason. God is in control and has a purpose and plan for your life! they said. I began my official ministerial work in the spring of 1979, at the age of twenty-one. Married — all of seven months — and with a child on the way, I believed that everything that had happened in my life up to that point occurred for a reason. I grew up in a dysfunctional Fundamentalist Christian home. My mother suffered from mental illness my entire life, ending with her successful suicide in 1991. Mom had tried to commit suicide numerous times before. As a fifth-grade boy, I got off the school bus and walked in the door of our home thinking it would be just another day to play with my friends. Instead, I found my mom lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She had slit her wrists. Fortunately, Mom survived. She always survived, that is, until she didn’t. A year later, Mom was raped by her brother-in-law. I was home from school sick the day of the rape. Nothing was ever done, and years later the rapist received a fine Christian funeral at a nearby Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church. He hadn’t been to church in decades, but Praise God he had walked the sawdust trail as a teen and was wondrously saved! Or so said the preacher giving his eulogy. (Please see Barbara and Dear Pastor, Do You Believe in Hell?)
Dad moved us repeatedly during my school years. New schools, new houses, new friends. I hated my dad for constantly uprooting me and forcing me to attend new schools and make new friends. The longest I attended one school was two and a half years — eighth grade to halfway through tenth grade at Findlay Junior and Senior High in Findlay, Ohio. My parents divorced in April of my ninth-grade school year. Shortly after, Dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a toddler, and Mom married her first cousin — a man who had recently been released from Huntsville Prison after serving time for robbery.
Needless to say, the first twenty-one years of my life were challenging. What kept me from losing my mind through all of this was the belief that everything happened for a reason. My God, the one true Christian God, was sovereign over all. He was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the supreme ruler of Heaven and Earth. Holding the world and my life in the palm of his hand, Jesus had a perfect plan for my life. I may not have understood his plan — after all his thoughts were not my thoughts and his ways were not my ways — but I knew in my hearts of hearts that God only wanted what was best for me. I loved Jesus with my whole heart, soul, and mind. Saved at age fifteen and called to preach a short time later, I set my sights on preaching the gospel to anyone and everyone would listen. In 1976, I enrolled in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan to train for the ministry. While there, I met my future wife, an IFB preacher’s daughter. We later married, embarking on a twenty-five-year journey that took us to churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. No matter what troubles, problems, or circumstances came our way, we believed that God had a purpose and plan for our lives, and everything that happened was for a reason.
Thinking that everything happens for a reason messes with your understanding of life. Every time something happened, good or bad, I saw God working behind the scenes. I resolutely believed that God had some sort of divine plan for my life and that everything that happened in life happened to further that plan. Even when it seemed God was shitting on my head and setting me on fire, I still humbled myself before him and trusted his divine providence. And then, one day, I stopped believing that everything happened for a reason. I was still a Christian at the time. As I pondered the arc of my life, I found it harder and harder to see God’s invisible hand working on my behalf. It seemed to me that life was an admixture of good choices, bad choices, choices made by others, luck, being at the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, biology, environment, and psychology — to name a few.
I have made some good decisions in life, bad ones too. Now that the God who allegedly told me “everything happens for a reason” is no longer a part of my life, I am in a position to openly, honestly, and thoroughly examine my life. I can look at my parents’ lives and see how their experiences and upbringings affected me as a child. I carried these things into my own life, including my marriage. The difference now, of course, is that I no longer think that God has a purpose and plan for my life; I no longer believe that the path of my life is exactly what God has ordered for me. Making an honest accounting of life painfully leaves one with a lot of regrets. Alas, there are no do-overs. All any of us can do is learn from our pasts and choose to do better going forward. That’s the only plan I see for my life: striving to do better than I did yesterday.
Did you at one time believe that everything happens for a reason? How did this belief work out in your life? How did life change for you after you deconverted? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
The series centers on Malcolm Bright, whose father, Dr. Martin Whitley, is the infamous serial killer known as “The Surgeon.” Malcolm was the one responsible as a child for enabling the police to arrest his father, and has not (of his own volition) seen his father in ten years. Now a profiler, formerly with the FBI (until he was fired) and currently working with the New York City Police Department, Malcolm is forced to confront his father after a copycat serial killer uses Dr. Whitley’s methods of killing, and now finds himself drawn back into constant contact with his father as he must both use Dr. Whitley’s insights to help the police solve particularly horrible crimes and battle his own inner demons.
One line in the show stood out to me. Malcolm Bright, played by Tom Payne (Jesus, on The Walking Dead), said to his serial killer father, No one is born broken, someone breaks us. I thought, Wow, what a succinct repudiation and rejection of the Christian doctrine of original sin; of the notion that all humans are born into this world sinners; that all humans are, by nature, sinners.
As I type this post, the classic gospel song Deeper Than the Stain Has Gone, plays in the background. I have heard this song countless times over the years. It was the favorite song of a former friend of mine, Evangelist Don Hardman. Here are the lyrics:
Dark the stain that soiled man’s nature, Long the distance that he fell. Far removed from hope and heaven, Into deep despair and hell. But there was a fountain opened, And the blood of God’s own Son, Purifies the soul and reaches Deeper than the stain has gone!
Chorus
Praise the Lord for full salvation, God still reigns upon His throne. And I know the blood still reaches Deeper than the stain has gone.
Conscious of the deep pollution, Sinners wander in the night, Tho’ they hear the Shepherd calling, They still fear to face the light. This the blessed consolation, That can melt the heart of stone, That sweet Balm of Gilead reaches Deeper than the stain has gone!
All unworthy we who’ve wandered, And our eyes are wet with tears; As we think of love that sought us Through the weary wasted years. Yet we walk the holy highway, Walking by God’s grace alone Knowing Calv’ry’s fountain reaches Deeper than the stain has gone!
When with holy choirs we’re standing In the presence of the King, And our souls are lost in wonder, While the white robed choirs sing; Then we’ll praise the name of Jesus, With the millions round the throne; Praise Him for the pow’r that reaches, Deeper than the stain has gone!
From birth, Evangelicals are taught that they are sinners, alienated from God, broken, and in need of fixing. Scores of Bible verses reinforce the belief that humans, by nature, are bad. Take Romans 3:
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes . . . For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
David said in Psalm 51:5: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
David’s son Solomon later said: For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. (Ecclesiastes 7:20)
The prophet Jeremiah said: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The prophet Isaiah added: But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)
Years ago, I attended the baptism of one of my granddaughters at a nearby Roman Catholic church. This was, by the way, the LAST of such services I’ve attended. During the ritual, the priest proceeded to cast Satan out of my granddaughter. That’s right, just a few months old, and she was already demon-possessed! I wanted to scream. How dare this cleric say my granddaughter was a sinner possessed by Satan, I thought. Of course, there was nothing out of the ordinary happening. Catholics and Protestants alike believe humans are, by nature, broken, and only Jesus can fix them. Whether through the water of baptism or his blood, Christians believe that only Jesus can repair and heal human brokenness.
It’s been 2,000 years since Jesus was executed by the Roman government and buried in an unknown, unmarked grave. Since his death, a religion bearing his name has spread to every corner of the earth. The names of the sects may vary, but one thing they all hold in common is the human race’s brokenness. This same teaching can be found in other sects, including Islam and Judaism. Billions of people have been taught that they are inherently sinful, and that unless they accept the fix religionists peddle, they will die in their sins and go to Hell, purgatory, or be annihilated after death. Century after century, decade after decade, and year after year, people are infected with the false, anti-human notion that they are broken.
Malcolm Bright was right when he said: No one is born broken, someone breaks us. It is absurd to look at an infant or young child and say, “You are a broken, vile, Hell-bound sinner who needs salvation.” What children really need is deliverance from preachers, priests, imans, rabbis, and devoutly religious parents who do their darnedest to teach yet another generation that they are broken. You see, it is these promoters of original sin who break their charges. While countless Christians will object to my characterization of their sects, the fact remains that original sin (brokenness) is a fundamental belief of ALL Christian sects. Humans don’t become sinners — as if they had a choice. They are born sinners. Their innate sin natures are the result of Adam’s and Eve’s transgression against God. These first sinners did what, exactly? What did they do that was so bad that every human from that point would be born broken? Why, they ate fruit from a tree God told them not to eat. That’s it. The brokenness of humanity rests on a foundation of two hungry people eating a kumquat.
It’s time we put an end to the generational dysfunction caused by the doctrine of original sin. Imagine how different the world might be if parents, grandparents, and teachers affirmed the essential goodness of the human race, teaching children beliefs that empower them and promote self-esteem. Imagine how much less guilt there would be if we stopped indoctrinating children with Puritanical codes of conduct or other anti-human systems of control. Imagine what kind of world we might live in if we promoted the humanistic ideal instead of the belief that humans are sick, diseased, broken, worthless beings.
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.
Warning! Truckloads of snark ahead — a few swear words too. You have been warned!
What follows is a comment I received on the Why I Hate Jesus post from an Evangelical Christian named Wade. My response is indented and italicized. Enjoy!
Bruce, I really feel sorry for you.
Why? You don’t know me, and you didn’t make any effort to learn more about me either. Much like thousands of Evangelicals who have come before you, you read a few posts and then rendered judgment. You might want to ponder the words of your God found in Proverbs 18:13: He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Your false sorrow is directed towards me all because of what you read in the post Why I Hate Jesus. As countless Evangelicals before you have done, you totally missed the point of the post. Go back and read it again and see if you can “discern” what it is I am writing about.
Because of your own weaknesses and failures in your own life and being let down by HUMANS you are spreading a message of HATE and atheism.
Exactly, what are my weaknesses and failures, Wade? Please list them. Not the preconceived ones you have conjured up in your mind, I want you to list my real weaknesses and failures. And believe me, I am a weak man who has failed many, many times. I am also a man who is quite honest in his blog posts. I have written thousands of posts over the past decade. I have told my story — and continue to do so — in painstaking detail.
As far as being let down by humans, I have no idea what you are talking about. Sure, I have been disappointed by the actions and words of more than a few humans. None of us is perfect. I am sure I have disappointed many people. All any of us can do is be honest, and when failings are brought to our attention, try to do better. As a humanist, that’s always my goal — to be a better person today than I was yesterday.
What is the message of HATE I am spreading? Again, something tells me that you don’t grasp the point of the Why I Hate Jesus post. As far as spreading atheism, what else would you have me do? I am, after all, an atheist. I assume you are okay with Christians taking the gospel to every creature. Isn’t that what you are trying to do here? Put in a good word for Jesus? All of us talk about what we think, know, and believe. If that offends you in some way, tough shit. Don’t read my writing if it causes you to get a Jesus boner.
Blaming God and Jesus for human faults and failures.
Umm, I don’t believe in the existence of God and I am quite sure that Jesus is dead, never to be seen again. So, it is beyond silly to suggest that I blame God for anything. Again, you have made no effort to understand me as a person or a writer, so you have grossly and ignorantly misjudged my motivations.
Obviously, you don’t really understand the Bible, or Jesus or God.
How about you give me a Bible test. I bet I can answer virtually every question on the test. I actually know the Bible quite well. I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible and devouring theological tomes. I think you will find, if we both whip out our Bible dicks, that I am a John Holmes of knowledge and you, my friend are Mr. Mushroom, 2 Corinthians Donald Trump.
And obviously you can’t distinguish between God and Man, so you give up because of men’s failures, and become a hater of Jesus and an atheist. WHAT A SAD THING.
I know the difference between human beings and God. I see human beings everywhere I look. My wife of forty-six years, six children, and sixteen grandchildren are all veritable humans. The same can be said about my relatives, neighbors, friends, and readers of this blog. Humans, the lot of them.
God? He/she/it is a construct of the human imagination. He is a mythical being that no one has ever seen, heard, or spoken to. I find it quite easy, then, to distinguish between reality and myth. How about you, Wade? Do you go around talking to a deity you have never seen; a myth who only exists in your head? Now, that’s s-a-d.
Let me say, again, Jesus was born, lived, and died — end of story. Dead people don’t come back to life. If you have EVIDENCE to the contrary, I would love to see it. Not really, because you have no such evidence. You believe a mythical story in an ancient religious text — that’s your evidence. Sorry, but I am not buying it. Seeing is believing, Wade, so present a living Jesus to me and I will believe.
I know you won’t like this, but I see you in the picture and I see sadness for a man who tries to get his attention and respect and love from other haters of God and Jesus.
Dude, get over the sad/sadness bullshit. I get it, you are sad that I am sad. I get it, you see a man who has no purpose and meaning in life. I get it, you see a man without love. Would it do me any good to tell you that you are wrong; that my life is filled with purpose, meaning, and love; that I found fullness of life AFTER leaving Jesus and Christianity in the dust? Of course not. You have made your mind up about me, and nothing I say will change what you think.
Thousands of people read this blog. I really don’t have to try to get “attention,” I already have it. Now, being a writer, I always want MORE readers, so perhaps you can let your fellow Christians know about my site.
I know you won’t like this but I love you as a brother in Christ.
First, I am not a brother in Christ; that is unless you still think I am saved — an absurd notion if there ever was one. And even if I were still a Christian, I am definitely not your type of Jesus follower. You are monogamous as far as religion is concerned, and I would be quite polygamous. Second, you don’t love me. How could you since you don’t know me? Don’t give me that cheap, sentimental Evangelical love that is little more than a meaningless cliché. I am sixty-seven years old, Wade. I have more than enough love in my life. I really don’t need any feigned love from Christian zealots. Now, if you have money you want to give me, I will take that.
I see a man that longs to be loved, respected, and understood, but is looking to humans to give him those things, not to his creator God and Jesus…….. blaming the wrong one for problems in life. We live in a sin-sick fallen world, and it rains on the just and the unjust. Jesus is not the cause of man’s problems, Jesus is the answer to man’s problems. But too many men expect Jesus to prevent all bad things from happening. He does, but that is in Heaven. The earth is not a perfect place, and you blaming Jesus for all bad things that happen on earth shows you completely don’t understand God and Jesus, and blame him for the things that MEN and HUMAN BEINGS, cause. If the earth was a perfect place, then there would be no need for Heaven, and Heaven would be nothing.
Oh my God, Wade, it is evident you missed the Bible lessons on the sovereignty of God. Much of what you say here is just regurgitation of things you have said previously. You seem Heaven-bent on protecting God’s honor. You might want to read more of my writing. You will find that I do a decent job of showing that the Biblical God is whimsical, capricious, vindictive, and violent. We all should be very glad that Christians are far better people than their God.
If you really were a real believer before, not just following a whim, you are still a believer.
Well, I was a true believer; a blood-bought, sold-out, on-fire, servant of the triune God. I guess, once-saved-always-saved, right? Sweet. Can you just make sure that you and I live in different neighborhoods? I don’t care much for your type. I prefer multicultural neighborhoods, and it sounds like you love the song White Christmas.
The Lord loves you whether you love Him or hate Him. The Lord doesn’t hate homosexuals like you said above. The Lord hates the SIN of homosexuality, just like the SIN of murder, the SIN of lying, the SIN of HATE, the SIN of disbelief. But he doesn’t hate the SINNER.
Sorry, Wade, but you really, really, really need to read the Bible. Not only does your God hate sin, he hates those who do it. You can’t separate the skunk from his smell. Again, if you dig into my writing, you will find I have done a good bit of writing on this subject.
I hate the things that MY children do that are wrong, but NOTHING they can do will ever make me hate them. That is REAL LOVE, and that is how God and Jesus are.
If one of my children was a serial killer and he murdered my wife, his siblings, and their children, trust me, I would hate him. You need to THINK before spouting cheap-ass Christian clichés. Unconditional love, as parroted by Evangelicals, is a myth. (Please see Does God Love Us Unconditionally?)
You can blame Jesus and God all you want, but the real problems on earth are caused by MAN.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. *sigh*
When you understand that, you can have peace and be relieved of all this misguided HATE you seem to have. I will keep you in my prayers, and as a brother in Christ, Jesus will love you no matter what poisonous hate you spew about Him. I have so much more to say, but I’ll stop here. I hope you have a blessed day, and a blessed life, and can one day have peace and love in your heart again.
As I said previously, I am fine in the love and peace department. Despite my wife’s latest health problems, life is good. I have no need for Jesus or what Christianity has to offer. Been there, done that. Why would I want to return to Egypt after I have entered the Promised Land? You wrongly think that I don’t know what Christianity offers me. I do. What you can’t fathom is anyone walking away from your boyfriend, Jesus. You have a wonderful love life with a mythical being, and think everyone should have the same. Why? Atheists and agnostics and other non-Christians don’t want or need what you are peddling. Did you really think that anything you said here was going to change my mind and lead me back to Jesus? Or, perhaps it is that your comment is more about you, Wade; more about hearing yourself talk; more about shoring up your faith; more about taking a stand for Jesus?
At my age, every day is blessed. I strive to enjoy every day as much as I can. I don’t need religion for my life to have meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. Life is good as it is. Well, almost. It sure would be nice if the Reds won the World Series, the Bengals won the Super Bowl, and I had a few thousand dollars to buy a new camera lens I am lusting over.
Outside of these things, Wade, my life is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Be well.
A Sinner Saved by Reason,
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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