Recently, I saw the above comment on a YouTube video. I have read similar comments countless times over the years; that I am leading people astray with my writing and videos and God is going to punish me in the afterlife for leading people, in Pied Piper-like fashion, to Hell.
According to this commenter, I need to understand that If I speak against the Bible and Jesus, I will not only lose my soul, I will also be eternally punished for leading people astray. This is yet another example of God meting out infinite punishment for finite behaviors. All I have ever done is tell my story and critique Evangelical Christianity. With all the things are going on in the world, you would think God would find better things to do than judge and punish people for things they say.
Not that I am worried. God is a myth, so I have no fear of being punished for my words and opinions. If you think otherwise, please share your evidence for the existence of God in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
In the book of Leviticus, we find a dietary code God expects people to obey. Many Christians wrongly think that the law of God found in the Old Testament (Old Covenant) is no longer binding. Calling themselves New Testament Christians or New Covenant believers, these followers of Jesus think the Old Covenant no longer applies to them. Of course, when convenient, Christians will appeal to Old Testament proof texts to justify certain beliefs or moral standards, but most often they ignore or attempt to explain away laws that are, according to Matthew 5, still valid and in force.
Matthew 5: 17-20 states:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. Instead he came to fulfill the law. Jesus goes on to say that not one letter or pen stroke of a letter will pass from the law until ALL is accomplished. Has ALL been accomplished? No. As long as Heaven and earth stand, the law of God is still in force. Those who will one day be called great in the kingdom of Heaven keep the law of God and teach others to do the same.
With this in mind, let’s look at God’s dietary code for eating fish:
These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. (Leviticus 11:9-12)
Based on the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of the triune God, it is a sin to eat fish that don’t have fins or scales. This means that it is a sin to eat fried catfish at the local Cracker Barrel. Polly and I would be bummed out if we were still Christians. We love fried catfish, hushpuppies (or corn bread), and Carolina slaw.
So, I ask readers who claim they are Bible believers — an oxymoron if there ever was one — do you eat fish without scales? Do you eat catfish? Or any of the other prohibited foods? Do you not fear God chastising you for eating all-you-can-eat catfish at the local fish fry? The Bible says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If you really fear God, I implore you to immediately stop eating catfish lest God choke you to death. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I switched this site’s service provider from Hostinger back to my previous provider, Flywheel. It typically takes 24-72 hours for a site to propagate worldwide. As of the writing of this post, a handful of DNS routers are unchanged. Until this site propagates worldwide, you may face intermittent error messages saying the site is inaccessible.
If you see any errors or hiccups, please let me know. You might need to flush your device’s DNS cache and/or restart your device.
This is the latest installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s video is a takedown of Evangelical preacher Kenneth Copeland by comedian Josh Johnson.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
They say separation between church and state … I said, ‘All right, let’s forget about that for one time.
They said, really there’s separation. I don’t know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure, but whether there’s separation or not, you guys [Evangelical Christians] are in the White House where you should be, and you’re representing our country, and we’re bringing religion back to our country, and it’s a big deal.
Recent Evangelical prayer meeting at the White House
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
Another area of civil rights law that we talk about a lot, of course, is Title IX, sex-based discrimination.
And this administration ended the Biden administration’s policy and the Democrat Party’s policy of allowing men into women’s sports, men into women’s spaces.
We are using every single legal and financial tool we have at President Trump’s direction to make it clear that schools and universities are and will lose federal funds, as you’ve seen in Maine, if you allow men to invade women’s sports and women’s spaces.
And this applies to our whole K-12 system.
The Department of Justice is also coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight child abuse in our school systems.
It is child abuse to change a child’s gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents.
In other words,if a five-year-old or a six-year-old goes to school, or a seven-year-old goes to school, and the teacher tries to turn the boy into a girl or the girl into a boy, that is child abuse.
And this administration is treating that as child abuse, and it is a gross violation of parental rights.
This also includes the administration’s message to our hospital systems that they cannot and will not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to perform chemical castrations and sexual mutilations of children.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great [factory] jobs of the future. This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here. We let the auto plants go overseas.
These [manufacturing jobs] are really good paying jobs, they start at $70s, $80s, $90,000 [a year]. These are tradecraft. It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future. This is the new model, where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here.
We are inventing everything in the world, but we’re letting everyone else build it. We invent the iPhone, which is awesome. Why do we let everyone else build it? Why can’t we build it here? The key is AI and automation have made that in reach. I understand why you need zillions of other people to work on it, but it’s time now, can automation build that plant here? Where we can employ, we don’t need millions of Americans to do it, we need hundreds of thousands of Americans to work in those factories, and I think we’re going to create 5 million great tradecraft jobs in America.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
I could announce 50-100 deals right now. I’m the shopkeeper and I keep the store…I can set those terms, and they can go shopping, or they don’t have to.
[They have] the greatest stores in the world. They want to shop. Our country is the greatest store in the world, of that kind. Everybody wants a piece of it.
We don’t have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us. They want our market. We don’t want a piece of their market. We don’t care about their market.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Ernest Reddick, the treasurer of Lisburn Baptist Church in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, was sentenced to one year in prison for stealing £410,000 from the church.
A 60-year-old man has been jailed for a year after he admitted defrauding a church of £410,000.
Ernest Reddick of Diamond Road in Dromore, County Down, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of fraud by false representation and one of false accounting.
Detectives said donations from the congregation of Lisburn Baptist Church were being used to “prop up” Reddick’s accountancy business.
At Craigavon Crown Court on Thursday he was given a two-year sentence, half of which will be spent in prison and half on licence.
Det Insp McCarten said police were contacted by a pastor from the church in November 2021.
The pastor said that a member of his congregation had admitted to taking money from the church bank accounts and making false accounts to disguise it.
The police investigation found Reddick had been acting as a treasurer for the church since 2012 and had used his position of trust to create a “web of false transactions”.
An earlier hearing heard that Reddick, a director with CMC Accountants in Lisburn, “destroyed, defaced, concealed or falsified” a certain account record which had been “made or required for an accounting purpose”.
The investigation found that Reddick later paid back the money in full, but Det Insp McCarten said “the impact of his offending on those who put their faith in him” should not be underestimated.
Reddick committed the offences between 1 January 2012 and 30 November 2021.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Evangelicals generally believe that their deity — the trinitarian God of the Bible — created everything. Further, he is sovereign and controls everything that happens. These statements apply to God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Ghost. If this is so, Evangelicals have a big problem on their hands.
Luke 22: 39-42 says:
And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Is the Father God? Yes. Is Jesus God? Yes. If God is the super-duper, co-equal, three-in-one Christian deity, shouldn’t the Father and the Son have the same wills? Yet, in Luke 22, we see Jesus’ will at odds with the Father’s. Jesus, the co-eternal, co-equal son of God, didn’t want to die on the cross. Which is odd since Jesus knew from before the world began that the Father would one day punish him on a Roman cross, leading to his temporary, forty-eight-hour death. For thousands of years, Jesus knew that at an appointed time he was going to be executed. Being co-equal with the Father, he knew when and how everything would unfold.
What we clearly see is that Jesus’ will in Luke 22 was different from that of the Father. How can this possibly be? This story seems to suggest that at least two parts of the Godhead were at odds with each other concerning Jesus’ death.
I can’t wait to see how Evangelical commenters explain the dueling wills between Jesus and the Father
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
