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Dr. David Tee’s Latest Posts About the Infamous Atheist Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
dr david tee's library
Dr. David Tee’s Massive Library

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.

We Have Done This Before, a response to a post by Ben Berwick

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.

The Democrat Response, a response to Explaining the Election of Donald Trump as the Forty-Seventh President of the United States

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.

….

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.

….

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.

….

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.

….

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.

….

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.

Fighting the Good Fight, a response to Dear Evangelical Apologists, This is NOT a “Gotcha” for Atheists

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.

….

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.

Unbelievers Will Never Understand, a response to Hey, It Ain’t My Fault, Says the Evangelical God

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.

….

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.

….

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Explaining the Election of Donald Trump as the Forty-Seventh President of the United States

Bruce Gerencser 13 Comments
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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.

An excerpt from Chris Hedges’ latest article perhaps says it best:

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.

….

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.

Let me conclude with a few words from Senator Bernie Sanders:

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce, Do You Hate God?

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
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On one level, this is a silly question. Since I do not think there is a God, if I hated God, I would be hating a nonexistent entity. This would be akin to hating Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. However, I understand why religious people might think someone like me hates “their” God. I spend a lot of time writing things that are negative about God and Evangelical Christianity, so surely I must HATE God. Maybe some atheists do hate God, but I don’t. It is a non-issue for me.

As a writer, my focus is on religion — particularly Evangelical Christianity and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Religion is the human attempt to answer what I call the “hard” questions of life. Where did we come from? What is the essence, the substance of life? Is there life after death? What gives life meaning and purpose? These are not easy to answer. I realize many atheists will say “no evidence”. . . end of discussion, but I think these kinds of questions are worthy of friendly, thoughtful, pointed discussion. The problem is many religious people can’t discuss these questions in a friendly manner. Thinking their God and belief system are equivalent to “truth,” Evangelicals condemn and marginalize anyone who thinks differently.

While I think evolution is the best answer to the “where did we come from” question, I am not at all satisfied with the answers science gives when dealing with the something rather than nothing question. Even Bill Nye, in his debate with creationist Ken Ham, admitted that, so far, science hasn’t answered the question of where the first particle came from. Of course, Ham, a man with cement in the place where his brain once sat, jumped up and down and said, TEACHER, TEACHER, I KNOW THE ANSWER!  IT’S FOUND IN THE B-I-B-L-E. Ham thinks the question is answered, whereas Nye is willing to say, We don’t know, but we continue to try and find the answer to this important question.

I am an atheist because the evidence tells me, at this present moment, that there is no God. As a man who spent fifty years in the Christian church and twenty-five years in the pastorate, I am well versed in the teachings of the Bible and the one, true, and holy Evangelical faith. There’s no possible argument an Evangelical could make that I have not heard. It is not evidence that I am lacking. I have weighed all the available evidence in the balance and found it wanting. I am convinced, based on the available evidence, that the Evangelical God is a work of fiction, and that Christianity is an admixture of myths, legends, oral traditions, and religious teachings. Maybe someday a deity of some sort will reveal itself to us. If so, I will consider this new evidence just like I have the evidence for the plethora of human religions. I doubt this will happen, so I am not going to spend any time worrying about it. In the meantime,  I remain agnostic on the God question and live my day-to-day life as an atheist. Reason, skepticism, humanism, family, friends, writing, good food and music, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Cincinnati Bengals are enough for me — no God needed.

My hatred is reserved for certain aspects of some religions. Since I live in the United States, my experience has primarily been with the Christian religion, especially the Evangelical form of Christianity. While I think the essence of Christianity can provide value and substance for some people — even in our modern, scientific world — I am convinced that twenty-first-century Christianity is so far afield from its original intent that it has ceased to be Christianity at all. How does the Christianity of today, in any of its various forms, remotely resemble the teachings of Jesus, the poor, itinerant do-gooder of first-century Palestine?

Part of the problem is that early in the history of the Christian church, the Christianity of Jesus was subjugated by the Christianity of Paul. The modern version of Christianity we see today is Paul’s version of it and not that of Jesus. It is doubtful, at least in my mind, that we can ever recover what Jesus wanted Christianity to be. We can’t even know if he wanted to start a new religion. Perhaps all he wanted was to reform Judaism. We can’t appeal to the Bible because it has been corrupted by errors, corrections, additions, and outright fraudulent changes. At best, we might be able to peer within the pages of the Bible and get a general idea of who Jesus was and what he was all about. And we can do this regardless of whether we consider Jesus divine or not.

When I look at American Christianity, what do I see? I see power, hatred, and wealth. I see arrogance. I see religious machinery. I see everything but what I should see. Where is Jesus? Where are good works? Look at all the Republican candidates for president over the past two decades. Jesus lovers, the lot of them, all trying to see who has the biggest Evangelical dick. Their beliefs and policies would likely be condemned by the Jesus of Nazareth they purportedly worship. Millions of Christians considered voting for these men, thinking they were voting for God’s man. (Please see Why I Hate Jesus.) And that’s precisely what Evangelical voters did in 2016, electing “baby Christian” Donald Trump as president, and attempted to do it again in 2020. Eighty-two percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Trump. By doing so, Evangelical Christians traded their souls for a bowl of pottage, choosing power and preferential treatment over morality, ethics, and decency. And here we are, five days away from the 2024 election, and many Evangelicals still plan to vote for Trump.

Most churches and pastors seem to focus on building a kingdom, not in Heaven, but here on earth. Why all the fancy, expensive buildings? Why all the programs designed to keep fat, lazy sheep fed and happy? Why does most church income go to maintain buildings, pay staff, and provide programs for people who are already Christians? What happened to outreach to the “least of these?” Where can I find a church where the poor, sick, homeless, and dying are given preferential treatment? If Jesus were alive today, do we really think he would go to an American Evangelical church? I don’t.

Even though I don’t believe in the Christian God — nor do I think the Bible is divine truth — I could see myself going to a church that took seriously the teachings of the man named Jesus. (And yes, I am aware that some of his teachings are contemptible.) I still have a heart filled with compassion for the poor, sick, and marginalized, and I suspect many of the readers of this blog do too. As atheists and agnostics, we don’t have many meaningful opportunities or outreaches to help others. Imagine the help we could lend to churches focused on helping others instead of building kingdoms in this life.

I wonder if there is any room in the world for itinerant atheist preachers? While I couldn’t preach the Christian gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, I could preach a humanist gospel that says salvation is found in the goodwill, mercy, and compassion we have for others. I could point to the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Bruce Almighty and show how the relevant parts of their teachings can help make us better human beings.

My hatred is reserved for any religion that is focused on power and wealth, and not people. For the most part, I despise Evangelical Christianity. To Evangelicals, words in a book are more important than loving their neighbors and helping the poor, the hungry, widows, orphans, prisoners, and the homeless. They prefer the narrowness of their religion to the wideness of human love, mercy, and compassion. They would rather concern themselves with abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration, gun rights, combatting socialism, refuting global warming, evolution, and getting Republicans elected, than trying to make a real difference in the lives of the “least of these.” Thinking evangelizing someone is more important than feeding and clothing them (better to go to Heaven with an empty belly, than Hell with a full one, the thinking goes), Evangelicals are viewed by non-Christians in the same light as door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and siding salesmen.

My beef is not with God because I don’t think there is a God. My beef is not with Christians who are serious about loving and helping others. My disdain, and at times my anger, is reserved for those who have no regard for the plight of the poor and the sick, who only care about building a kingdom here on earth. No matter how much they talk about the future kingdom of God, their actions betray their true ambitions.

If churches took the teachings of Jesus seriously, they would merge, sell off the excess real estate, and use the money to help the poor, sick, and disadvantaged. If churches took the teachings of Jesus seriously, they’d fire all the professional Christians, forcing them to get real jobs. In doing so, these professional Christians would have to reengage with a world they lost connection with once they became gatekeepers and waitstaff at the local Evangelical churches.

If churches took the teachings of Jesus seriously, they’d stop programs that are little more than crack for religious junkies. These addicts bounce from church to church, program to program, service to service, hoping to get a Jesus Fix®. They are narcissists who have forgotten that what really matters is loving their spouses, children, family, and neighbors. They’ve traded the church for their common, dirty connection with the world. Sheltered from sinners, they listen to sermons that remind them of how wonderful it is in the church and how bad it is out there.

I don’t hate God. My hatred is reserved for evil done in the name of God. (Please see the Black Collar Crime series.) My hatred is reserved for those who value theological fealty, fidelity, and conformity more than they do people. Such thinking caused the burning of people at the stake and the slaughter of countless heretics. Given a chance here in America, Evangelicals with theocratic impulses would enact and enforce a Christian version of Sharia law. I hate all who dare attempt the subjugation and control of others in the name of their God. Thinking they are oracles who have THE truth, they demand everyone else bow to their truth. Willing to use violence and the power of the state to force others to embrace their God and Holy Book, they cause deep hatred and resentment. Thinking they are being hated for their beliefs, what they are really being hated for is their unwillingness to allow others to have the same freedoms they demand for themselves.

As I look at American Christianity, I search in vain for one good reason why I would/should become a Christian. Maybe there is a group somewhere that takes the teachings of the socialist Jesus seriously, but so far, all I see is ice cream—various flavors, but all ice cream. (Please see But, Our Church is DIFFERENT!)

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Welcome Neighbors!

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
2024 political yard signs

Welcome neighbors! You have likely come to this site because you saw the website address for my blog on a Trump 2025 sign I recently put in my front yard. Thank you for taking the time to check me out.

I am a registered Democrat, one of nineteen in the Village of Ney. I am also a party official, representing Ney. If you have any questions about Federal or State Democratic policies, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and I will try to answer your concerns. You may also text me at 567-210-1145.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has made all sorts of unfounded claims about race, immigration, the border, legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, abortion, and transgender healthcare. I would love the opportunity to talk with you about these issues or any other issue you feel Democrats are wrong about. Contact me via email and I will gladly respond to your questions. Maybe, if you are up to it, we could go to one of Ney’s two restaurants and share a meal, coffee, or beer — on me.

As neighbors, we both want a better tomorrow for our children and grandchildren. Surely, we can find common ground by which to achieve this goal. I am not your enemy. I am the man sitting next to you at Fairview High School sporting events, eating at the same restaurants you do, and frequenting the same local stores as your family.

Thank you for visiting my website.

Be well.

Bruce Gerencser

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

It is Past Time for Us to Have a Frank Discussion About President Joe Biden

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
joe biden inauguration
joe biden inauguration

By Marilou Johanek, Used with permission from Ohio Capital Journal

This presidential election year was never going to be a breeze for Ohio Democrats running in front-line races. The National Republican Congressional Committee homed in on three Democratic-held seats in the state held by vulnerable incumbents Marcy Kaptur (Toledo) Emilia Sykes (Akron) and Greg Landsman (Cincinnati). Its GOP counterpart in the U.S. Senate made unseating Ohio’s incumbent Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Sherrod Brown, a singular priority to take back the Republican Senate Majority.

Plus, Ohio may not be Alabama-red but it’s getting there. It is a bellwether state no more. Democratic candidates face an uphill battle from the get-go to win the hearts and minds of Ohioans. Add in the potential drag on electoral success from the marquee Democrat at the top of the party ticket in 2024 and the path to winning for down ballot Dems gets exponentially harder.

That prospect has hung like the sword of Damocles over key U.S. House and U.S. Senate campaigns waged by Democrats in Ohio and across the nation all year. But today the fear of impending defeat is even more acute as the party grapples with the imploding candidacy of their presumptive presidential nominee. 

Far from effectively communicating a persuasive reason for reelection or forcefully prosecuting a case against his dangerous opponent, President Biden is the gift that keeps giving — to MAGA Republicans. They’re over the moon with the good fortune of the felon they’re fielding to recapture the White House.

Who knew a criminally convicted, twice impeached ex-president who incited a violent insurrection against his own government in a failed coup attempt would have a cakewalk back to power? Not with that rap sheet, which also includes adjudicated rapist and business fraudster. Yet here we are.

Biden is easy prey for ridicule and perceived weakness. What is dispiriting for many to watch will only get worse. The incumbent president, who has spent a lifetime in honorable public service, has already been reduced to a caricature. A muddled old man joke. From now until November pro-Trump operatives will unleash a torrent of clips from Biden’s June 27th disastrous debate performance everywhere people scroll. 

If you thought the president’s flubs and frailties were mocked on Tik Tok before the debate — and they were wall-to-wall brutal — just wait. Ohio Democrats know what’s coming if Biden remains in the race. What his cadre of aides and advisors tried to keep under wraps about the advancing infirmity of their aging boss is now front and center with Democratic voters and the broad coalition of pro-democracy Americans Biden needs to win. 

The panic of that electorate is palpable. They don’t want to lose their country to a vengeful authoritarian promising dystopian Project 2025 rule. They want a warrior who will fight like hell to preserve the Republic. But rank and file Democrats, Never Trumpers, and independents are not persuaded Biden can meet this existential juncture in American history.

Maybe they can still be convinced if the pervasive distraction of Biden’s cringey senior moments is mitigated. But abiding anxiety about the 81-year-old’s performative strength as a candidate has long been No. 1 on voters’ list of concerns with the octogenarian. Attempts to spin away Biden’s frailty as trivial was always an exercise in futility.

Nobody in flyover America was fooled. People saw their parents or grandparents in Biden’s shuffle and inaudible whispers — someone who had simply succumbed to the march of time. But ordinary voters, who may or may not have put their faith in Biden in 2020, were uniformly gobsmacked by how completely Biden clocked out of a presidential debate he initiated to jumpstart his reelection campaign. 

In the weeks since, millions more have seen what cannot be unseen; an elderly, incoherent, astonishingly tepid candidate unable to land a rhetorical punch against a serial liar and coup plotter. It’s past time for the tough conversations on Biden the Democratic Party ducked in January. Voters deserve a reckoning about the diminished candidacy before it’s too late.

But Ohio Democrats on the campaign trail are still ducking what needs urgent, forthright debate, still settling for the path of least resistance. For the most part, Brown continues to dodge what many Ohio voters can’t get past yet asserts “there must be a resolution so that we can get back to talking about the choice in this election.” Kaptur largely prefers to be supportive and silent about Biden’s future. Sykes has also stayed mum on Biden.

Only Landsman was candid about whether Biden should remain in the presidential race. “He could be an American hero, Joe Biden, and say look, I’ve gotta step down,” the Cincinnati congressman told CNN. He hoped the president would use the time before the Democratic convention “to prove us all wrong” but conceded, “it’s becoming increasingly more likely this is maybe just too high a hill for him to climb.”

Why is Landsman an outlier on what is obvious and distressing to constituents worried sick about saving democracy? Why, as Axios reported, were Ohio’s presidential delegates instructed “NOT to respond to reporter calls at this time” (about the albatross killing the president’s odds of winning) per the “ODP [Ohio Democratic Party] and the Biden campaign”?

Not responding to a five-alarm fire belies the profound danger of letting a free and democratic America go up in smoke. To play it safe?

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Dr. David Tee Pontificates on the 2024 Presidential Election

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
dr david tee's library
Dr. David Tee’s Massive Library

By Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, Who Are They Going to Vote For, Then?

Everyone and his dog knows that Mr. Trump faced nothing but kangaroo courts and those verdicts are ludicrous. There was no justice in those trials and it was widely advertised that they would get Mr. Trump. That is not how the law is supposed to work yet in his case, that is how it went.

If there is anyone Christians should not be voting for it is Mr. Biden and the rest of the democrats. They are the party that supports sin and evil, calling them good and right, as well as normal and no Christian in their right mind can vote for such policies or people.

We have also seen the Democrats abuse and ignore the nation’s laws to fulfill their agendas. This is the point of why shaming Christians for removing their support from Mr. Trump. The opposition knows that it is the Christian block that can make or break an election and the democrats are doing everything in their power to ensure they win the election.

If they do win the election, say good-bye to America as that country needs to be destroyed for the one-world government to take over. Plus, with America out of the way, other nations will destroy their neighbors and too many innocent people will die for no reason other than the democrats want power and control over everything.

Don’t be fooled by the news pundits, the leftist politicians, and others who try to get Christians’ support away from Mr. Trump. It is not wrong for Christians to vote for Mr. Trump nor is it wrong to support his candidacy.

There is no perfect candidate in this race and there are no better ones to vote for. Mr. Trump has already proven how good he would be as president as we have his first 4 years providing us the evidence we need to see that he will do a good job.

Biden has failed in his four years and he is senile now. No one can vote for him as he is not qualified to be president. It is an embarrassment to see him led around by his wife. He is the leader of the strongest nation in the world yet he is not capable of walking under his own direction.

That is embarrassing and pitiful. Make your own choices for whom to vote and make sure you select wisely as your security and safety are at stake.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why Can’t Evangelicals Speak the Truth About Donald Trump?

Bruce Gerencser 28 Comments
trump the liar

While there are certainly Evangelicals who publicly speak out against Donald Trump, they are black swans in a bevy of white ones. They exist, but largely have no meaningful voice within Evangelicalism. In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, over 80 percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. And come November, I have no doubt that most of these “godly” followers of Jesus will vote for him again. What has happened to Evangelicals that they can no longer see things from a Biblical or moral perspective? How is it that Evangelical churches have become the “ministry of truth” for Trump and his fellow MAGA Republicans? What happened to Evangelical commitments to holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord?

Remember the President Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal? Remember Clinton’s lies? At the time, I was the pastor of Somerset Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. The Sunday following news reports of Clinton’s immoral, adulterous behavior, I took to the pulpit and lambasted him, pointing out that he claimed to be a Christian, yet he seduced a young college intern and had sex with her. I know of other Evangelical preachers who did the same. It seemed clear to me at the time that our political leaders, including President Clinton, must be held to high moral and ethical standards. If churches and pastors were to be clarions of morality and virtue, then politicians — Democrats and Republicans alike — must be held accountable for immoral and unethical behavior. While my view has moderated a bit over the ensuing years, I still believe that people who work for and serve the public, be they politicians, preachers, lawyers, policemen, doctors, or school teachers, must be held to high standards. Using your power and authority to seduce and take sexual advantage of vulnerable women (and men) is morally wrong, and people who engage in such behavior, including presidents and congresspeople, should lose their jobs.

My how things have changed. Trump, who claims to be a Christian — James Dobson called him a “baby Christian” — is immune from criticism and accountability for his immoral, unethical, and sinful behaviors; sins so heinous that the Bible says that people who commit such sins will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Charisma News is, by far, the biggest defender of all things Trump. There is no crime or sin so bad that Charisma can’t find a writer to defend, justify, or deflect Trump’s wickedness. Take Oscar Amaechina, the president of Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network and a frequent author for Charisma. With Trump’s orgiastic juices dripping from the corner of his lips after giving his small-dicked hero metaphorical head, Amaechina has nothing but praise for Donald J. Trump — a man well known for his sexual and financial crimes; a man who lies so often that it is impossible for him to tell the truth.

Recently, Amaechina had this to say about twice impeached ex-president Trump:

Now, it is clear to everyone that Donald Trump has many moral failures.  Some have described him as a racist, others a corrupt leader, and some say he is a liar. But If he wins the primary of his party, between him and Biden, who do you think will create an environment for Christianity to thrive? Or do we pretend that our faith does not matter when politics are concern? Sincere answers to these questions will guide your decisions come November.

I know that Trump has his weaknesses, but he did something that endeared him to us in Nigeria. On September 8, 2020, our then-president Muhammadu Buhari said: “I believe I was about the only African amongst the least developed countries that Trump invited and when I was in his office, only myself and himself, only God is a witness, he looked at me in the face and said, ‘Why are you killing Christians?’”

It takes a man who believes in the sanctity of life and love for humanity to ask such delicate and sensitive questions. I must confess that I was touched by this question which indicated that someone cares about the survival of the Nigerian Christians. Now that no one is asking this question, we have seen how Nigerian Christians are slaughtered on a daily basis recklessly.

This is not the time to be politically correct, nor the time for interdenominational criticisms. The evangelicals should also know that this is not the time to discriminate or claim that they can do it all alone. This is the time to bring everyone who calls on the name of Christ together. All should pray and work hard so that all will be free to practice their faith when religious freedom is restored first in America and then all around the world, including in my own country of Nigeria.

When one of you says, “’I am a follower of Paul,’ and another says, ‘I follow Apollos,’ aren’t you acting just like people of the world?” (1 Corinthians 3:4) A house divided against itself shall not stand (Mark 3:25). I am not oblivious to the fact that Trump and Biden claim to be Christians, but it is not about their claims that should matter to American Christians, but their dispositions.

Who between the two will favor the course of the Christian faith? Let all American people of faith vote to have freedom to serve their God without intimidation or harassment.

Amaechina admits that it is clear that Trump has many moral failures, yet he ignores them because all that matters is what Trump will deliver for Christians politically. Amaechina adds “Some have described him as a racist, others a corrupt leader, and some say he is a liar.” What I want to know is this: does Amaechina think Trump is a racist, corrupt leader, and a liar? The evidence is clear, Trump is all three. He is also a pussy-grabbing rapist and pervert, a man with licentious sexual appetites. We know just by listening to the man that he cannot tell the truth, even when there is no need to lie. We know he is in bed with dictators such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orban. We know he is a narcissist, a psychopath, a man without empathy or sympathy for other people. We know he wants to be a dictator, using the U.S. Justice Department and the military to punish his enemies, including the press. We know he wants to deport or incarcerate millions of people of color. We know he wants to lock up socialists, atheists, Muslims, and other undesirables in internment camps so they can be re-educated in proper American thinking. We know Trump is a racist and a misogynist. And Amaechina KNOWS all these things too, yet instead of speaking truth to power and condemning his vile, violent behavior, he justifies and condones Trump’s debauchery. Why? Well, Trump is nice to Evangelicals and delivers gifts from their wishlists on Christmas, Easter, and their birthdays. Amaechina and his fellow Evangelicals have sold their souls for bowls of pottage, trading moral authority for naked political power. In doing so, they have ceased to be Christian.

Amaechina says, with a straight face, that Trump is “a man who believes in the sanctity of life and love for humanity.” The only “humanity” Trump loves is the man who stares back at him when he looks at a mirror. As far as the “sanctity of life” is concerned, Trump is not pro-life. He sees Evangelicals and their commitment to forcing women to have babies as tools he can use to advance his political cause. Without the Evangelical vote, Trump cannot win the 2024 presidential election. He is willing to tell Evangelicals what they want to hear; that he alone is the pro-life president; that he alone overturned Roe v. Wade; that he alone is the defender of the one truth faith; that he alone will restore religious (white Christian) liberty and freedom. Never mind the fact that Trump rarely, if ever reads the Bible, never attends church, doesn’t pray or ask God to forgive him of his sins, and shows no signs that he knows one thing about what Christians believe and practice.

Amaechina concludes his sticky defense of Trump by saying, “I am not oblivious to the fact that Trump and Biden claim to be Christians, but it is not about their claims that should matter to American Christians, but their dispositions.”

There is no question that Joe and Jill Biden are practicing Roman Catholics. There is also no question that Trump is not, in any meaningful sense of the word, a Christian. It shouldn’t take an atheist to point out that Trump is an egotistical maniac; a man who has no regard for Christianity, Jesus, or the Bible; and that Evangelicals are nothing more than a political prop to him; a means to an end. Amaechina wants his fellow Evangelicals to ignore both Trump’s and Biden’s claims of faith. Instead, he wants people to focus on their “dispositions.” That’s a good idea, and if Evangelicals follow his advice, there’s no doubt that they will vote for Joe Biden in November. Of course, that ain’t going to happen. All that matters to Evangelicals is what Santa Trump can deliver to them. Now that Evangelical churches are overrun by white Christian Nationalist pastors and congregants, all that matters to them is turning the United States into a Christian nation. All that matters is enacting and enforcing the Evangelical version of Sharia Law. All that matters is returning America to the glory days of the 1950s. You know the days when Christianity was the de facto religion of most Americans, women were barefoot, pregnant keepers of the home, Blacks knew their place and lived in segregated communities, LGBTQ people were buried deeply in dark, dank closets, children read the Bible and prayed in public schools, and abortion, birth control, divorce, miscegenation, shacking up, adultery, and homosexuality were illegal. In other words, most Evangelicals want to roll back over a hundred years of social progress, going back to when stupid, silly women were given the constitutional right to vote.

A Trump win in November will be the end of American democracy, as we know it. We must not let this happen. I am no fan of Joe Biden, but I recognize that Trump is an existential threat to me, my family, and the American people, so I plan to vote for Biden. I will hold my nose and stifle the urge to vomit, knowing that Biden is the only man who can save our Republic from the white Christian National horde.

CPAC: The Home of Christian Nationalists, Racists, Bigots, and Donald Trump

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
trump idol worship

By Abby Zimet, Used with Permission From Common Dreams

CPAC is back! Weirder, shriller, fringier, more paranoid than ever, with many empty seats but God allegedly still on the side of the cranks and zealots. Cue vapid, vicious, fear-mongering goons who, now saying the ugly part aloud, bray about evil trans people, stampeding “aliens,” looming communists and pet-marrying while heralding Christian nationalism, “cool” dictators, the “Bible Uncancelled” and the glad “end of democracy.” A republic if you can keep it: Welcome to today’s forsaken, brutish GOP. 

Of course CPAC 2024, in all its shabby lunacy, reflects the increasingly rabid party – Free J6! – from which it sprang. Once a marquee conservative event that drew top GOP lawmakers and presidential contenders, it’s become an “emptier, jankier, lower-rent” affair by a party lunging ever further into the wingnut galaxy, its hapless denizens endlessly spouting stupid, awful things. Klan Mom MTG: Judge Arthur Engeron should be “disrobed” for undervaluing Mar-A-Hellhole. Trump lackey: His overlord’s “Never Surrender High-Tops” will get him black votes because “Black America loves sneakers, especially in the inner city.” DeSantis: Their V.P. should be a white man because “we don’t want people representing 10 or 15% of the party to be in the driver’s seat.” Tommy Tuberville: “These socialists and Marxists (want) to control our children” like Hillary’s “it takes a village” because “she doesn’t like your home (and) she wants to indoctrinate your children”; also, the government “has become the father, they hate Christianity, they are going to come after you.” 

The creepy avatar for this assemblage of “craven rodeo clowns” is House Speaker Mike Johnson, a smarmy, doe-eyed,  coup-plotting, Christian fundamentalist who’s spent his career working for hate groups, arguing deviant” homosexuals will destroy democracy, same-sex marriage is like people marrying their pets, and abortion is the killing of both “unborn children” and potential “able-bodied workers in the economy.” Boasting the Bible is “my worldview,” he took his then-13-year-old daughter to a Purity Ball where she pledged to him and God her “purity of mind, body and soul,” he promotes a “Covenant Eyes” app that allows him and his 17-year-old son/ “accountability partner” to monitor each other’s porn habits – clean slates all around! – and before he became Speaker God began waking him at night to prepare him to serve as Moses leading the nation through a “Red Sea moment…The Lord impressed upon my heart something was going to occur.” And it was: The House was in such chaos they chose a backbench demagogue who thought governance meant saving America from heathens.

Evidently, it doesn’t. Teetering with a bare majority and boisterous hard-right clique, having lost another special election, seen its fake Biden impeachment implode and failed to address not just a looming shutdown but in fact anything at all, the bumbling House threw a dim-witted Hail Mary and decided to impeach Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas – a move widely derided as “ridiculous” – for failing to fix the border after they sabotaged a bi-partisan bill to fix the border. Then they holed up at a Miami resort to lick their wounds at a leadership retreat where, rather than giving them leadership, Johnson gave them a sermon complete with Biblical references about America’s ungodly moral decline, which made lawmakers worried about keeping their jobs grumble they were “not at church” and what the hell? Meanwhile, with the GOP’s SCOTUS-facilitated war on women, IVF, and even “recreational sex” in full swing, Johnson fudges on his past (and future?) efforts to go after contraception – “I really don’t remember any of those measures” – and lurches ahead crafting the patriarchal theocracy of his dreams.

In that he’s in step with The Big Orange Guy, who says once in power he’ll create a task force to fight imaginary “anti-Christian bias” by “Marxists and fascists” (FYI not the same); he’s also plotting with a right-wing think tank whose mission is to re-define America as “a nation under God,” with a mandate declaring, “Freedom is defined by God, not man.” In pursuit of Gilead – and because last month his PAC raised $8,508 as he spent $3.9 million, mostly on lawyers – he just spoke to a gathering of evangelical broadcasters while hawking gold IRAs “to protect your retirement from D.C.’s policies” and Ivermectin: “Make Care Great Again.” He decried Dems murdering babies, “taking away knocker fields from children” and creating “dirty roads, crime, graffiti, swastickers.” He also boasted “everybody on both sides” agrees Roe had to go, he’s beating Haley by 91 points, “Israel is the capital of Israel,” and “you’re going to say as you want (and) believe in God” through “the love of Christ and the voices of famed…evangell…lllical….people and…eee-vangelis.” Ok, so he can’t say evangelical, but sure he’s your guy.

Big Awful Guy’s implausible fervor was dutifully, garishly replicated atCPAC, held at the fantastically named Gaylord Convention Center outside D.C., where his and God’s faithful touted “the greatest nation in all the world,” except for, you know, the swastickers. Amidst red, white and blue everything and pounding bad music, the meager crowd drifted through a half-empty exhibit hall offering a Jan. 6-themed pinball game, a vibrating board to stand on to magically lose weight, an 18th-century-style booth likening Biden to King George lll, and a mountain of tawdry MAGA merch: “Woke Tears” water – “identifies as transparent” – rhinestone hats blaring “I Love Jesus” and “Fuck Biden,” Trump shirts, hammocks, bobbleheads, sparkly gun-shaped purses. Sponsors were fewer and tackier: Moms For America, many groups with the word “liberty,” Newsmax with ads shouting “you don’t need those woke streaming services,” and now they’re letting their fascist flag fly proudly, the previously banished John Birch Society. Streaming was by the insurrectionist-favored Rumble; links often didn’t work, but went to a donation page.

Attendance was much sparser than previously, down from around 13,000 to the hundreds; when photos emerged of speakers facing a sea of empty seats, a right-wing site wailed, “What an embarrassment.” Country singer Natasha Owens sang the national anthem in a huge black dress declaring“2nd Amendment Protects the First,” and a banner trumpeted the new theme, tweaked from the unfortunately DeSantis-themed “woke” shtick: “Where Globalism (WHO and the UN) Goes To Die.” Speakers were mostly not totalitarian BA-listers: The mayor of Riverton, Utah, an Oklahoma rep, the head of CPAC Australia, Peter Navarro who’s headed to jail, a “businessman” who like everyone railed against transgender health care: “Woke doctors should be in prison.” But there were several big shots: Stephen ‘Goebbels’ Miller, Mike ‘Pillow’ Lindell, Disgrace to All Brain Surgeons Ben Carson, the new authoritarian presidents of Argentina and El Salvador, and a ragged array of VP hopefuls – Noem, Vance, Scott, Stefanik, Gabbard, Ramaswamy – all of whom, in a relative universe, Big Guy has called “good” and “solid.”

Welcome speeches were by CPAC’s devout Queen and molesting King, Mercedes and Matt Schlapp. Greeted with limp applause – “Lemme hear you! Wake up!” – Mercedes declaimed, “Be not afraid!” before telling her 17 listeners, “We’re gonna take this country back (from the) leftist propaganda machine.” “You are instruments,” she said. “God has put you here at this time to do this great work that needs to be done…Communism pushes the culture of death, we push the culture of life. You are assembled here in front of God to be the front line in this battle.” Facing multi-million-dollar sexual assault – and now document-shredding – charges by several young men, Matt announced, “This is our time, this is our moment.” Pledging his support for the “unique American who is being persecuted, who is being tortured” by communist “lawfare,” he turned to his sorcerer in the sky: “Lord God, you said that if we trust in you we will mount up with wings like eagles. Well, God, we’re ready to soar.” Like many, Tik Toker Incrediberry is dubious in a country where, in an election between Jesus and Satan with an “R” by his name, “Jesus would lose in a landslide.”

Still, they gathered for workshops titled The Bible Uncancelled, No Woke Warriors, God’s Children Are Not For Sale, Bidenomics: Bad For America’s Health, Would Moses Go to Harvard?, Putting Our Heads in the Gas Stove, Ramaswamy Unplugged, Going Full Hungarian: Stopping Georgey (sic) Soros, From Gaza to Greenwich Village: A Guide to Fighting Contemporary Jew-Hatred, and What You Talkin’ Bout Fani Willis,presented by esteemed legal scholar and Black linguist Jim Jordan. He was also among a host of out-Trumping-Trump speakers – paranoid losers, zealots, liars, a “who’s who of who won’t accept the results of the election” with wildly unintelligible notions and short attention spans – to offer 20-minute rants about an amorphous, all-powerful “left” who control damn near everything, which is why they can’t have nice things. “The left controls big media, big tech, big corporations, big sports, academia, Hollywood, the Senate and White House,” he whined, before bravely adding, “But the left doesn’t control we the people.” 

But we the people, it turns out, often make little sense. Lara Trump said Dems think “you can change your gender like you change your shoes, and that at night she and the other son lead their kids in saying their prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance. Elise Stefanik said Ivy League campuses are “dens of anti-Semitism” where “radical leftist rot (is) destroying the minds of the next generation.” The Daily Wire‘s Michael Knowles, quoting Humpty Dumpty – “the question is which is to be master?” – said trans people reveal the decline of religion and marriage, which is “nothing other than a sign of God’s love.” “Liberals think they’re God, but they can’t really turn a couple of men, or a couple of women, or three men and a billy goat for that matter into a marriage.” Former Trump something Monica Crowley warned patriots to beware an upcoming “CATFIGHT: Michelle v. Kamala” – it was a workshop – because “Democrats (are) communists, and communists always have a plan…The left has a host group of power brokers working with the deep state, which is real.” 

Kristi Noem said right now “there are people who love America and there are those who hate America” and “Joe Biden is destroying America.” Stephen Miller said Trump’s legal cases “are proof big broad laws will be used to crush us.” Kurt Schlichter said “Joe Biden is the capo of a criminal organization.” The U.K.’s Liz Truss said “we need a bigger bazooka against the deep state” after Joe Biden helped destroy her 7-week reign; nobody knew who she was, but one guy thought her speech was “on the same parallel” as U.S. politics. El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, “the world’s coolest dictator,” who’s detained 80,000 people in his.war on gangs, said he welcomes the fight against “dark forces” in America. And conspiracist Jack Posobiec said when liberals “say democracy, they mean authoritarianism.” “Welcome to the end of democracy! We’re here to overthrow it completely,” he crowed. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we’ll endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” Going full clerical fascist, he clutched a cross. “Because all glory is not to government. All glory to God.” 

Meanwhile, Orange Jesus keeps jabbering. On Friday, he told a Black Conservative Gala his criming makes him just like them: “I got indicted and a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me.” At CPAC on Saturday, after a tinny national anthem by Jan. 6 rioters on a prison phone, he launched into a garbled, bilious, endless tirade, spewing apocalyptic visions of a fever-dream country and “Judgment Day” that will be “my ultimate and absolute revenge.” He said “millions of illegal aliens (are) stampeding across our border” from insane asylums like Hannibal Lecter and “they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of – it’s a very horrible thing.” He said “ruthless gangs will explode (into) the suburbs” and while “weaponized law enforcement hunts for conservatives and people of faith, Hamas and Antifa will terrorize our streets (with) their brutal iDEEEo-ology.” He said he’s “a proud political dissident,” Biden is “surrounded by some very bad fascists,” he flew into Iraq with “the best-looking human beings I’ve ever seen” and maybe a guy named “Raisin Cane,” and “they’ll say ‘he rambled'” but “it’s total genius.” Sweet Jesus. Be afraid.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce’s Hot Takes for February 11, 2024

Bruce Gerencser 13 Comments
hot takes

The Forty-Niners will beat the Chiefs by three in the Super Bowl. Right-wingers will go nuts over Taylor Swift, and the halftime show will suck.

We need term limits based on age. Neither Biden nor Trump should be running for president. Both show signs of mental decline. I support an age seventy cutoff.

Biden isn’t the first president to be managed by his spouse, cabinet members, or trusted advisors. Ronald Reagan, by Nancy, and George W. Bush, by Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld, come to mind.

Biden’s unwillingness to speak out against Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians may cost him the election in November. I suspect Biden is more worried about losing more Jewish votes than Arab votes. What should matter is the violence and bloodshed. That it doesn’t says a lot about the American people and their political leaders.

Evangelicalism is in an uproar over whether Christians should attend a same-sex/transgender wedding, revealing the hateful bigotry that lies underneath the surface in many churches. Jesus said, “It’s just a fucking wedding.” Alistair Begg said Christians should attend LGBTQ weddings. He was promptly deplatformed by John MacArthur and other notable Evangelical leaders.

Our NATO allies should pay their fair share of mutual defense costs — a minimum of two percent. The question is what do we do when they don’t? Let Russia attack them, as the orange Cheeto said?

If Texas wants to protect their border so bad, Biden should let them, removing all border patrol agents and federal national guard soldiers from the border.

I’m re-reading James Michener’s book, Chesapeake. I last read it forty-four years ago. I’m a Michener fan, but his books tend to voluminous. It will take me several weeks to read the book.,

Catchers and pitchers for the Cincinnati Reds begin spring training this week. I’m so ready for baseball. I predict the Reds will win the Central Division. Hope springs eternal. 🤣

Warning about using your cellphone number for two factor authentication. Change your phone number and you are screwed — as I’m learning firsthand.

Bonus: Corporations continue to make gaudy profits by gouging the American public — raising prices just because they can, regardless of whether costs have increased. Thieves, the lot of them. This is the primary reason most Americans think the economy is in bad shape. All they see is rising prices.

If Joe Biden Loses the 2024 Presidential Election, This Will Be One of The Reasons Why

Bruce Gerencser 11 Comments
genocide joe biden

Israel continues its genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli armed forces and bombs have killed over 25, 000 Palestinians — most of whom are civilians. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Andrew Blinken, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continue to pretend that Israel’s murderous actions are justified; that Israel is just defending itself.

Now it seems that President Biden and his fellow warmongers want to expand the conflict in the Middle East to Yemen and the Houthis — both of whom are proxies for Iran. It would not surprise me to wake up one day and find out that the United States has dropped bombs not only on the Houthis, but Iran itself. This, of course, would spark a regional war that could result in thousands of casualties and horrific property and infrastructure destruction. Successive administrations had a hard-on for Iran, going back to the days when George H.W. Bush illegally invaded Iraq and Kuwait in the Gulf War. Biden’s approach to the Middle East is not that much different from that of the presidents who preceded him. Unwilling to stand up to Israel and its American supporters, Biden refuses to call out Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. From illegal settlements, apartheid practices, and violence against innocent civilians, Biden says not a word, thinking that doing so is in his political best interest. What Biden will learn on election day is that he grossly underestimated American anger towards his callous, indifferent response to the plight of the Palestinian people. These angry Americans, many of whom are younger adults, vote. Biden’s actions have also outraged Arab-Americans, leading some Arab leaders to suggest that Biden risks losing their votes if he doesn’t change course.

Over the weekend, Representative Nancy Pelosi only made matters worse by saying that pro-Palestinian demonstrators were working on behalf of Russia’s president, Vladamir Putin, and called for some of them to be “investigated” by the FBI:

For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.

When asked if she believed the protesters were “Russian plants,” Pelosi replied:

Seeds or plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.

After being called out for her anti-American, anti-First Amendment sentiments, Pelosi, in classic Capitol Hill fashion tried to cover her ass by releasing the following statement:

Speaker Pelosi has always supported and defended the right of all Americans to make their views known through peaceful protest. Speaker Pelosi is acutely aware of how foreign adversaries meddle in American politics to sow division and impact our elections, and she wants to see further investigation ahead of the 2024 election.

I hate to tell the former speaker of the House, but her bare ass is still showing. Suggesting that protesters of any stripe should be investigated by the FBI is reminiscent of the days of Edgar Hoover and Donald Trump’s presidency from 2016-2020; days when law enforcement and the power of the state were used to stifle dissent and protest.

Nihad Awad, The Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director, condemned Rep. Pelosi’s statement:

Her comments once again show the negative impact of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by those supporting Israeli apartheid. Instead of baselessly smearing those Americans as Russian collaborators, former House Speaker Pelosi and other political leaders should respect the will of the American people by calling for an end to the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza.

While losing the Arab vote — less than one percent of Americans are Arab — alone won’t cost Biden the election, added to an increasing number of disaffected younger Americans, it could tip the election in favor of the Republican Party. Biden has time to course correct, but I have no confidence that he will do so, or if he does, it will be too little too late, much like Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 presidential election.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.