Billy Graham, 1951, when he was still Associated with the Sword of the Lord
Many people have noticed the worst they’ve ever been treated is by people who claim to love the Lord. These same people notice that those who profess to be atheists appear to be much kinder than Christians.
The Bible says the world shall know us by our fruit, but what happens when that fruit isn’t blooming?
One reader had a similar question for evangelist Billy Graham.
The reader asks: “The kindest person I know is my atheist friend who has no use for God. On the other hand, some of the most difficult and unpleasant people I know say they are Christians. How do you explain this?”
Wise as always, Graham answered:
Not every Christian is like this, of course—but admittedly some are, although they shouldn’t be. And not every atheist is like this either, of course—but some are, and in a world that’s often cruel and thoughtless, we ought to be thankful for every act of kindness.
Why is your atheist friend like this? By God’s grace, some people simply have been blessed with a sunny and kind personality, or they had parents who taught them to be kind. Perhaps this was her situation. But I do know this: Your friend isn’t this way because of her atheism, but in spite of it. A person who doesn’t believe in God has little reason to behave sacrificially toward others (although it may make them feel good inside if they are kind).
I also know this: If your friend ever opens her heart and life to Jesus Christ, she’ll become an even kinder and more loving person than she is right now. God will come to live within her by His Holy Spirit, and her life will begin to change. The Bible says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faith, meekness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).
Don’t let the bad example of a few weak Christians keep you from Christ. Instead, by faith commit your life to Jesus Christ and ask Him to change you into the person He wants you to be. Then pray for your friend, and ask God to make you an example to her of Christ’s life-changing power and love.
Today I got pingback from an atheist who takes pleasure in maligning believers in Jesus Christ. Here is a quick bio of Bruce which he put public.
Copy and paste from his site
Bruce Gerencser, 59
Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for 25 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.
The question that enters my mind is why do atheists hate Jesus so much as to go out of their way to attack Him and try to desperately prove that He is false? I think that the answer is because deep down in their spirit/heart they know that the Word of God is true and judgment will come to them but they want to feel better about their sin and rejection of Christ so by trying to disprove Christianity, they are trying to convince themselves, listen closely, “they are trying” to convince themselves of their own lie which Satan has whispered into their ears so that they can’t get saved. When a person is not in any perceivable danger, they won’t call for help and Satan is successful at convincing these atheists that they are not in danger.
The evidence that God exists is so overwhelming that the only way to go against pure evidence is by reprogramming their thoughts to completely bypass logic and reason.
Bruce Gerencser is a sad case of what an apostate is and the reality is that those who are not grounded in the faith will get hit hard by the devil who’s [sic] eyes are constantly on the believers. Saying that, I believe according to 1 John 2:19 that Bruce was never saved but was close and those without the Holy Spirit cannot stand against the pounding of the wind and waves of the enemy according to Matthew 7:26-27 which says, “26 And every one who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them will be likened to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it fell. And its fall was great.”
Why have I mentioned this atheist by name? It is because I want all Christians to bring Bruce Gerencser’s name before the Lord for his salvation because the hell that’s waiting for him and all those who believe Satan’s lie is truly and unfathomably horrific.
Where oh where do I begin?
First, I don’t hate Jesus. Hating the DEAD Jesus would be a colossal waste of time. What I do hate is the Fundamentalist ideology advanced by this author and others of his ilk. (Please see Why I Hate Jesus) Do I hate individual Evangelicals for doing so? I’m tempted to do so, but I am not the type of person who hates people. I focus my hatred on beliefs, not believers. To use the Evangelical mantra: hate the sin, not the sinner, I hate the belief, not the believer.
Second, I don’t hate the Word of God — the Bible. I do, however, hate what is done using Biblical justification. The author appeals to the Bible to justify his judgments of my past and present life. Doing so allows him to escape responsibility for his behavior. I’m just quoting what G-O-D says! Don’t like it, take it up with Him! I would take it up with the Big Kahuna, but he is nowhere to be found. Last I heard, he was on vacation. Since God is AWOL, all I am left with is Evangelicals quoting verses from a book that is very much of human origin. The only reason I bother with such people is that they believe that the Bible is some sort of supernatural book given to them by a supernatural God and that its words must be explicitly obeyed. Again, look at what’s happening in Washington D.C. with the Supreme Court and Congress. In fox-in-the-hen-house fashion, the theocrats have breached the fence and now the future of our democracy is being threatened. The only way I know to combat such ignorance is to wage war against the notion that the Bible is in any way a divinely written book; that its words are in any way applicable to today. As long as Evangelicals continue to demand fealty to their God and the Bible, they can expect me and other outspoken atheists to marginalize, denigrate, and intellectually destroy the Bible. Until Evangelicals are freed from Bible Brain Rot®, atheists, agnostics, humanists, and progressive Christians must continue to lay an ax to the foundation of Fundamentalist Christianity.
Third, the clueless author shows he has little understanding of atheists — how they think and view the world. We don’t deep down believe or not believe anything. Can someone tell me where the hell is “deep down”? I’ve spent all day digging and I still can’t find it. Atheists do not see any compelling evidence to warrant a belief in the existence of the Evangelical God. Suggesting that the Bible provides such evidence is laughable. (As well, suggesting that the natural world provides such overwhelming evidence that atheists are forced to deliberately ignore it is ludicrous.) Even Evangelicals don’t believe in the Bible God. Whenever I confront Evangelicals with the Bible God — actually a plurality of Bible Gods — they either try to distance themselves from said God or say that I am “misinterpreting” the Bible — misinterpreting, of course, meaning, having an interpretation different from theirs.
Fourth, the notion of “sin” is a religious construct. As an atheist, I don’t believe people are sinners, depraved, evil, or wicked. All of us have the power to do good or bad things. When I do something that hurts someone, I do my best to make things right. No need to pray to a fictitious God and ask for his forgiveness. The only person I need to talk to is the person I have harmed. The humanist system of forgiveness and restitution is much easier and more straightforward. No commands against porn or looking at women and admiring their beauty. No obsession over sex, fornication, or masturbation. Humans are sexual beings. Atheists and other non-Evangelicals are free to embrace their sexuality without fearing a voyeuristic God will judge them for loving the wrong person or using the wrong orifice for sex. Here’s hoping that the author of the post on Spiritual Minefield will one day embrace his sexuality and lustfully enjoy the pleasures that are at his disposal. Until then, let me remind him that what consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of his business. If Evangelicals want to practice “Biblical” sex, by all means do so. But, please let the rest of us masturbate and copulate in peace.
Fifth, I fear what the Republican Party might do far more than I do a nonexistent God. God has neither talked to me or laid a finger on me in almost sixty-five years. I have zero fear of him. I do, however, fear what people who believe God talks to them might do. I do fear that the Trumpist horde might usher in World War III. I fear what real flesh and blood people might do, not mythical Gods, be they Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, or any of the other Gods of human creation.
Sixth, atheists bypass logic and reason? Really? I have no words for this one. The author believes the earth is 6,026 years old; that God created the universe in six literal 24 hour days; that Adam and Eve are the father and mother of the human race; that God destroyed the world with a flood 4,000 years ago, killing every person save Noah and his family; that a Holy Ghost impregnated a virgin who gave birth to a baby who, as an adult, walked on water, healed the deaf, blind, and sick, walked through walls, made himself invisible, resurrected from the dead, and ascended into “heaven.” Anyone who believes this kind of nonsense is the one lacking logic and reason.
Seventh, I am quite happy to be an apostate, a worker of Satan, a deceiver of immature Christians. By all means, keep praying for me. Every unanswered prayer is a reminder that the heavens are devoid of Gods and that what really matters is how we make life on this planet better for all. Part of making life better is the driving of a stake through the heart of religious Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism — in all its forms — remains the biggest threat to human and planetary existence. The ascension of Trumpism and Qanon are poignant reminders that people of reason, science, and progress must continue to push back against those who desire to chain us to the Bible and its God. It’s the twenty-first century. It’s high time we remand God to the dustbin of human history; the depository of countless other failed mythical Gods and their “divine” texts. Until this happens, the Internet will be littered with ignorant posts about sex and every other human behavior deemed sinful by Fundamentalist Christians.
Now, get out there and do some sinning!
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.
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18
Fornication is defined as a man and a woman sleeping together before marriage. This sin is condemned throughout the Bible, especially in the New Testament. We are all sinners, but not all sin is equal. The Bible teaches that fornication is so serious that it can get you thrown out of the church.
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If you are saved and sleeping with someone you aren’t married to, you need to repent of that sin. If you are living together, and you’re not married, then you are living in sin. If you plan to keep coming to church, your options are to get married or stop living together.
The Bible teaches that we should only have physical relations within marriage, so if you aren’t married yet, you need to deny that ungodly lust and wait until you get married to enjoy the benefits of marriage. If you aren’t ready to marry the person you are dating, then you shouldn’t be sleeping together. Have some self-control and respect for your body!
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People who commit fornication for the first time often do not end up marrying that person but go on to be with person after person. Our bodies were not designed to exchange bacteria with hundreds of different people. In fact, there are infections people can get that are not considered STDs per say but are virtually unheard of in people who got married as virgins and have had only one partner. I realize that people die and their spouse can remarry, but sleeping with more than a few people in your lifetime is very unhealthy. In fact, the Bible calls it filthy.
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So many women today are in relationships where they would like to get married, but the guy won’t marry them. These jerks need to do the right thing, but the women are also to blame. Unfortunately, the old adage still holds true: Why buy the cow if you can get the milk free?
— Steven Anderson, Faithful Word Baptist Church, Flee Fornication, January 16, 2017
Note
All of us, virtually every moment of every day, exchange bacteria, viruses, dead skin, feces, urine, dirt, buggers…..shall I go on?….with hundreds of different people. The very act of breathing exposes us to countless bacteria and viruses. I wonder if Anderson is aware of the fact that he has likely been exposed to “atheist” bacteria, even without having carnal relations with atheists.
I don’t believe that there are any true atheists – men who are born without any awareness of the existence of God and who involuntarily sustain that absence of awareness of God throughout their lives. There are only pretenders who, for moral rather than intellectual reasons, profess to be atheists; usually they have the intellect and the vocabulary to verbalise [sic] and record their positions better than most people are able to. It is for this reason than many noted philosophers have professed atheism.
Lesser men, like Mark Wignall, who profess to be atheists, come off looking silly, for we can readily see through their pretence.
In the case of Mark Wignall, his profession of atheism on the pages of this newspaper is a pathetic attempt to serve nonsense on a platter of mawkishness. I will spend no time on his last effort. I will only say this – he should stick to what he does best: ferreting out the machinations of the two political parties and displaying his schoolboy fascination with sex.
The confession of many who profess atheism goes something like this: ‘I once believed there was a God. I went to church as a child, then later something happened, some injustice – to me or in the world – and I asked how could a good God let this happen? And so I no longer believe in the existence of God.’ This confession indicates the existence of God, for those who confess that they once believed in the existence of God, but no longer do so, admit the existence of God.
If there is no God, how at one time did they believe he existed? To say I once believed God exists but no longer do so, says nothing about God, but says something about me.
Where did professing atheists, like all other men, get the knowledge that there was a God whose existence they later came to deny? From God himself who created every man with a knowledge of his existence, however nebulous or precise that knowledge is.
GOD EXISTS
Romans 1 at verse 19: “Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” And verse 20: “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” This says that imprinted on man’s consciousness and displayed in the created order is the evidence of the existence of God.
This is why the above verse say men are without excuse. It is this knowledge which men, for one reason or another, seek to suppress and deny by claiming that God doesn’t exist. They do so usually because they can’t reconcile the innate knowledge of a just, holy and righteous God with Him allegedly doing certain things or permitting certain things to happen. It even goes beyond that. They made God in their image and what they see contradict that image.
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It’s the same with men today who profess that there is no God – they are fighting against what they know in their heart to be true.
David declared in Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” There have always been men who have denied the existence of that supreme being whom we acknowledge as Creator and Lord of all. Not only have those who are opposed to religion made such claims, but today men of religion, self-styled theologians, are also saying that God does not really exist except in the minds of those who think He does. Yet, they themselves offer no demonstration or proof for their allegations besides their own philosophy and reasoning. We ought to have more objective evidence one way or the other. Is there any? Yes there is.
First, we have the existence of the universe to contend with. To deny it exists is absurd (although some have tried it) because our own senses indicate it is here. The immediate question that comes to mind is, how did it get here? There is a scientific axiom, called cause-effect, which states that something cannot come from nothing; every effect must have an adequate cause. Christians believe that God was the First Cause. Moses wrote, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). No more reasonable explanation has ever been offered.
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Next, there is the design of the earth to be reckoned with. Our wonderful world, with the perfect timing of its revolution around the sun and rotation on its axis, the water-evaporation-condensation cycle, the movement of the winds from the equator and back, and the ocean currents, runs like one giant piece of clockwork. Now we all understand that a well-constructed house does not just spring up out of the ground. Nor does a watch, with all its minute organization, gather itself together from sundry bits and pieces. Why is it then that some try to tell us that the earth, in all its beauty and precision, is the result of blind chance?
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Finally, the nature of man is worthy of notice. It is impossible to deny that man has certain capacities which animals do not. For instance, man has a conscience that helps him determine right from wrong; he can appreciate that which he considers beautiful; and he is rational, having the power to reason and communicate logically. Although animals do have powerful instincts, they do not have these characteristics. So we ask, where did man get them? Science cannot even explain where man came from, much less how he became superior to the animals. If evolution were true, man could not have inherited these qualities from his supposed animal ancestors because they did not have them to pass on; Nor does the environment provide an adequate source as some have hypothesized. The only reasonable answer offered so far is the one that includes God.
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We believers need never be daunted by the onslaughts of modern, atheistic philosophy, because evidence for the existence of God is there and it is sufficient. We must also remember that when a person makes the claim, “There is no God,” he is obligated to prove it, and that is something he cannot do. It is self evident that God is invisible from human sight. We cannot see God or hear God (Jn 1:18 cf; 5:37), but we do have His Word which has been proven to have derived from someone who has to be at least 5 thousand years or more. Since no man has ever lived to be so old, this leaves us with only one conclusion_it must be God.
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Therefore, if man believes God’s Word proceeded from God, then man will believe in God….Naturally, if man does not believe the bible derived from God, he will not believe in God’s existence. It’s just that simple.
— Al Shannon, Biblical Proof, Does God Exist?, January 15, 2017
I recently had the privilege of appearing via Skype on The Corpsepaint Show. Hosted by Satan, The Corpsepaint Show primarily covers the heavy metal music scene, so I can easily understand them wanting to interview a metalhead such as myself. (You should be laughing right now.)
I had a delightful time speaking with Satan. What follows is the audio of the interview. If you want to view the video, please go to The Corpsepaint Show’s website and click on the December 25, 2016 video.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I will be on The Corpsepaint Show Christmas Day, 7:30 P.M. CST (8:30 P.M. EST). You can listen to the show live via The Corpsepaint Show’s On Air LIVE stream. (Link no longer active. Here’s a link to their Facebook page.) The program will also be available to listen to later. I will update this post when the program is available.
When someone we love dies, it can intensely undermine our sense of stability and safety. Our lives have been changed forever, generally by forces we had no control over—and it can feel as if nothing’s in our control. It can feel like the ground under our feet, which we once thought was stable, has suddenly gone soft. Our sense of being able to act in the world, and of having some reasonable expectation of what the consequences will be, can be deeply shaken.
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This feeling can be especially strong if the person who died was someone we were exceptionally close with and who had a large presence in our everyday lives, like a spouse or a partner or a child. It can be especially strong if they were someone we knew for all or most of our lives, like a parent or a sibling. And it can be especially strong if the death was unexpected, like an accident, a sudden illness, or death by violence.
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Typically, religion teaches us to cope with these feelings by denying them. It tells us that, no matter how insecure we may feel, in reality we’re completely safe. The people who have died aren’t really dead—we’ll see them again. Their death hasn’t actually changed our lives permanently. In fact, the next time we see them it’ll be in a blissful place of perfect safety. (There are exceptions—many Buddhist teachings, for instance, focus on the inherent impermanence of existence.)
The opposite is true for nonreligious and nonspiritual views of death. Nonbelievers don’t deny this experience of instability. So instead we can try to accept it, and find ways to live with it.
The reality is that safety isn’t an either/or thing. We’re never either entirely safe or entirely unsafe. The ground under our feet is never either totally solid or totally soft. Stability and safety are relative: they’re on a spectrum. We’re more safe, or less safe.
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Coping with grief and moving on with it doesn’t mean that the ground feels entirely solid again. It means that the ground feels more solid. It means we feel more able to make plans, more trusting that our actions will have consequences that are more or less what we’d expect. We still understand that things can come out of left field—terrible things, and wonderful ones. We can go ahead and make plans; and make contingency plans in case those plans don’t work out; and do risk-benefit analysis about possible actions and possible outcomes; and accept the fact that a sudden wind could rise up and radically change everything.
There’s no such thing as perfect safety. That can be difficult to accept. But it can also be a relief. Imagine an existence where there are no surprises, where everything happens exactly as you expect. It would be tedious to the point of derangement. It would be sterile. It would be isolating.
When we let go of the search for perfect safety, it can be frightening and upsetting. But it can also be comforting. Letting go of the struggle for something that can’t be attained, and letting go of the guilt or resentment when we don’t attain it, can be a relief. It can even be liberating.
The fear that grief can bring on, the anxiety about an unstable, unpredictable world, is still frightening. And none of this philosophy makes that pain or fear go away. But it may make that fear more manageable, less overwhelming, and easier to accept.
“Tis the season for Christians to be upset over things that they feel profane the “true” meaning of Christmas — the birth of Jesus Christ. A recent scuffle in Boca Raton is case in point. CBS News reports:
A 300-pound metal sculpture of a satanic pentagram, erected as an atheist protest to a public park’s Nativity scene, was severely damaged on Tuesday when it was pulled to the ground by vandals.
Atheist Preston Smith’s 10-foot tall sculpture lay broken in Sanborn Square at noon. Tire tracks led from the twisted metal to the street.
It appeared vandals had attached a chain from a vehicle to the sculpture and yanked it down, dragging it several feet. As local television reporters prepared live broadcasts, two passersby stopped and pushed the sculpture back onto its base before walking away.
The sculpture sits about 20 feet from a traditional Nativity scene of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, and is backed by a banner from an atheist group reading “Keep Saturn in Saturnalias,” a reference to the belief that the early Christian church substituted Christmas for a Roman pagan holiday.
It is the latest Florida protest against manger scenes on public property, mirroring earlier battles inside the state capitol in Tallahassee.
Boca Raton police officer Sandra Boonenberg said the overnight strike was the third attack on Smith’s sculpture and its explanatory banner since he erected the display earlier this month. Someone painted the once-red sculpture black on Monday. Earlier, someone damaged the banner. Detectives are investigating.
Smith, a middle school English teacher, said that as an atheist, he does not believe in God nor Satan, but is using a symbol often associated with devil worship to highlight his belief that religious displays have no place on public property, because they make non-believers “feel like second-class citizens.”
“We are here to call out Christian hypocrisy and theistic bias in taxpayer-funded public arenas while advocating for the separation of church and state,” he told The Associated Press Monday night, before the latest act of vandalism. “Our ultimate goal is to return the government to its viewpoint neutral stance so that when an atheist takes a stroll through the park we aren’t assaulted by Bronze Age mythology.”
He could not be immediately reached Tuesday, but called the earlier acts of vandalism “examples of mob mentality toward minority faiths.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government agencies can allow religious displays on public property, but if they do, they cannot discriminate. Both the Nativity scene and the Pentagram were installed with city permits.
A group of local religious leaders — 14 ministers, two rabbis and the president of the local mosque — placed a banner next to Smith’s sculpture criticizing its placement.
“The use of satanic symbols is offensive and harmful to our community’s well-being,” the banner reads. “We find it a shameful and hypocritical way to advocate for freedom from religion.”
The city issued a statement saying that while it respects Smith’s free-speech rights, it doesn’t support his message.
“In years past, the seasonal, religious displays in Sanborn Square have contained messages projecting the themes of peace, forgiveness and harmony,” it said. “This display appears to be more about shock value, attention and challenging our commitment to constitutionally protected free speech rather than promoting goodwill, respect and tolerance during the holiday season.”
Passerby Judy Hill, a retired information technology worker, decried the vandalism but didn’t think Smith should have erected his sculpture next to the Nativity scene.
“I know there is freedom of speech, but there is a time and place for everything,” said Hill, a Methodist. “He just wanted to get publicity and he got it.”
Tina Yeager agreed.
“It is a very precious season and for someone to come and almost make fun of that, to just really negate the time of year, it’s inappropriate,” she told CBS Miami.
In 2013 and 2014, atheists erected protest displays in the Florida capitol after a Christian group placed a manger there. Those displays included a Festivus pole made of beer cans, a depiction of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a mock god popular among non-believers, and one showing an angel falling into flames with the message “Happy Holidays from the Satanic Temple.” The latter was damaged by a vandal.
The quotes in this story reveal what I have known for a long time: that most Christians do not understand the freedom of speech and freedom of religion protections afforded to Americans by the U.S. Constitution. Most Christians wrongly think that their beliefs and practices should be protected from attack, ridicule, and mockery. This is why Christians get upset over things such as secular, atheist, or Satanist Christmas displays. Thinking that Christianity deserves protected, preferential treatment, followers of Jesus expect non-believers to defer to and respect their beliefs and practices. When non-Christians refuse to genuflect before the One True Faith, Christians often become what millennials call “butt hurt.” How dare atheists mock Jesus, Christians say. How dare Satanists put up a sacrilegious display right next to a crèche. How dare you heathens offend the sweet baby Jesus.
In the aforementioned article, a Methodist woman by the name of Judy Hill stated, “I know there is freedom of speech, but there is a time and place for everything.” What Hill really means is that there is a time and place for displays of Christianity — anywhere, any time. Other expressions of faith or godlessness? Only when Christians say it is okay. I wonder if Hill has bothered to consider that perhaps there is a time and place for expressions of Christianity too. Atheists – and indeed, all Americans – live in a culture where Christianity is frequently shoved in their faces everywhere they go. Atheists endure these public displays of Christianity because that’s the price of admission for living in a country that values freedom of religion and speech. If Hill truly wants public discourse regulated by “time and place for everything,” then how about Christians restricting their overt displays of love for Jesus to their homes and houses of worship. If Christians want atheists to stop hurting their feelings, then shouldn’t non-believers received reciprocal treatment? After all, the inerrant words of the sweet baby Jesus say, do unto others as you would have them do unto you!
The faulty premise of Boca Raton Christians is that Christmas is a sacred Christian holiday. It isn’t. Take a drive through any American community and what you’ll primarily find are Christmas light displays celebrating Santa Claus and generic winter holiday scenes. Yes, there will be crèches here and there, but most displays are secular in nature. Based on the evidence at hand, it is clear that Christmas is mostly a secular (capitalistic) holiday. Christians are certainly free, on their own properties and private spaces, to set up displays that scream to all who will listen, JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON! Ironically, most Santa displays are put up by Christians themselves. It seems that it is really only a small percentage of Christians (mostly Evangelicals and other religious conservatives) who think there is some sort War on Christmas® or concerted attacks on religious freedom.
Secularists want governments to strictly enforce the separation of church and state. This means NO sectarian religious endorsement. If government entities are going to have invocations, benedictions, and public displays, they MUST — according to the U.S. Supreme Court — allow non-Christian groups to participate. This is why Satanists put up Christmas displays and humanists give invocations at government meetings. This is also why Satanists and secular groups are helping students to set up after-school meetings.
The goal is to expose hypocrisy and the preferential treatment given to Christianity. If Christians don’t want secular holiday displays next to their crèches, then all they need to do is take down their displays. Don’t want prayers to Satan or Mother Earth at council meetings? Stop having Christian ministers offer prayers to Jesus. Let’s all agree that government meetings and schools are no place for prayers of any kind, and that government property should be free of ANY displays of religion.
The separation of church and state means just that….a walled separation between government and religion. While government officials may freely live according to their religious beliefs, when it comes time to do the work of the people, religion has no part. President John F. Kennedy said it best:
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.
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But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
Christians also need to understand that America is not a Muslim country where freedom of speech is limited, nor do we have religious blasphemy laws as do some European countries. Americans have the right to hold beliefs that others might find silly, stupid, ignorant, profane, or hateful. Some Americans believe that the Moon landing was a hoax, the earth is flat, and the sun revolves around the earth. Other Americans believe that aliens have visited earth, global climate change is a myth, and Caucasians are a superior race. And still others believe the earth is 6,021 years old, the earth was destroyed by a flood 4,000 years ago, and giant angel-human beings once roamed the earth. Throw in Christian beliefs about the virgin birth of Jesus, his miracles and resurrection from the dead – why, if some were so inclined, they could spend their waking hours doing nothing but mocking fantastical, ignorant beliefs.
As long as the U.S. Constitution stands, non-Christians have the freedom to mock, ridicule, and disparage Christian beliefs. They also have the freedom to attack, critique, and discredit such beliefs. While most non-Christians would never violate Christian homes or places of worship (unlike Evangelicals who invade homes to proselytize non-believers), once followers of Jesus engage in public speech (and crèches are public speech) then they should expect their utterances to be challenged. If Christians don’t like people saying things about their beliefs, then they should keep their religion to themselves. As long as Christians continue to demand preferential treatment and attempt to bulldoze the wall of separation of church and state, they should expect pushback from secularists, skeptics, atheists, humanists and those who value freedom of religion and speech.
On February 12, 2012, a man calling himself Preacher started an anonymous blog, How to Fall Down, so he could methodically deconstruct my past and present life. I did a bit of digital snooping, hoping to find out who this Preacher guy was, and it took me all of a few days to discover that it was the one and the only Reverend Tony Breeden. Breeden used to comment on a previous iteration of this blog until I banned him. Breeden’s deconstruction of my life lasted all of one month and thirteen posts.
Four years later, unable to get visions of me naked out of his mind, Breeden has decided to continue his voyeuristic peeking into my closet. While I don’t like his doing so, I know, as a public figure, that I must endure such inquiries into my life, beliefs, and motives. The difference between four years ago and now is that I no longer feel the need to correct those who view my life as a pornographic centerfold while they play with their Bible tool. Readers who have followed along with me over the years know the kind of man I am, as does my friends and family. That’s all that matters.
You can check out Breeden’s latest post here. I hope you will read it.
Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18
I don’t believe that there are any true atheists – men who are born without any awareness of the existence of God and who involuntarily sustain that absence of awareness of God throughout their lives. There are only pretenders who, for moral rather than intellectual reasons, profess to be atheists; usually they have the intellect and the vocabulary to verbalise [sic] and record their positions better than most people are able to. It is for this reason than many noted philosophers have professed atheism.
David declared in Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” There have always been men who have denied the existence of that supreme being whom we acknowledge as Creator and Lord of all. Not only have those who are opposed to religion made such claims, but today men of religion, self-styled theologians, are also saying that God does not really exist except in the minds of those who think He does. Yet, they themselves offer no demonstration or proof for their allegations besides their own philosophy and reasoning. We ought to have more objective evidence one way or the other. Is there any? Yes there is.
