Church by the Glades, Coral Springs, FloridaThis is the one hundred and thirty-first installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is video clip of a woman singing I Put a Spell on You at the Church by the Glades. If I didn’t know this video was shot during an Evangelical church worship service, I never would have guessed it. Church by the Glades, pastored by David Hughes, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
For most of our married life, Jenell and I [Darren Wilson] haven’t had a ton of money, so anytime we were able to bring a dog into our lives, we typically had to go the cheapest route. Humane societies. We liked the idea of saving an animal, and neither of us were interested in training a puppy, so the local pound was it. The only problem, at least in our case, was that every dog we ever got from the pound was in some way “broken.”
Behavior issues up the wazoo, peeing issues, mental issues, you name it, we had it. My wife is fond of saying that I am very good at loving a dog; I’m just very lousy at taking care of a dog. So after years of having to give up dogs we had become attached to, or having to put down dogs who were sick before their time, Jenell finally came to me and said she had had enough. It was too painful. We stunk at taking care of dogs, and she just couldn’t do it anymore.
The only problem with this was the fact that I was still a dog person. I’ve never known life without them. And I really wanted a dog, but a good dog. Unfortunately, my wife was resolute. No way. Never again. And then the ultimate stonewall: “God Himself would have to tell me to get a dog before I’d get another one.”
Years went by, and occasionally I’d bring it up, but it was always a lost cause. No way was she going to budge. So I did the only thing I knew to do: I prayed.
After a few months, my wife and some friends went on a mission trip, and along the way they stayed with a friend of mine who was very prophetic. All week long the others received words from the Lord, but my wife, who has become very healthy and doesn’t chase such things, was content to just abide in Christ. Of course she’d like a prophetic word, but she didn’t need one.
As they were all arriving at the airport to come home, my friend pulled Jenell aside and told her he had a word from the Lord for her. A smile came across her face, a silent thank-you to God for blessing her. Then, He hit her with a sledgehammer.
“Jenell, the Lord said it’s time to get a dog. Darren needs a dog. Your kids need a dog. And He has already picked the perfect one out for you. In fact, this dog will heal your heart.”
Her response was far from elation. “Did Darren put you up to this?”
He assured her he never talked to me, and Jenell contacted me to reluctantly tell me to start researching dogs.
I couldn’t believe it. God, You are amazing. But this time I was determined to do this right. So I researched actual breeders and dog breeds until I found what seemed the perfect dog breed for me: a king cavalier spaniel. The only problem I had was that we only had about $500 we could put toward this mutt, and the little research I was doing showed that purebreds were decidedly more than that, and then you had another $350 in shipping costs. But I believed in the God of the impossible now, so I jumped in with faith.
The first breeder I came across had some awesome dogs, but, man, were they expensive. So I decided to just contact them anyway and ask if they had any old dogs they just wanted to get rid of. It was the best I could hope for. All I told them was that I was a filmmaker looking for a dog. I didn’t mention that what I really wanted was a black and tan male, around 2 years old. And I didn’t mention that I only had $500.
The next morning I awoke to an email from the breeder. The first line shocked me.
“Dear Darren, first of all, we want you to know that we are huge fans of Finger of God.”
She then went on to say that they pray about every dog they place, and when she was praying the night before, the Lord highlighted one of her dogs in particular. His parents were both champion show dogs, and he was a male, 2 years old, with black and tan coloring. She then said that while she was praying God told her something strange. Usually they tithe on every dog they sell, and this particular dog was $1500. But God told her to keep the tithe and give Him the rest, so she asked if I’d be willing to take the dog for $150, plus $350 for shipping, for a total of $500?
I was speechless.
And that’s how Moses came into my life. He was a supernatural gift from God, and he truly did heal my wife’s heart…
Wilson’s God-given dog later ran away. Wilson “tried” to find the dog, eventually giving up. I suppose he thought, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, right?
I regularly write letters to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News. I am one of a handful of liberal/secularist/humanist/atheist letter writers who challenge and rebut the never-ending stream of right-wing drivel that daily appears on the Crescent-News editorial page. Local Christians will often respond to my letters. Five men in particular: Daniel Gray, John Wilson, Larry Tonjes, Randall Peabody, and Richard Mastin have repeatedly over the years responded to my letters. You can read the various responses to my letters here.
I recently wrote a letter to the editor concerning Evangelical support of Donald Trump. You can read my letter here. You can read previous letters to the editor here. In today’s Crescent-News, Daniel Gray responded to my latest letter, Gray, along with Richard Mastin, have gone out of their way to spread lies about me and besmirch my character — all in the name of Jesus, of course. Here is Gray’s response:
It seems Bruce Gerencser is completely ignoring the fact that the person who would be the First Husband has been accused of sexual assault and rape by no less than six women. You want that in the White House?
I find it very amazing that Gerencser would believe any of these women. The latest one is coming forward because Trump refused to loan her money for her failing food business in California, and this is a way to get back at him. The first one claimed to have been groped on a Braniff airline on a 707. Problem is there were no 707s at that time, only 727s, and the arm rest in first class is bolted and cannot be moved. Not to mention that $500,000 was deposited into her account after making the claim and it came from a high ranking Clinton campaign officer. Let’s not forget the $8 million worth of furnishings that Clinton had to return when the Secret Service caught her taking them from the White House.
Let’s not forget that she has used racial slurs against minorities or the Bimbo eruptions and her violation of the federal Anti-nepotism Act of 1968 when she tried to take over health care. The emails that show she is the one that ordered the stand-down of the rescue team for Benghazi and the 600 plus times she ignored ambassador Stevens when he begged for help. Or the simple fact that pay-to-play has been found in the recent Podesta emails.
What’s worse is that Hillary has told Goldman Sachs that her dream is to have a hemisphere-wide NAFTA from Chile to Canada. That would cut the union’s throats and yet they still want to endorse her. Say goodbye to GM and JM.
Isn’t it just strange that Gerencser, and his ilk want the government out of the bedroom, but then turn right around and demand that the government says who can and can’t get married? You can’t have it both ways, either they are not in the bedroom or they are. Mr. Gerencser’s letter is so full of half truths and myths that it would be better to be placed in the fantasy section of the public library.
People should vote for who they want, but just remember you may get what you asked for and there is no way to return it.
The atheist has been unleashed on the world as part of a planned attack on all religions of faith. The specific targets of the atheists are: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. When the man of sin shows up, he will destroy the atheists along with everyone else that does not accept his “pure luciferian” religion.
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To illustrate how ridiculous the atheist argument is, consider this: Take any complex organism, or machine, or anything else in the world that has hundreds (if not thousands of parts) and shake them around in a box for thousands of years, and see what you get when you open the box. Somehow humans “evolved?” Well, great theory, but how? Who set the rules for that evolution? Who designed it all? The entire universe screams at the top of its lungs “RANDOM DOES’NT [sic] WORK HERE.”
Can you imagine how long an engineer would last at any company if they suggested the best way to create something new was to throw all kinds of pieces and parts in a box and shake them around for a long time? That is utterly, completely ridiculous, and its also the argument the atheist uses for the existence of everything we see.”
Atheist “it all “just happened, we don’t know how”
Christian: “oh, so your faith is in “I don’t know.”
Atheist “correct, “I don’t know” explains more than an intelligent designer.”
Christian “ummm, sorry, but I don’t know, explains nothing.”
The atheist worships math and science. Great! So who set the laws that govern math and science? Math and science are based on order, so who set the order? Oh yea, I remember, the order came from “i don’t know.”
The universe that we live in is the evidence that our God exists. All creation is evidence that he exists. The incredible complexity, order, and grandeur of creation is the evidence, but the atheist says that “I don’t know” makes more sense than a creator.
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All creation is evidence for the existence of our God. Atheism explains nothing, so how exactly is that worldview helpful to mankind? The atheist is a spiritually bankrupt person, running around telling other people that somehow they have a superior spiritual view from those of us who believe in a Creator? We have answers for the creation, they have “I don’t know,” which is superior?
The atheist has no “deathblow” arguments for Christianity, which is why they have to setup never ending debates and monologues, write hundreds of books, etc etc etc. If they had some kind of “magic bullet” argument why don’t they just use it and be done with it? Since they have no “magic bullet” they go on, and on, and on, debating, writing, and rehashing the same arguments over and over again.
Here’s another vexing question for the atheist: What happens after you die? Now, can you guess what their answer is to that question? Try hard to guess now…. I DON’T KNOW!….there it is…again…the atheist answer for everything. For people who debate ad nauseum [sic], claiming the wisdom and brilliance of mankind over God, surely they have a better answer to the most important questions in life than “I don’t know?”
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The atheist has much, much, MUCH more faith than any member of Islam, Judaism or Christianity, and their faith is in “I don’t know.” We will see here very soon how far “I don’t know” carries these men, as their world turns upside down on them, chews them up and spits them out. They will cry out to “I don’t know” for help when their hearts are failing them for fear, and “I don’t know” will watch their destruction passively with a grin on its face.
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If the atheists were honestly inquiring in their hearts to determine if our God was real, they would find him. But they ask only to answer their own questions with their predetermined agendas, and their self satisfaction in giving canned answers that other men provided for them. The bible says if we seek him with all of our heart, we will find him. For men who call science and math their gods, I am amazed at how far they ride “I don’t know” when it comes to God.
The atheist’s faith in “I don’t know” is something to be marveled at. Time will soon tell who the wise and the foolish among us are. grace and peace
Years ago, I attended First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) in Bryan,Ohio. Recently, the church asked members to write letters to people, inviting them to church and subtly reminding recipients that their lives are worthless without Jesus and hell awaits if they do not purchase fire insurance.
One of my sons, a practicing Catholic, received one such letter. Here’s what the handwritten letter had to say:
We would like to invite you and your family to First Baptist. Sunday School is @ 9:30. Worship @ 10:30.
More importantly, we invite you to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, if you don’t already.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matthew 16:26
Based on the return name and address on the envelope, I know the letter writer. Why did this person choose to write my son? Does First Baptist really think that this is an effective way to reach people with the gospel?
Perhaps it is time for me to do some writing of my own about my experiences at First Baptist. Several years ago, I attended a funeral at First Baptist. You can read my thoughts about the funeral here. I feel a s-e-r-i-e-s coming on….
I am always amused when theologically educated Evangelicals attempt to defend Biblical inerrancy. Michael Kruger, President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary, recently posted a three-minute video that purports to answer the question, Does the Bible Have Mistakes? Strangely, the blog post Kruger wrote for the video is titled, Does the Bible Make Mistakes? I thought, isn’t the Bible an inanimate object — black ink on paper? Does Kruger believe the Bible itself is an animate object? I know there are Christians who believe that the Bible has mystical, supernatural power, but Kruger, as a Fundamentalist Reformed Christian, surely knows that, according to orthodox Christian doctrine, it is the Holy Spirit that empowers (gives life to) the Biblical text. Not that I believe such a notion is true. I am just stating what Christians have historically believed about the Bible. (I have had countless Evangelicals tell me that now I am an atheist, it is impossible for me to understand the Bible.) [The title has since been changed, As Van noted in the comments, Kruger’s post is now inerrant.]
Kruger begins the video by asserting that the Bible is the Word of God and whatever it affirms is true. According to Kruger, there are no errors, contradictions, or mistakes in the Bible. Yet, he turns right around and says that readers of the Bible must use various literary skills to “properly” understand the text. Once these skills are put to use, the errors, contradictions, and mistakes fall away. In other words, when confronted with obvious mistakes, crack open the approved theology books and all the discrepancies will be explained away.
If someone uninitiated in Evangelical beliefs read the Bible, would they naturally conclude that the Bible is without error; that its teaching are consistent, coherent, and infallible? Of course not. Kruger is right when he mentions that many people who say the Bible has errors haven’t really studied the text. But others have. Former pastors who are now unbelievers certainly have studied the Bible from dedication to concordance. Over the course of 50 years in the Christian church and 25 years in the pastorate, I spent tens of thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible. I read scores of Evangelical (Calvinistic) theological books. Before beginning my studies I would pray and ask God to give me eyes to see and ears to hear the truth. (Many Evangelicals think that the knowledge I gained while studying the Bible magically disappeared when I deconverted.)
What kept me from “seeing” textual errors, mistakes, and contradictions was my presuppositional commitment to the Bible being without error — the Words of God. Since God was perfect, it was impossible for the Bible to be errant. It was only when I set aside my theology-driven presuppositions that I was able to see the Biblical text for what it is — a fallible collection of contradictory texts written by men.
Kruger is an educated man, so I suspect he lives with a good bit of cognitive dissonance. Surely at some level he knows inerrancy is a façade used to portray the Bible as some sort of God-inspired, God-written, supernatural text. Once inside the house of textual criticism, inerrancy is nowhere to be found, a circus mirror meant to entertain and deceive the faithful. Of course, Kruger has a vested interest in maintaining the inerrancy illusion. He’s in the business of training men for the ministry. If these preachers-to-be were told the truth about the Bible, why their home churches would gather up pitchforks and combustible materials and burn Reformed Theological Seminary to the ground, using Kruger as a quick-start fire log.
Thanks to authors such as Bart Ehrman, it is now impossible to intellectually defend Biblical inerrancy. While in many ways, Ehrman doesn’t say anything that hasn’t been known for centuries, his books put complex textual issues in a format laypeople can understand. (You can purchase his books through Bruce’s Little Bookstore of Atheism and Humanism.)
The best antidote for inerrancy is reading Bart Ehrman. It is intellectually impossible for anyone to read several of his books and still believe that the Bible is inerrant. Remember, most Evangelical theologians agree with Ehrman on the evidence. What they disagree with is his conclusions. Sadly, many educated Evangelicals — pastors, theologians, professors — refuse to accept what is clear for all to see: that the Bible is a fallible collection of contradictory texts written by men. In many ways, these defenders of inerrancy are similar to atheist pastors, people who have invested their lives in promoting and defending Evangelicalism. Admitting that what they teach is untrue would quickly and viciously destroy their livelihood. When men have spent their lives pastoring churches or teaching seminary classes, how will they earn a living if they suddenly lose their job? So, Evangelical and atheist pastors alike continue to promote the inerrancy myth, hoping to run out the clock before they are exposed. For some of them, the personal and ethical costs are too high, so they out themselves, causing tremendous heartache and loss.
I was fifty years old when I walked away from Christianity. I can only imagine how difficult it might have been if I had been some sort of high-profile Evangelical who spent his life publicizing far and wide the Christian myth. In my case, I never made a lot of money from pastoring churches, so it was much easier for me to walk away. I had no retirement plan or 401(k) to worry about. I could make just as much money flipping hamburgers as I did preaching. Such is not the case for many pastors, so I understand why some educated Evangelicals continue to preach what they know is not true.
There will always be some educated Evangelicals who refuse to see the facts about the nature of the Biblical text. Regardless of what the evidence says, these defenders of the faith plan to die with their boots on and hands clutched to the inspired, inerrant Holy Bible. All the books to the contrary will not move them. A Fundamentalist worldview forces pastors and professors to believe and preach only what can neatly fit within the Evangelical box. Please see The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You are in it and What I Found When I Left the Box.) This is why countless educated Evangelicals believe the earth is 6,021 years old, that Adam and Eve, Moses, and Noah were real people, and the fantastical stories found in the Bible are really, really, really true. Virgins have babies, dead people come back to life, and sick people are miraculously healed through spoken words. While some of these Evangelicals will see the light (after all, I did), most of them will go to their graves certain in their beliefs. Until they are willing to consider the possibility of being wrong, there really is no hope for them.
After watching the video, please share your thoughts in the comment section. Did Kruger adequately defend inerrancy and give plausible explanations for the mistakes, errors, and contradictions to be interpreted so as to maintain Biblical inerrancy?
This is the one hundred and thirtieth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is video clip of Pam Stenzel trying to scare the sex out of a group of teenagers.
We’ve heard it preached our entire Christian lives, “You are a new creation! Old things have passed away and all things have become new!” But do we really understand what this means?
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Recently God gave me a vision of what happens to us at salvation and it radically altered the way I see myself. I saw the moment God encountered Mary in Luke 1:31-35 telling her she would bear the Christ Child. I saw the person of the Holy Spirit overshadow her. I saw Mary’s DNA and the Holy Spirit’s DNA. I saw them intertwine and become one, creating Jesus in her womb, fully God and fully man.
Then the vision shifted to me. I saw myself at salvation. I saw the Holy Spirit overshadow me and fill me. My body became the temple of the Holy Spirit. I also saw my spirit man’s DNA and the Holy Spirit’s DNA. I saw them intertwine and become one.
I saw the Holy Spirit wrap around my human spirit like two DNA strands coming together as one, just like when the DNA from a father and mother mix together to form a new baby. It looked like the Double Helix. As the Holy Spirit wrapped around my human spirit, they fused together, becoming one and forming a brand new creation. This fusion of Holy Spirit and my human spirit formed Christ in me!
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When you receive Christ as your Savior and the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of you, He actually fuses Himself together with your spirit. You become one with God! You have His divine nature inside of you. You are a brand new creation, with new desires and a new life. Your core identity is completely transformed. Christ’s very nature and identity is now completely formed in your spirit. It’s a glorious transformation! This is why you are holy, righteous and clean!
I have so much more to teach you on this amazing subject. I have just put together a teaching series called Divine DNA—New Creation Reality. I think it’s one of the most important teachings I have ever done. Having divine DNA in your spirit has so many effects on your life as you become transformed in your spirit, soul and body.
Perhaps I should have been prepared for the fact that answers to my many-religions questions were not forthcoming in the Bible. It was, to say the least, disheartening. Instead, I turned to the theology of the faith itself, particularly the book of Hebrews. Hebrews explains how the death of Christ is wed to the Old Testament covenants that involved ritual animal sacrifice. The Jewish people sacrificed animals to appease the wrath of God brought upon them by their sins; Christ was a perfect sacrifice that allowed the old covenant to be discarded and a new one, based on faith, was forged.
Except, none of this made any sense to me at all. Why did God want ritual animal sacrifice in the first place? What does that have to do with forgiveness? Perhaps, I thought, God wanted people to make a sacrifice — farm animals, in those days, were precious resources. But that explanation evaporates with Christ, since he took the sacrifice upon himself. What was so special about the “blood of Christ”? What did that have to do with God’s willingness to forgive people? And why did God spend centuries on ineffectual covenants in the first place? How does an omnipotent deity “sacrifice” anything at all — Jesus could have, conceivably, poofed himself right back into existence or simply refused to die in the first place. Generally when we mortals talk about “sacrifice”, it means something quite different. We don’t get to come back a few days later and float into the clouds.
Worse, Christianity holds that Christ is God. How can God sacrifice himself to himself to fulfill his own covenant? A covenant whose terms were, as far as I could tell, completely arbitrary! Adding insult to injury is the fact that modern Christianity (generally) holds that humans are “fallen”, and born into sin. Even those few who reject Original Sin still accept the Biblical decree that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. In other words, the system is rigged. You’re a sinner, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. But God can save you, as long as you assent to the belief that he created a convoluted system of arbitrary covenants and “sacrificed” himself to himself to appease himself of the terms he created so he could forgive you for being what you had no choice to be — a flawed human being. I should point out that it’s utterly irrelevant whether someone believes it’s all literal, as in the “penal substitution theory of atonement”, or they believe it’s either all or in part metaphorical. Either way, it doesn’t make an iota of sense.
Confused and frustrated, I sought out some church leaders to discuss these matters. One chaplain, in particular, was particularly patient with me as I probed for answers about the blood of Christ, ritual sacrifice, and atonement. But he couldn’t offer anything more than trite platitudes about having faith, that there are some thing we just don’t understand. Maybe that was good enough for him, but I couldn’t assent to beliefs that were, on their face, ridiculous. Frankly, I didn’t think it was too much to ask that a logically coherent explanation of basic Christian theology was forthcoming. These aren’t tertiary issues of theology, after all — they’re the fundamentals of what Christianity is in the first place.
Author’s note: This guest post is the same one as before, except that I have added some examples at Bruce’s and his editor’s request. At times, the post is a bit snarky. I have to say that I’ve used so many Biblical examples in it that it felt like preparing a Bible study. However, you might say that it’s more of an anti-Bible Bible study.
Suspension of disbelief and gaslighting
Some of the stories in the Bible depend heavily on the suspension of disbelief and/or on gaslighting. These tools are quite useful, as they give more credence to the stories, which is pretty important for a book that claims to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Suspension of disbelief is important when it comes to storytelling, as it is needed sometimes. If we all didn’t suspended our disbelief, why would we ever watch or read fantasy or sci-fi? Why would we be interested in mythology or superhero movies? The characters, animals, and events in these stories are not real, as we well know, and loads of impossible things happen. Suspension of disbelief is what keeps us going. Superman doesn’t exist, but we’ll still give him the benefit of the doubt because we’re interested in the story and the character.
But — and there is a “but” to this — if the suspension of disbelief stretches a little too far for a little too long — the tolerance varies from person to person — we stop believing in the story and instead get irritated and scornful. We stop reading or watching and feel a little cheated somehow. The promises are not fulfilled and the bubble is broken. There are many ways this can happen; I’ll mention two.
Deux Ex Machina and the plot hole
These are two of the pitfalls of some biblical stories. Deux Ex Machina literally means “the god from the machine.” It’s a plot device that comes out of nowhere and saves the day. It can be used for any kind of new event, character or development that fixes whatever was the problem. The audience feels cheated when this happens: it seems unfair because it’s too good to be true and not very believable. Deux Ex Machina tends to break the suspension of disbelief and creates an eye-roll moment instead. The plot hole has a similar effect. A plot hole is an error or gap in the story that cannot be fixed without ruining the story’s own internal logic. A situation where events clash with earlier information is an example of a plot hole. Plot holes are irritating to the reader and make a story weaker. If something doesn’t fit well in the story, once again the suspension of disbelief is much more easily broken, which will in turn lessen the enjoyment of the story. Other examples of this are characters who act out of character or, for instance, historical characters whose dialogue is far too modern. It becomes harder to enjoy a story when these things happen.
A few examples of Deux Ex Machina in Biblical stories
The story of Adam and Eve and the fall has an element of Deux Ex Machina in it. God threatens the first couple and informs them they will die if they break his laws, but when push comes to shove, they only get expelled out of paradise. God changes the rules of the story—because He can—as there wouldn’t be much of a story left if the only two protagonists are dead. So the ‘promise’ of death is not fulfilled and another solution is found: exile. This way the couple stays alive to live another day and it also means their story may continue. To stay with Genesis, I could mention another example. Cain, for instance, is responsible for the first murder but in order for him to stay alive, God protects him with a mark, gives him a wife and a city to flee to. None of these are mentioned beforehand, but they appear out of nowhere in order for Cain to have a somewhat happy ending.
Such a surprise happy ending happens quite often in the Bible. The story of Jesus breaking the bread where the food suddenly multiplies could fall in this category. It serves as a miracle but is also a bit convenient. Many of the miracles of Jesus rather follow this pattern. Think of it like this: when you first get to know Superman, you quickly learn that he can fly and cannot suffer to be near Kryptonite. You learn these things about him at the beginning of the story and if he later manages to escape by flying, say from a burning building, you don’t feel cheated because you already knew he could fly.
With the Jesus stories, it is different. We know he is the Son of God, but we don’t know what that entails. That means that any kind of miracle can occur, any kind of rabbit from the hat. If Jesus has a problem, he’ll solve it, with a flick of his fingers. He can heal the sick; he can raise the dead; he can walk on water; he can multiply food; he can battle the Devil in reciting Scripture; he can heal someone’s ear; he can foresee the future; he can control nature; he can…. The possibilities are endless. Because the story offers virtually no limits to Jesus’ powers, they can easily feel like a Deux Ex Machina. Easy solutions coming out of nowhere.
When you consider the stories of Jesus as a living body of work that has been shaped over years with various authors, this makes sense. There are many versions of Jesus as there are many versions of King Arthur’s tales and, indeed, many different versions of Superman or other comic book heroes too. Different authors think up different background stories, add to them, or eliminate elements. The enemies may differ, the powers may vary, the character itself often changes along with the story. With various authors, the internal consistency of stories can easily get muddled. This often happens when there’s a large body of work on a single character.
But even with only one author this might become a problem. Readers have, for instance, pointed this out in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is hard to remember every little bit of detail of a character’s life if you write many stories about the same character. And so Holmes has hardly any interest in literature in one story, whereas he quotes Goethe in actual German in the next. (1) The same can be said for Watson’s war wound, which might be located either in the shoulder, the leg, or one of his limbs. (2) A popular explanation—one might be inclined to call this Holmes canon apologia —is that Watson was bending over and was, therefore, shot in the leg and the shoulder both with the bullet first hitting his leg and then his shoulder or the other way around. (3) However, it is just as easily conceivable that the author simply did not remember where he’d decided to give Watson his wound.
Plot holes in Biblical stories
In the Bible there are a few stories that have different endings. You could consider this a plot hole, or if you want to be kind, see it as a parallel universe instead. Both Judas and King Saul die differently in different versions of their life story. In 1 Samuel 31:4, Saul commands his armor-bearer to kill him. The man doesn’t obey and so Saul kills himself instead. However, in 2 Samuel 1:8-10, King David hears the tale of Saul’s demise told by the Amalekite that killed him. In this version, King Saul also asked to be killed and his command is obeyed. Both stories cannot be true, unless they truly did happen in parallel universes. Judas’ death has a similar pattern to it: it remains somewhat of a mystery. In one of the gospels, Matthew 27:5, Judas hangs himself, yet in the book of Acts 1:18-19, Judas falls, presumably onto a rock, and dies. It is not entirely clear if this is a deliberate act and, therefore, also a suicide or simply an unfortunate fall. Either way the deaths differ significantly and cannot be both true. The reader may think of it as an alternative ending, much in the way that some movies offer when they come out on DVD. Except, of course, that this is supposed to be read as history—if you are a literalist—and history does not have alternative endings. (On a fun note, historians sometimes do contemplate the “what if” question where history is concerned. This is called counterfactual history and a big source of new stories and ideas. The man in the high castle is a well-known example of a story that poses such a question.)
The two differing creation stories present a similar problem. They do not add up. Man and woman are created differently at different moments in the story. In the one story, Adam is alone for a while and Eve is created from his rib; in the other one, they are created together, apparently simultaneously. Again, they cannot both be true.
A short internet search brings you a world of Biblical plot holes. There are far too many to mention them all, but this Reddit thread alone, brings up quite a few. (4) If God is so powerful, why does he punish the people with the Babylonian confusion? He could have gone much further, and as the original poster suggested, these different languages that are created become pretty irritating when you get to the point where evangelizing becomes really important. However, that’s where speaking in tongues comes into play.
God’s power itself poses an interesting question as well. Satan is a created being; God isn’t, yet at times they seem equally powerful. Satan is able to enter heaven at will and makes a devious bet with God to get Job to lose his faith. A similar attempt is made by Satan to deceive Jesus as well. When Daniel receives news of an angel, the angel tells him he was held up for days and could only visit him, after an arch angel had assisted him. Where was God, you may wonder? (Daniel 10:13)
When Abraham is visited by the angels, they tell him that God has heard cries coming from Sodom and they have been sent to investigate what’s going on there. (Genesis 18:21) This seems to suggest that God is not omniscient and needs his helpers to find out instead. In Judges 1:19 God supports Judah and provides victories, however, chariots of iron are stronger than God somehow. Imagine that: the tribe in possession of more advanced weaponry wins!
These stories make some sense from the perspective of a world with various gods in constant battle where the winning tribe also represents the victorious god. They make no sense at all if the God in these stories is supposedly omnipotent and omniscient: because, in that case, demons and chariots fitted with iron shouldn’t matter one bit, let alone be on the winning hand.
Another one I find quite compelling myself is this one: if Genesis is meant to be metaphorical, as many people claim, consider the following, posed on another thread, by a former Catholic:
“[W]hen you finally break down all the inconsistencies and questionable passages in Genesis, many Christians come to the conclusion that Genesis is simply metaphorical. But Jesus sacrificing himself for a metaphor seems like a major plot hole all on its own.” (5)
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a subject which has recently received more attention. It is a form of manipulation where the person who is being gaslighted will begin to doubt his or her own memories or reasoning. It’s seen as an abusive tool as the subjects will become doubtful and distrustful of, ultimately, themselves. Gaslighting is about being dismissive of someone’s arguments and about invalidating people’s feelings. “Are you sure it happened that way?” might be an example. It’s a way of discrediting someone before they’ve even begun to speak.
The term gaslighting is based on the play, and movie, Gas Light. In the story a woman is deceived by her husband. He spends time in the attic searching for hidden treasure and as he lights the gas lights up there, the lights in the rest of the house dim. His wife notices this but in order for him to keep his secret, he convinces her she is mistaken instead. He tells her not to trust her own perceptions but to believe him instead. Every time he goes up into the attic, she notices the dimming gas lights in the rest of the house, but he continues to make her doubt her own senses. She is simply imagining things. His manipulation of her: making his wife doubt herself, her own memories, and her own perception, is what became known as gaslighting.
You could say it’s what Job’s friends do to him as they invalidate his words and talk over his arguments. Job’s friends insist that has must have done wrong, for God to harm him so. Job is adamant that he did not. In fact, in the story, God himself agrees with Job on this. It doesn’t matter what Job brings forth in arguments, his friends will not have it. In Job 4:7-8 Eliphaz says “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.” His other friend, Bildad, makes a similar argument in Job 8:20. “See, God will not reject a blameless person nor take the hand of evildoers.” They cannot unify their beliefs about a just God and Job’s suffering, therefore, Job must have done something to provoke God’s wrath in their opinion. The friends do not succeed in making Job doubt his own account and point of view; they go to a great deal of trouble to make him see their point, but ultimately fail to gaslight him.
Another example of gaslighting is a story that is often brought as very poignant. Jesus accepting Peter back into the fold. Jesus asks Peter if he loves him as he has just betrayed him. In the story, this question is repeated three times —the number being symbolically significant in itself as the number of completeness, hence the Trinity, three days in the grave and I’m sure there are others — until Peter gets pretty frustrated. “You know I love you,” he finally exclaims, exhausted. And yes, it is a kind of punishment for his betrayal: can he be trusted after all? But there’s another side here as well. As part of the Trinity, as God, Jesus knows what Peter thinks and believes; he can see right through him. (John 21:15-17) Why does he need to ask him three times? Why else other than to make Peter doubt himself all over again (as punishment)? Peter becomes frustrated and desperate as his exclamations are unable to prove his fealty. He has nothing but his word and his word is not believed. This story is often portrayed as Jesus’ endless love for Peter —considering what happens to Judas, as a response to his betrayal of Jesus, one is inclined to see the story in that way— yet it also shows the more testily side of Jesus. He makes Peter grovel, makes him doubt himself all over again, and only after he has toyed with him, does he receive forgiveness. Perhaps Jesus forgot his own teachings? I seem to remember something about seventy times seven…. (Matthew 18:21-22)
When you take this further, it might be that God is gaslighting us. The Bible constantly warns us that as sinful people, we should not to trust ourselves, nor our sinful hearts. This is precisely what the term entails: making people doubt their own perceptions, their own lived experience, belittling their feelings or memories. The question is: who gains from this and what does the gaslighter have to gain? In a relationship the gaslighter will try to get the power, the reins of the relationship, by manipulating the other party in the relationship. If this is what God does to his own people, what does that say about Him? Why does God have to manipulate his followers in getting the power in the first place? Doesn’t He already have it?
“Trust in the Lord with all you heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.” (Psalm 111:10) What these texts have in common is that God is to be trusted and humanity is not. But it goes even further than that: God is to be trusted and you should not trust yourself. You cannot believe in yourself, rely on your skills, stand for your opinions, trust your sense, but you have to rely on God instead. God will guide you; God will keep you; and so on. This means ultimately that God wins every battle you will have with him. You might not like the existence of hell, for instance, but God has the final say. Perhaps you want to have an egalitarian marriage but God, and probably your preacher too, point you towards the headship of men. But it can get worse. You might feel pressured into forgiving someone because the Bible tells you to do so. You might stay in an abusive relationship because you believe God does not allow divorce.
It ends in you not being allowed to be yourself. You are considered a sinner by God. You have been saved by his Son and as a result you have to give up yourself. Your personhood. The Bible is quite clear about this. The price you pay is to no longer belong to yourself. You have been bought and paid for. It also means that you may end up in an identity crisis. You are no longer allowed to think for yourself and make your own decisions. Instead you are supposed to ask for and follow God’s will. Your opinion doesn’t matter. What your senses or instinct tells you is null and void, because the will of God will always win. You do not matter and what you think or believe doesn’t matter either. After all, you can’t trust your sinful heart. You cannot trust your sinning mind. Paul explains it like this in Romans 7:15: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.” He is torn and struggles in this chapter with his own mind. The things he does, he sees as sinful; the things he wants to do, but doesn’t do, he considers to be good. The following link gives 23 Bible verses about the death to self. (6) Twenty-three times where you are told that you are not allowed to be yourself. That your self is bad and untrustworthy. As, for instance, Ephesians 4:22-24 “[T]hat, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self.” Or the often repeated phrase about crucifying your old flesh or taking up your cross. Galatians 5:24 says the following: “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” John 3:30 talks about: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” These are only three of the twenty three verses and they all mention not trusting your own judgement.
Gaslighting is a specific tactic designed to make people doubt themselves and thus grooming them to believe the other person’s views and perceptions. It is something that leaders of any kind might use to their advantage to control (a group of) people. If people can’t trust themselves, they will be far more likely to start trusting their leader, which is the intended goal. Cults probably use this as well. Messages to the members to not trust themselves, nor the outside world, make it easier to keep them in the fold. Finally, the Bible itself has countless verses telling you not to trust yourself, to abandon common sense and your own judgement and to give your life with all its decisions over to another. You are told to die symbolically, by baptism, and to rise as a new person – an empty person who is the marionette to God’s strings. This is the ultimate goal of gaslighting.
Conclusion
One could say that when you de-convert, the suspension of disbelief for the Bible has been broken. You’ve been kind, and perhaps resilient, enough to hang on to its truths for a long time but you simply can’t anymore. The spell has been broken and suddenly the Bible is riddled with plot holes. Broken promises and prophecies abound. The story no longer captivates you as it did before. You become aware of numerous problems in the storylines. You can’t un-see them anymore. On top of that, the authors (or God) try to gaslight you into not trusting yourself and your own judgement. Once you realize that, you’ll have a hard time going back to Biblical bliss.
For most of our married life, Jenell and I [Darren Wilson] haven’t had a ton of money, so anytime we were able to bring a dog into our lives, we typically had to go the cheapest route. Humane societies. We liked the idea of saving an animal, and neither of us were interested in training a puppy, so the local pound was it. The only problem, at least in our case, was that every dog we ever got from the pound was in some way “broken.”
I regularly write letters to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News. I am one of a handful of liberal/secularist/humanist/atheist letter writers who challenge and rebut the never-ending stream of right-wing drivel that daily appears on the Crescent-News editorial page. Local Christians will often respond to my letters. Five men in particular: Daniel Gray, John Wilson, Larry Tonjes, Randall Peabody, and Richard Mastin have repeatedly over the years responded to my letters. You can read the various responses to my letters 
The atheist has been unleashed on the world as part of a planned attack on all religions of faith. The specific targets of the atheists are: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. When the man of sin shows up, he will destroy the atheists along with everyone else that does not accept his “pure luciferian” religion.
