I recently wrote a post titled, The Horrors of the Evangelical Hell. Included in that post was a long email I received from a man named Rev. James Makerfield — likely a fake name. I typically send Evangelicals a link to the post of my response to them. I am happy to report that my post on Hell was so persuasive and devastating that it left Makerfield speechless. Almost, anyway. All Makerfield could say was this: Lost cause 😭
Rev. Makerfield has finally seen the light. Atheists and agnostics are indeed “lost causes.”
Now, go away and find someone who gives a shit. I don’t, and neither do my fellow unbelievers.
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.
Most Evangelicals believe in a literal Heaven and Hell. The Bible says that it is “appointed unto men once to die.” All of us will die someday, Evangelicals say, and the moment we draw our last breath, we will be transported by God to Heaven or Hell. Where we end up depends on whether we were born again/saved. Those who were saved when they died go to Heaven, and those who weren’t — atheists, agnostics, pagans, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Catholics (to name a few) — go to Hell.
Hell (actually the Lake of Fire) is a place where unbelievers will be punished and tortured for their sins for eternity. Some Evangelicals suggest that the only sin people will be punished for in Hell is the sin of unbelief; as if this is somehow better than being punished for adultery, fornication, or being LGBTQ. The life expectancy for humans is 70-80 years in most of the developed world. If Evangelicals are right about Hell, this means that a momentary decision made by unbelievers to not believe the Evangelical gospel will be punished for millions, billions, and trillions of years. Think about that for a moment. Just saying no to Jesus means you will be tortured by God of “love” forever. How you lived your life matters not. What good works you did matters not. You may have been an awesome mother, father, grandparent, or friend. It matters not. You may have devoted your life to serving the sick, poor, and marginalized. It matters not. If you didn’t believe the right things (and Evangelicalism preaches a gospel of right beliefs) you will spend eternity suffering in the flames of Hell. (And yes, I am aware that a small percentage of Evangelicals are annihilationists. But even with annihilation, unbelievers are still tortured by God for a time before they are obliterated.)
Worse yet, the natural body can’t withstand the extreme fire and heat of Hell. Those consigned to Hell would immediately melt and be turned to ashes without God doing something to keep that from happening. The Bible teaches that Heaven and Hell are actually temporary holding places. After Jesus returns to earth and defeats Satan, every human will be resurrected from the dead, judged, and then given a new body. Christians will spend eternity in the Eternal Kingdom of God. Unbelievers will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. (I speak generally. I am well aware of the various Evangelical beliefs on these subjects.) By fitting unbelievers with bodies that can withstand the terrors of Hell, they won’t be turned to ashes. Isn’t God awesome?
There’s no evidence for the existence of Hell (or Heaven). Ask an Evangelical to point you to where Hell is and they will point down. What? Hell is Australia? I guess Hell could be Antarctica, though its climate seems very un-hell like. All joking aside, most Evangelicals believe Hell is somewhere in the center of the earth. According to Wikipedia, the core of the earth is approximately 1,500 miles in diameter, one-fortieth of the volume of the whole earth. Today, almost eight billion people live on earth. Scientists estimate almost 110 billion people have lived and died on our planet. Evangelicals believe that the vast majority of people past and present will end up in Hell after they die. Evangelicalism is an exclusive club. Few people are actually members. Thus, we can safely say that Hell has a population in excess of 100 billion people. Imagine 100 billion people living in a space the size of the United States. Donald Trump might want to go to Hell and build high rises to accommodate all the non-Evangelicals.
The very idea of Hell is absurd. Yet, a majority of Americans believe in its existence. According to a 2014 Pew Research study, sixty percent of American adults believe in the existence of Hell. Eighty-two percent of Evangelicals believe Hell is a real place. The literalness of Hell is deeply engrained in our thinking. Even among Evangelicals-turned-atheists, Hell often lurks in the depths of our minds. How could it be otherwise? Years of indoctrination, of being told Hell is a real place and unbelievers will spend eternity being tortured by God, will do that to you. I have received numerous emails over the years from ex-Evangelicals who are still struggling with thoughts about Hell. It is hard to shake the sermons and Sunday school lessons about Hell. When people are told a lie repeatedly, it should come as no surprise that they believe it. Undoing the psychological conditioning often takes years.
Hell is a cudgel used by Evangelical preachers to keeps asses in the pews and money in offering plates. If threats of Hell are removed, would Evangelicals still attend church, give money, or evangelize unbelievers? Heaven is the carrot, but Hell is the stick. If there is no fear of Hell (or God), would people still devote themselves to the one true faith? Maybe, for social reasons, but if there are no worries about going to Hell, I suspect people would likely treat their chosen religion more cavalierly than they do now (more like they do in some European countries).
Today, my friend ObstacleChick had an interaction on my Facebook page with an Evangelical man named John. I doubt that’s his real name. John sent OC a private message, one that can only be described as a Hell-inspired death threat.
Here’s a screenshot of John’s message:
OC is a former Evangelical, a Southern Baptist. She attended a Christian school. OC was deeply immersed in Evangelicalism before she deconverted. I suspect what upset OC the most was this asshole calling her Missy. 🙂 OC tried to respond to John’s threat, but, of course, he blocked her so she couldn’t do so (and I blocked him on my page). I hate it when my friends face retribution from Evangelical Christians because they comment on my Facebook page or this blog.
John believes in the existence of Hell. His words reveal that he has been deeply indoctrinated, and that he thinks it normal and acceptable to threaten unbelievers with death and Hell. Perhaps John even thinks he is doing this out of “love.” Isn’t this exactly what the Evangelical preachers do? They preach up the love of God and the awesomeness of Jesus. Yet, they also warn unbelievers that if they refuse God’s offer of salvation through the merit and work of Jesus, judgment and Hell await.
The good news is that there is no Hell. I have seen no evidence for its existence. While thoughts of Hell may infrequently plague my mind, I know they are vestiges of five decades of psychological indoctrination. The longer I am removed from Evangelicalism, the fewer thoughts I have about Hell. Lifelong indoctrination doesn’t disappear just because you stop believing. It takes time to free one’s mind of years and decades of harmful beliefs. If you are struggling with thoughts about Hell, all I can tell you is that it gets better with time. Remember, life is a journey, not a destination. There’s no life after death, so all we have is the life before us.
Update
An hour after I posted this article, I received the following email from an Evangelical man who calls himself Rev. James Makerfield:
I hope this email reaches you well.I hope it reaches MANY in fact! From the “Zealots”. Or Evangelical “assholes”. As you put it.
Number ONE we love you all very much. Mr Bruce you are Loved very much! The GREATEST HATE is to NOT bring the gospel to the lost! and we all need the gospel! Believers and unbelievers.
Hell is REAL place!
It is NOT A THREAT!It’s not a fairytale!It’s not a scare tactic!
It is REAL! I’d suggest googling “atheists who went to hell”. If you want proof outside of the Bible.
What I am going describe now is the portrait of the eternal future of EVERYONE who dies without Jesus Christ. 😭
This includes all people who trusted in “RELIGION” (man’s attempt to make himself right with God)
All who tries to earn salvation through good works and morality.
And all who fell into the trap that not even the demons fell into! ATHEISM and ANTI-THEISM/ANTI-CHRISTIANITY ( which is what a high percentage of atheists really are they’re really Anti-Christians.
As the Unbeliever takes his or her last breath in this life they will take their first breath in eternity pulled from their body and taken and placed in a deep hot dark pit!
Deafening screams will be on all sides all around them! The place will stink God awful! 🤢🤮
Take rotten eggs, sulphur, human crap/sewage and a landfill and it won’t hold a candle to the stink of hell and burning souls! 😢
Their body will ignite in flames! You will scream “AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”
😭😭😭😭😭😭
You will feel pain that cannot be described in any human language! You will feel the reality of Revelation 20:15!“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” Revelation 20:15
You will scream “OH GOD!!!!! YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE LOVE!!!!” Then you will remember John 3:16“For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” John 3:16
You will remember Romans 5:8“But God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us “ Romans 5:8
You will cry “AHHHHH!!!!! THIS CANT BE HAPPENING!!!! WHY WASN’T I WARNED!?!?!?”
Then you will remember every person who tried to witness to you. You will remember every sermon you ever heard and/or preached but NEVER TRULY believed!
You will remember finding a tract in a bathroom and throwing in the trash or on the ground.
You will remember every person on Facebook and the internet blog,every email, every call every Avenue that Christ used to desperately get you to accept his grace and mercy.
Now it will be too late!
Furthermore as the rich man pleaded in Luke 16:19-31.
You will have an indescribable thirst like you have never had before! UNO ONE DROP OF WATER would be precious but you and everyone else who died in sin will NEVER get it! 😭
You will have a desire for unsaved family and other people trapped in unbelief to come to salvation through Jesus Christ.
Just as the first rich man did for his 5 unsaved brothers.
You will pray for God to send someone to tell them the gospel!
You will curse the day you were born!You will curse the moment you were conceived!You will wish you would’ve been squirted on the mattress!
This pain and agony will last for all ETERNITY!
What’s 20 years in eternity!? Less time it takes to blow a breath of air!
If a person lives to be 110 that’s less than a 1/2 in eternity!
900 million years will be less than 1/2 second in eternity!
Think about the prisons on earth even in a earthly human prison there is hope that you can can get out! No one will ever get released from hell!
And imagine being in a prison with every murderer, child rapist,vile of the vile! In hell you will scream right beside Satan and the Anti-Christ and the false Prophet and thousands of demons for all eternity!
There will be no contact with anyone! Hell will be full of millions that rejected Jesus Christ and each soul will be in complete isolation!
There will be NO REST! Not even a quiet moment!
And yet the LOST world says that we (TRUE GENUINE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHRIST!) “HATE” people when we warn them of this COMING REALITY! Pfft!
Jesus Christ loves YOU and he does NOT want you or anyone else to perish in hell.
What if this email is your last warning?What if you don’t wake up tomorrow? I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you and anyone else reading to listen to the Holy Spirits call.
It sure sounds like John and James are the same person or identical twins.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The fact is that you won’t see hell while you are still alive. Salvation requires faith in what Jesus did for you on the cross. Salvation requires a purposeful act on your part … before you die. If you say you need to see hell before you will surrender your life to Jesus, you will neversurrender your life. You will see hell because you rejected the only way of salvation, and you will spend eternity apart from God.
If you call yourself an atheist, you won’t be one after seeing hell. You will have no excuse before God at Judgment Day for your denial of His existence. The evidence of design was all around you your entire life, but you ignored it and denied the obvious. You condemned yourself to hell by your very own words, and by rejecting the cross.
….
You are a nothing and a nobody in hell. You will never see your friends or anyone else ever again. You will be in total darkness, kept apart from others. You will have no conversation, no interaction and no purpose. You will be completely isolated and forgotten.
No one escapes hell. No one ever gets relief from the pain and torment. There will be no sleep, no peace, no food, no water, no comfort, no escaping the heat and flames, and there will be absolutely no hope.
If you could see hell for just five seconds, you wouldn’t waste time focused on how people have hurt or disappointed you. You would forget about yourself and start helping others to escape this horrific place. You would serve God and quit complaining.
If you could see hell for five seconds, you would fall on your knees and cry out to God to save you. You would turn away from your sinful lifestyle. You would surrender your life to Jesus and make Him your Lord and Savior. You would renounce the name of Satan and reject absolutely anything to do with him.
I agree with Wiese, There will be NO atheists in Hell. Why? Because Hell doesn’t exist. The only Hell I know of is a community in Michigan. I plan to go to this Hell sometime this summer. Pictures to follow, which is far more than Wiese can provide for his Hell.
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.
If you have any other questions, please let me know.
Bruce Gerencser
After reading a handful of posts, Mike was ready to render judgment:
I pray that the God you preached about all those years will pierce your heart and bring you back to Him, as well as all the people you have influence over. After reading some on your website, I am afraid that Satan has tricked you, like so many, that you don’t need God.
Eternity is to long to be wrong. Heaven and Hell are real places, and we ALL will spend eternity in one or the other.
That’s all you can say? Reductionist bullshit told to me by hundreds and hundreds of Christians?
Do better, Mike. Think, listen, read, and learn. You don’t know as much as you think you do. I know how many posts you read (server logs don’t lie). Can you really say you made a good faith effort to read and understand my story? Or did you read just enough to pass judgment?
I may use your email as fodder for a blog post. I’ll send you the link if I do.
God bless.
Bruce Gerencser
Mike did not respond to me.
Mike ignores the fact that I am an atheist, so suggesting that I am being “tricked” by Satan is, to put it mildly, a joke. I don’t believe in the existence of the Christian God, nor do I believe in the existence of Satan. As a man on the short side of life (please see Giving In When It’s The Only Thing You Can Do), I have thought a good bit about death. As an atheist, I am confident that once I draw my last breath, my life is over. While I will live on in the minds of my family and friends, my cremated remains will be sprinkled by my loved ones on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.
As is often the case with Christian zealots, Mike passive-aggressively threatens me with Hell. According to Mike’s theological beliefs, Heaven and Hell are real places. People who have beliefs different from him will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire (Hell is a temporary holding cell, which God casts into the Lake of Fire, Revelation 20:14). Outside of the Bible, there’s no evidence for the existence of Heaven or Hell. In fact, there’s ample evidence that such places are fictional, tools used to reward and threaten people by churches and clerics. As an atheist, I do no fear going to Hell. And, I have no desire to go to Heaven. Why would I want to spend eternity with the Mikes and David Tees of the world? No thanks.
Mike believes that Satan has tricked me into believing that I don’t need God. Unlike Mike, I don’t need a psychological crutch to make it through the day. I can’t think of one aspect of my life where I “need” God. The only time I think about God is when I write for this blog. That’s it. I choose, instead, to focus on the present, life as it is.
Mike could have made a good faith effort to get to know me and understand my story. He could have asked me questions after reading my autobiographical posts. Instead, Mike went into preaching mode. Whether he had a pathological need to do so or felt “led” by the Holy Spirit, I do not know. Over the years, countless Evangelicals have taken a similar approach with me. If they were willing (and they are not) to take a bit of advice from a reprobate/apostate/atheist, I would tell them that this approach does not work; that if the goal is to engage in thoughtful discussion with me or learn more about my story, you might try a different approach.
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.
Melvin Wagner, an Evangelical zealot, left the following comment on Facebook today. My response is indented and italicized.
Bruce..
Melvin . . .
God is long suffering not willing that any should perish..
There is no God, Melvin. You know I am an atheist, right? Just because you say something doesn’t mean it’s true. Do have any evidence besides quotes from the Bible for the existence of your peculiar version of God? I’m waiting . . .
Meaning an eternity in the lake of fire…Hell is real whether you believe it or not…..
Melvin, please learn how to use ellipses.
Do you believe fairies, leprechauns, the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, and Allah are real? People say these beings exist. Surely, this is evidence for their existence, right? See how silly your claims are, Melvin? If you want to convince me of something, you are going to have to provide evidence for your claims. Bald assertions or quotes from a manmade religious text won’t cut it with me. Do better, Marvin, do better. I am willing to believe if you just convince me. Come on, big boy, “you can do it.”
Where, exactly, is my heart? Hint, in my skull. What I know is that neither you, nor any other Christian zealot, has provided sufficient evidence for your claims. What I know is that Christian apologists are long on bluster and short on persuasive arguments. You know I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 years, right? You know I was in the Christian church for 50 years, right? You know I spent tens of thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible, right? Knowing these things, what, exactly, are you going to tell me that I don’t already know? Your comment is little more than public masturbation. Makes you feel good, but the rest of us say, yuck. If you want to get into a Bible dick measuring contest, I’m game. You should know, however, that I am John Holmes.
but you are so hardened it no longer affects you
Damn, I am taking Viagra for the heart?
..what is worse than an apostate?
Lots of things. Christians like you who shit on the doorsteps of unbelievers. Donald Trump. The Cincinnati Reds’ bullpen.
how much sorer punishment is he worthy who has trodden underfoot the Son of God, and has done despite to the Spirit of Grace..The gracious means A loving God offered you , you have despised..How shall you escape his Righteous Vengance?
Welp, Melvin, the Righteous, I am an atheist. Your claims about God, judgment, grace, love, vengeance, and eternal punishment fall on deaf ears. Do you know what I think? You sought me out because you have doubts about your beliefs. What better way to allay one’s doubts than by attacking an unbeliever, attempting to “prove” your beliefs are true. (If you have not read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the nature and history of the Bible, I encourage you to do so. Read, and then we can talk.)
What did you hope to accomplish with your comment, Melvin? Feel better now, flaccid gospel dick in hand?
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.
A local Fundamentalist Christian man by the name of Robert Sturges sent me the following message via e-mail:
Your assessments are woefully inaccurate, Christians do know Jesus intimately and we have a very real connection with him on a daily basis. That you lived so long off the church as a hypocrite and liar is a horrible crime against God and man. I pray all those influenced by your attacks against Gods people see you for the reprobate you have confessed yourself to be. My prayer is that God limits your influence and use it for his Glory to strengthen the church locally. And God shortly uses your damnation to glorify his name seeing you reject his grace and truths. Not content to be a reprobate you use your influence to try and subvert others. God will shortly lay it out before you, every single word.
Funny how one man telling his story is deemed a threat to Christianity. IF God is the all-powerful deity the Roberts of the world say he is, surely he could smite me, open up a fissure in the ground, and throw me into Hell. Now if God did THAT, well, I suspect other blasphemers would think twice about speaking ill of the Big Kahuna. As things stand now, it seems that God doesn’t care if I subvert others or can’t care because he doesn’t exist.
To Robert, I say: keep on praying! Join countless others who are praying for my demise. Years and years of praying for the Evangelical God to pour judgment upon my head . . . yet here I am, as reprobate and unrepentant as ever. Perhaps these Christian zealots should examine their own lives. Why isn’t God answering their prayers?
Sturges later added in the comment section of this post:
The judgment is to let you stumble over your sin into hell. God has everywhere and in everything left you a witness you refuse to acknowledge. Even satan has his uses and you are serving a purpose that God is pleased to allow until the appointed time. No one is praying for your demise those are your words, I am praying for God to negate any evil influence you have from doing any eternal harm. Your like a deranged man banging his head against a wall. The God who gave you breath and wrote your very DNA. Who upholds all things by the word of his power and gives men who do not love the truth over to deception and a lie will someday soon deal with all those who refuse to obey the gospel.
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.
Progressive Christians are fond of saying, “God is LOVE” — cue summer of love pop song. Finding the Old Testament God of judgment and wrath distasteful or offensive to their sensibilities, Progressive Christians excise the “bad” God from the Bible, choosing instead to focus on Jesus, the God of love. While I understand why Progressive Christians take this approach, it does do great violence to the teachings of the Bible and what Christians have historically believed about God. American Christianity is going through seismic changes and transformation. Beliefs once held dear by Christians are either revised or abandoned altogether. This is especially true with how Christians visualize God.
I wish every Christian held progressive beliefs and values. However, that doesn’t mean I find progressive hermenuetics and interpretations intellectually satisfying. While progressive beliefs make for a kinder, gentler world (and maybe that’s all that should matter), the Bible seems to be the odd man out. While Progressive Christians generally believe in the centrality of Jesus and his gospel, they are often sketchy on the details. Wanting to distance themselves from Evangelicalism, Progressive Christians jettison vast swaths of the Bible. No need to believe those things, Progressive Christians say. God is Love!
How do Progressive Christians know anything about Jesus or whether God is, in fact, love? What evidence do they have for these claims? Don’t they have to appeal to the Bible, much like their Evangelical brothers and sisters? Christianity is inherently a text-based religion. I have long argued: no Bible, no Christianity (not in any meaningful sense, anyway). If the Bible tells us that God is Love, should we not also accept what else it says about God?
Richard Dawkins had this to say about the God of the Old Testament:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
THAT God is in the Bible too. Why do Progressive Christians ignore this God? His works are found throughout the Bible, including the New Testament. As we do with each other, we must accept God’s goodness and badness — the sum of his nature and character. None of us is pure goodness. All of us can do bad things. All of us can be assholes. We are neither as good nor as bad as we think we are. We are . . . as God is . . . human.
Most Christians believe God created everything. As Creator, God is in control of his creation. He gives life, takes life, and nothing happens apart from his purpose and plan. And if God is not in charge, who is? If the creator doesn’t control his creation, who does?
If God is Creator and the Bible is an accurate account of God’s works and character, can we not know his future plans for the human race? Press the “God is Love” crowd with questions about the future, and few answers are given. I have often wondered if Progressive Christians are, at heart, universalists; that, in the end, everyone makes it to Heaven. While such a belief is appealing, one must ignore much of the Bible to reach such a conclusion.
Both the Old Testament and New Testament teach that there is coming a day when God will judge the living and the dead; that God will separate the saved from the lost; that only those who worshiped Jesus will spend eternity in Heaven (Eternal Kingdom of God). Those who didn’t worship Jesus — whatever the reason — will spend eternity in Hell (Lake of Fire).
If the Bible is an accurate record of the character and nature of God, then it is clear that those who are not Christians will one day face his judgment and wrath. On that day, the God of Love will be nowhere to be found. I know Progressive Christians want to believe otherwise, but as long as they appeal to the Bible for their beliefs, they must accept that their God of Love is also one mean son-of-a-bitch.
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.
There is no need for me to comment on the following graphic. Its message is clear: Love and worship the Evangelical God now or after death be tortured in Hell for eternity. Do Evangelicals really think this approach works? Or is the real motive behind such tactics so Christians can say, Lord, I told that atheist blasphemer Bruce Gerencser the truth! When he dies and splits Hell wide open, he will have no one to blame but himself. Lost on the Tom Bakers of the world is that I once preached this message and have heard it thousands of times since my divorce from God. I get it, if I don’t submit to the demands of a “loving” God and worship him, after death, I will spend eternity in Hell — suffering horrific, never-ending torment.
Baker, from time to time, still leaves comments on my Facebook page. A true coward, he deletes them before I can respond or delete them myself.
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.
Offering plates full of snark and cursing ahead! You have been warned. Not that this warning matters. You are going to read this post anyway, aren’t you?All praise to the one true God, Loki, for your faithful support. May you receive many rewards in Hell.
Today, I received the following comment from an Evangelical man named Terry. My response is indented and italicized.
Bruuuuuce! Dont leave the faaaaaaith! 🙂
Really? Shouldn’t matters of faith and eternal destiny be grave and serious? It hardly seems appropriate to use a smiley face when warning me that I am on the wrong path, and if I continue on this path, I will one day eternally pay for my sins.
God is so much bigger than all of this!!
Which God? And what evidence do you have for the claim that God is bigger than all of “this?” This being, I assume, the internecine wars Christians endlessly fight over who has the right beliefs. The Bible teaches that Christians will be known by their love and unity. How is that working out? Hint . . . not well, as the Facebook group you mention below makes clear.
Don’t let the calvinists win!
Win what, exactly? I took a look at the search logs for this site and found out you read all of one post, Calvinists and Their Love of Theological Porn. You made no effort to read anything else. Had you done so, you would have learned that I was in the Christian church for fifty years; that I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years; that I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible; that I had a library of over one-thousand theological and biographical books; that I wasn’t a Calvinist when I entered the ministry, and I wasn’t a Calvinist when I left the ministry. Had you bothered to read a bit of my biographical writing, you would have found out that I preached a works-based social gospel towards the end of my time in the ministry. Instead, you sent me a masturbatory email. I am sure doing so made you feel good (as jacking off does), but what, exactly, did it accomplish (no new birth for me)?
And even if NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE (not u, not me, not Hawking, not Piper, not anyone), i think it would be a good idea to try and have a relationship with FATHER GOD.
I am an atheist, so I don’t believe your Father God exists. I am CERTAIN of this fact. (I am also an agnostic, but I will leave that discussion for another day. You do know the difference, right?) You provide no evidence to the contrary, yet you expect me to bow in fealty to your Daddy all because you said it’s a good idea. Not a chance, dude. Just because your invisible Father abused you doesn’t mean I should let him do the same to me.
THE PERFECT FATHER.
Surely you jest. Terry, take a look around at the world. What do you see? The works of a PERFECT FATHER? I see no evidence for the existence of your Father. And if he does exist, it is clear that your Daddy is a deadbeat, abusive parent. My Gawd, man, open your fucking eyes.
And join with others who are really trying to love God (a god who SEEMS often clueless and downright horrible) and love people. …. There is SO MUCH we do not know.
Had you bothered to read more than one post, you might have learned that I have no interest in God, Jesus, or Christianity. Been there, done that. Now that you know my background, what could you possibly say that I have not heard before? I spent most of my life devotedly following the Lamb of God. I sacrificed everything in pursuit of the kingdom of God. Can you say that you have done the same? If you really want to have a Christian dick measuring contest, I am confident that I would win. I can’t think of one thing you could say that would lead me to drop on my knees, repent of my sins, and say to Jesus, “I am yours, Big Boy!”
There has to be more to all of this than what we see….. There has to be!
Why does there have to be more than what we see? Do you have any evidence that suggests otherwise, outside of the words written in an ancient religious text? Based on the extant evidence, our lives are but a blip on the timeline of existence.
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
(And if there’s not, what harm has been done believing that God loves EVERYONE and has a plan??) What if universalism is true? Or conditional immortality? What if evolution is true and that’s just the way God decided to do it?
This is the second time in your comment that you have appealed to what is commonly called Pascal’s Wager.
“Pascal’s wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). It posits that human beings bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.
Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though (the Christian) God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).”
Let me ask you a question. Are you a Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, and Mormon? Surely, you would want to hedge your bets and put your faith in these Gods, and in fact, every other deity. Shouldn’t you cover all your bases? Of course, you haven’t done this. You have found the “right” God, your peculiar version of the Christian deity. You want me to do what you are unwilling to do. This is the definition of the word hypocrite.
Further, you want me to “fake it until I make it.” You want me to deny reality to myself and others. You want me to ignore what I KNOW about your God and worship it anyway. Not going to happen, Terry. I have more character and integrity than that. Either your God exists, or it doesn’t. I am convinced that it doesn’t. Surely, that fact can’t be too hard to understand.
Life is CRAZY. The idea that we are alive on this planet, living our lives, making amazing decisions every day. SOOOOOOOO unlike animals. Sure, we share some of the characteristics as animals, but we are different mentally. So different!!!
How do you know we even have free will — the ability to make “amazing” decisions? Sure, we have higher cognitive skills than other animals. However, we eat, drink, have sex, shit, and sleep, just like all other living creatures. One need only look at how we are destroying our planet to conclude that maybe, just maybe, having bigger brains is not such a good idea.
The bible says (i know, i know) that we are made in the image of God. I think there’s something to that.
Good for you. Why should I base my life on what you think or believe about a contradictory ancient religious text? There are thousands of Christian sects, each with their own interpretations of the Bible, each believing that they have the “faith once delivered to the saints.”
Have you ever read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books about the history and nature of the Bible? Something tells me you haven’t. Bart is a professor of New Testament studies at the University of North Carolina. I encourage you to read several of his books. After you do, get back to me, and we can talk about the Bible. I want to be kind, but you really are out of your element here. So, please read Ehrman’s books, and then we’ll talk.
And i believe in John 3:16. And that perish means perish, not burn forever.
*Sigh* (This is a code word for a certain emotion. Only followers of Satan know what it means.) I know the Bible (and Christian theology) inside and out. But, I’m sure glad that you stopped by to straighten me out. Damn, Skippy, I was wrong for fifty years, but bless Loki, thanks to you, I have seen the light! (That’s sarcasm, by the way.)
You might want to join Soteriology101 on facebook (people more intelligent than I, railing back against calvinism). We don’t have many atheists, but I’m pretty sure there are some. It might give you a different perspective, just to sit back and see what people are saying. (And of course there are some who are callous or judgmental, but also universalists and ones who believe in conditional immortality).
I am not on social media. That said, I did check out the Soteriology 101 Facebook group. Again, you insult my intelligence, ignoring the decades I spent reading and studying the Bible. What possibly am I going to learn about the various soteriological schemes from a fucking Facebook group — one dominated by Fundamentalist Christians? I know every system inside and out. Sorry, Terry, but you really should have investigated my background before sending me this email.
Let me be clear, I don’t believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The Bible is an errant, fallible, contradictory book written by mostly unknown men. I reject its claims about God, human nature, Jesus, and the afterlife. In other words, I reject the central claims of Christianity. Jesus was a mere mortal who lived and died, end of story. He wasn’t born of a virgin, he didn’t work miracles, and he didn’t resurrect from the dead. You believe all these things to be true, but what evidence do you have for your bald assertions? As I mentioned above, I am not going to take your word for it. Did you really think emailing me would lead to my renunciation of atheism? Or, is your email more about hearing yourself talk or reinforcing your own doubts? I have received thousands of emails and comments such as yours over the past thirteen years. I have often wondered if Evangelicals who try to evangelize me are more worried about their own souls than mine; that my story is a threat to their beliefs.
Anyway, i hope u get this!
I got it! Aren’t you glad I did? 🙂
Your article was from long ago! I want u to know that i care, and Jesus cares MORE! … Have an amazing day!
Sorry, Terry, but Jesus doesn’t care. He’s d-e-a-d. My parents and grandparents are dead too. And guess what? They don’t care either.
I know that you THINK you care, but I have interacted with thousands of “caring” and “loving” Christians since 2007. Based on my experiences with them, I have concluded that words such as “care” and “love” are just lingo Evangelicals use when they run into people they don’t understand or who believe differently from them.
If you want to show that you “care,” please send me a couple hundred bucks. It IS what Jesus wants you to do. Had you bothered to read my backstory, you would have learned that I am gravely ill, that I have battled chronic illness and pain for twenty-five years; that I was recently diagnosed with an incurable disease called gastroparesis; that I am disabled and walk with a cane (and at times use a wheelchair.) Feel guilty? Send me money, dude! I am still a preacher.
Have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day. 🙂
Bruce, a Sinner Saved by Reason
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Today, I received the following comment from a Christian CPA named Brian. I won’t use his last name, or say where his business is located, even though he deserves no respect from me. I might, however, send Brian a few bucks since, as you shall see, the CAPS LOCK key on his computer keyboard is either stuck or broken.
THIS CLOWN MAY NOT BELIEVE IN HELL NOW BUT ONE TENTH OF ONE SECOND AFTER HE DIES HE WILL AND HE WILL NEEEEEEEEVER GET OUT. ENJOY IT NOW WEIRDO.
Brian has never seen Hell, has no evidence to prove its existence, yet he KNOWS it exists, and that the clown Bruce Gerencser is going there when he dies. Sure scares the h-e-l-l into me! 🙂
Brian is yet another bombastic Christian critic who read all of one post on this site. Just one, and then he ejaculated in my direction. Eww, right? I am immune to such comments/emails, but I find them entertaining, and I hope that the readers of this blog do too.
Thanks, Brian!
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.
