I recently asked readers to submit questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question you would like me to answer, please leave your question on the page, Your Questions, Please.
Dave asked:
[Christian] Fundamentalists believe you can bring anything to God in prayer and he will answer it. They also believe in eternal torture as this god’s punishment for most of the human race. As a pastor did you ever pray that God would not allow such a monstrosity as hell? Why do you think that this plea is not made continuously by people who hold this belief? Is it because they don’t really believe they can change the mind of God, or is it because they relish the idea that nonbelievers will get what they deserve?
Evangelicals believe that the Bible God hears and answers their prayers. While Evangelicals are all over the place theologically on prayer, they believe that God does hear their petitions and answers in one of three ways:
Yes
No
Not now
According to Evangelicals, every prayer that conforms to the will of God is answered affirmatively. Why, then, do most Evangelical prayers go unanswered — especially big-ticket items such as the ones mentioned by Dave? Why does God seem indifferent to human suffering, pain, and loss? According to Evangelicals, God saying no or not now happens for one of these reasons:
God wants to increase our faith
God wants to test us and make us stronger
God wants to chastise us for our sins, restoring us to a right relationship with him
God wants to bring glory to his name
While I am sure there are other “reasons” for God saying no or not now, these are the big four — the reasons most often cited by Evangelicals.
For thirty-five years, I prayed every day — often multiple times a day. Yet, I never, one time, asked God to abolish Hell. I believed Hell (and the Lake of Fire) was an awful place of eternal damnation and suffering, yet I also believed the people in Hell were getting exactly what they deserved. Salvation had been offered to them by Jesus Christ, yet they rejected it, choosing instead their own selfish desires. Of course, I dared not think too hard on the matter, lest I see multiple glaring contradictions. Had I thought about that matter, I would have concluded that God was unjust and unfair; that eternity in Hell seemed to be determined by who your parents were and geography.
After embracing Calvinism, I concluded that eternal destiny was determined not by making a decision for Christ, but because God had chosen some people to spend eternity in Hell. No one deserved salvation and eternity in Heaven, so God can’t be blamed for sending most people to the Lake of Fire.
I never believed I could change the mind of God through my prayers. God was the sovereign Lord over all, and everything that happened was according to his purpose and plan. People saved under my ministry were converted because God purposed from before the foundation of the world to bring them to saving faith. When I prayed, it was not so God would give me what I want, but so my will would conform to God’s. Ironically, on many occasions God’s “will” aligned perfectly aligned with mine. It was amazing that God often gave me exactly what I wanted. I later concluded that the only person answering my prayers was me; that my prayers were self-fulfilling wants, needs, and desires.
Dave concludes by asking a question that most Evangelicals don’t want to answer: [do] they [Evangelicals] relish the idea that nonbelievers will get what they deserve?
I do know that some Evangelicals relish the fact that I will some day go to Hell to be punished and tortured by God for eternity. I am viewed as someone especially deserving of eternal torture. I knew the “truth” and rejected it. I spit in the face of Jesus, choosing atheism over the one true faith. I have received countless emails and blog comments from Evangelicals who, with sadistic delight, describe what God is going to do to me after I die. Usually, they end with a call to repentance or “praying for you,” but I suspect that many of my critics relish what awaits for me in Hell.
Deep down, Evangelicals need validation; to know for certain that they are right. Their lives are built on certainty; that their God is the one true God; that the Bible is a supernatural book given to them by a supernatural God, a book that is a blueprint or manual for life; that their decision to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ was the right choice, guaranteeing them an eternity of heavenly bliss.
Those who don’t believe as they do will get exactly what they deserve — eternal punishment in Hell. What better way for you to be proven right than for unbelievers to be cast into the Lake of Fire? I suspect some Evangelical zealots will take day strolls to the rim of the Lake of Fire, and say to unbelievers, I TOLD YOU SO! The eternal suffering of unbelievers is, for Evangelicals, vindication of their beliefs.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Bob, a regular reader of this site, asked me the following question:
I do have a question for you and was curious on your answer.
I know you know the scriptures as far as what they say, so you will most likely have an answer.
Based on the scriptures concerning blasphemy it is my understanding from past teachings that blasphemy definition by Pharisee’s was saying that a person could forgive sins or someone claiming to be God. Jesus then talked about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and no forgiveness.
Based on these few scriptures, in your opinion from what you know of your past Bible teachings, do you think that you have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit? Not because of your walking away, but rather by the things that you have said? I am asking based on your knowledge of what the Bible says, not whether you believe in the Bible today.
Hopefully I have worded this respectfully enough for an answer.
Wonderful question. Hopefully, I can provide an adequate and satisfactory answer.
And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
Although Jesus does not specifically define this sin, the context reveals this transgression as the persistent, knowing, verbal attribution of the work of God to Satan.
First, Mark’s comment “for they were saying” (v. 30) as he narrates Jesus’ response to the scribes shows that the blasphemy Jesus has in mind is a verbal sin. The scribes were sinning with words, with statements against our Savior. Moreover, the same comment from Mark means unforgivable blasphemy is a persistent sin. “Were saying” is in the progressive voice, which conveys ongoing action. The scribes spoke against Jesus not merely one time; rather, they were so hardened against Him that they continued to associate Him with Satan.
Such hardness is particularly noteworthy because it came from the resident biblical experts. So, we cannot understand what Jesus means by the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unless we recognize the scriptural knowledge of our Lord’s opponents. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus held the religious leaders to a high standard. Christ expected them to know the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament, so well that they could rightly identify God’s work (Matt. 23; John 3:1–15). So, the blasphemy of the Spirit does not arise from mere ignorance. When people know the Scriptures well and yet not only fail to recognize Jesus as Messiah but also openly reject Him, they are standing on perilous ground.
Blasphemy of the Spirit, then, is not the occasional bad thought or episode of anger against God. Such things are sins, to be sure, but they are not the persistent, deliberate rejection of the Lord’s work that shows itself in a willful attribution of God’s actions to Satan himself. Such blasphemy is unforgivable not because the Lord is unwilling to forgive but because a person guilty of such sin has fully and finally hardened his heart against the grace of God.
What, exactly, is the unpardonable sin? While Evangelicals disagree among themselves about the unpardonable sin — what it is and who can commit it — Sproul’s interpretation is held by many Christians. As an Evangelical pastor, my interpretation aligned with Sproul’s; that the unpardonable sin is ascribing the works of God (Jesus) to Satan; that those who commit the unpardonable sin cannot be saved/redeemed.
Bob wants to know, based on my knowledge of the Bible, if I believe I have committed the unpardonable sin? The short answer is no. While I certainly, with great gusto, blaspheme God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I have never ascribed the works of God to Satan. The reason for this is simple: much like God himself, I believe Satan is a myth. It would be silly of me, then, to give credit to Satan for works allegedly performed by God.
The “works of God,” without exception, are the handiwork of humans, as are works ascribed to Satan. Gods, regardless of the sect, are fabricated by humans, and the only “powers” deities have are those which we give to them.
Now, if I transport this discussion back to the days when I was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor, and I had run-in with Bruce Gerencser, the atheist, I most certainly would have said that he was a blasphemer against God; that he had committed the unpardonable sin.
Having said that, the notion that there is an “unpardonable sin” leads to all sorts of problems theologically for Evangelicals.
Is there a difference between the “unpardonable sin” and reprobation, as found in Romans 1:18-32?
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
According to Romans 1:18-32, when a person, who by nature, knows God exists and refuses to acknowledge his existence and worship him, that person becomes vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart is darkened. Southern Baptist evangelist Rolfe Barnard preached a sermon on reprobation where he said that for the reprobate, the lights go out on their way to Hell. In other words, God gives humankind the “light” of creation, conscience, and divine revelation (the Bible). The person on a path to reprobation rejects the light given to him by God, and, bit by bit, the God’s light within him becomes dimmer, until God says, “that’s it for you,” and he unplugs the light. According to Barnard, countless people are as good as in Hell as if they were already there. Once God turns out the light in a person’s soul, there’s no hope for them. That person has crossed a line of no return.
In a sermon from Luke 11:35 titled, When the Lights Go Out on The Road to Hell, Barnard said:
I want to talk some tonight, if God’s Spirit will help me, about this last danger. I am speaking on “When the Lights Go Out on the Road to Hell.” And they are going out for men and women all about us. I can’t prove it, but I believe that America is made up largely of men and women who cannot be saved. I believe they have played and trifled with truth too long. And there is one thing that God Almighty gets angry about; it’s the people who treat lightly any move that God makes to bring light on our pathway. That sure is serious.
There comes a time when God Almighty will reprobate a man, will reject a man. He rejected Pharoah. He rejected the nation of Israel; and it appears to be by the blank expression on people’s faces that many, many people in America have been rejected, because God has had them under His long-sufferance to the point where He cannot be God and deal with them any more. And so He just rejects them and they begin to live in hell here on this earth and hell in time to come.
Both the unpardonable sin and reprobation lead to the same place: outside of the saving grace of God. Once a person reaches this place, they can’t be saved, and their eternal destiny is sealed — even though they may live for another fifty years.
These Biblical “truths” lead to several glaring problems for Evangelicals.
First, Evangelicals are fond of saying that no sin is so bad that God can’t or won’t save you. No matter what you’ve done, God is willing and able to save you, the thinking goes. However, it seems that the unpardonable sin and reprobation place a person beyond God’s wonderful, matchless grace.
Second, most Evangelicals — Arminians excepted — believe that once a person is saved, he cannot lose his salvation/fall from grace. He can lose his eternal rewards, but once saved, he can never become unsaved. Thus, since I was saved at the age of fifteen, no matter what I say or do, I am still safe in the arms of Jesus, and when I die, I will go to Heaven.
How is it possible to square once-saved-always-saved with the fact that someone can commit the unpardonable sin or God can give them over to a reprobate mind? Doesn’t this contradict what Evangelicals say about the nature of God’s saving grace?
Arminians — the children of Jacob Arminius and John Wesley — have no problem explaining these contradictory beliefs. According to Arminian theology, a follower of Jesus can fall from grace. Hebrews 6:4-6:
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
….
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I spent twenty-five of those years pastoring Evangelical churches. At the age of fifteen, I made a credible public profession of faith in Jesus Christ. For thirty-five years, I lived my life as a committed, devoted follower of Jesus. No one, at that time, doubted that I was a Christian.
Today, according to Hebrews 10, I am sinning willfully. I have trampled under my feet the blood of Jesus and have contemptuous disregard for the Holy Spirit. According to Hebrews 6, if those who have been enlightened by God, tasted the Heavenly gift, been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, reject these things, if they fall from grace, it is impossible for them to be saved again.
The Message translation, poignantly translates Hebrews 6:4-6 this way:
Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public!
I think it is safe to say, that I have repudiated Jesus in public. Thus, I have fallen from grace, lost my salvation (which I can never regain), committed the unpardonable sin, and God has turned me over to a reprobate mind! In other words, when it comes to God/Jesus/salvation, I’m fucked!
Of course, these things do not worry me in the least. Since I reject the Bible and its teachings, believe the Christian God is a myth, and reject the central claims of Christianity, I am not concerned one whit over whether I am saved/lost or a reprobate. I admit that in the eyes of Christians, I daily, without apology, commit the unpardonable sin; that my writing, if judged by the teachings of the Bible and the gaseous pronouncements of so-called men of God, is, in every way, blasphemous. Anyone who promotes reason, skepticism, and intellectual inquiry is, according to Evangelicals, a blasphemer. Refuse to accept the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God? Deny the existence of God? Reject the claims of Christianity? Believe that Jesus was a but a man who lived and died, end of story? Find the “miracle” stories found in the Bible silly and laughable? You, my friend, in thought, word, and deed have committed the unpardonable sin. In the eyes of Evangelicals, you are a reprobate. See you in Hell.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
According to the CHARISMA website, Jeremiah Johnson is a prophetic minister. In other words, God talks directly to Johnson. Johnson is an elder at Heart of the Father Ministry in Lakeland, Florida.
These two posts have been read thousands and thousands of times. While I think it is hysterical that Johnson is thought of as a “prophet,” it is evident, based on the traffic numbers for these two posts, that Evangelicals are paying attention to Johnson’s verbal flatulence.
Last Saturday, Johnson weighed in on the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Here’s the text of “Prophet” Johnson’s “official response to the death of R.B.G.
“Parts of the American Church have become so lukewarm that they would have tried to comfort Jezebel on a sickbed that GOD himself threw her on! (Rev 2:22) They would have highlighted her accomplishments over the years and found the good in her. They would have found ways to celebrate Hitler and King Herod- all in the name of false justice and an unbiblical definition of love.
Folks, I’m going to keep sounding the alarm as long as I have breathe in my lungs… Too many American Christians have created a god made in their own image and not the God of the Bible. And for all those living under delusional “New Covenant” false grace that prevents God’s justice and wrath from being active, please look over these Scriptures.
John 3:36 The wrath of God is currently and continually abiding upon all those who reject Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
Acts 5:1-16 Ananias and Sapphira (believers) are struck down dead for lying to the Holy Spirit.
Acts 12:20-24 King Herod is struck dead by an angel of the Lord for not giving God glory.
Acts 13:8-11 Elymas the magician is struck blind “by the hand of the Lord” for being a fraud and son of the devil.
Romans 1:18-24 The wrath of God is revealed toward humanity by allowing them to reap what they sow. “Therefore God gave them over”.
1 Cor 5:1-13 The immoral brother is judged and handed over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.
1 Cor 11:27-34 Believers are judged and become sick, some even die, for not judging themselves before partaking of the Lord’s supper.
Hymenaeus and Alexander were delivered to Satan for Blasphemy 1 Timothy 1:20
Jezebel is thrown on a bed or violent sickness and those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds. Furthermore, I [Jesus] will strike her followers with a deadly disease, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay each one of you what your deeds deserve.” (Rev 2:22 NET)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruled repeatedly on the side of infanticide, partial-birth infanticide, homosexual ‘marriage’ (and officiated homosexual ‘weddings’), against religious liberties, and saw to it that the Supreme Court stopped dating their documents ‘In the Year of our Lord.’
Ginsburg has now discovered that there is a court higher than the one called ‘Supreme’ and she does not sit in the seat of the judge, but as the defendant.
She will answer to a holy God who remembers every ounce of bloodshed she is responsible for and every act of abomination she approved of. The justice of God knows no delay, and the law of God knows no limits.”
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).”
“…when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy” (Proverbs 11:10)
God will repay her according to the deeds she has done!
— Jeremiah Johnson
I have seen similar sentiments on social media in recent days. Evangelicals love it when well-known unbelievers/atheists die. This gives them an opportunity to pass judgment on their lives and consign them to eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. While Johnson lets his mythical God and errant, fallible Bible do the talking, make no mistake about it, he thinks Justice Ginsburg is presently being tormented by God in Hell. According to Johnson — err, I mean God — Ginsburg was a vile, evil person who was an enemy of True Christianity®. Instead of seeing her as a defender of the First Amendment, Johnson sees Justice Ginsburg as a threat to attempts to promote Christian nationalism (and she was).
As is always the case with Evangelical zealots, the important issues of our day are banning abortion and make it illegal, and turning back attempts to give LGBTQ people equal rights and protections under the law. I have no doubt that Johnson, a resolute Bible thumper, believes abortion and homosexual are capital crimes worthy of death.
Johnson’s latest screed is yet another example of why Evangelical Christianity is the most hated religion in America, right up there with Islamic suicide bombers.
There are days when I don’t want to publicize stories such as this one, but we must not let zealots such as Johnson hide behind the safety of their church and social media. Vile words such as Johnson’s must be dragged into the light for all to see. By exposing them, we are helping to push back attempts to turn the United States into an Evangelical Christian theocracy.
On a side note, Fundamentalist pastor J.D. Hall claims that Johnson stole his “prophecy” from an imprecatory message posted by him 12 hours earlier. Let the preacher war begin.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Oh, preachers preach about it. Life is short, Hell is real, or so they say. But I am not sure they really believe what they are saying.
Baptists are noted for being hellfire and brimstone preachers. In my Baptist preacher days, I preached hundreds of sermons on Hell. The altar was often lined with sinners fearing Hell. I was a very, very good Hell preacher.
Everyone knows that someday they will die. Many people fear what happens after death. It is the fear of the unknown that leads many people towards religion. Hellfire-and-brimstone preaching is good for the church business. If people fear Hell, they are more likely to buy into the salvation/Heaven scenario. You don’t want to go to Hell, do you? You don’t want to burn in the flames of Hell forever, do you? Scare people right into Heaven, that’s the essence of the gospel preached by many Evangelicals.
I have come to the conclusion that most preachers really don’t believe in Hell. Preach as they might about Hell, when it comes time to put their theology into practice, they cower and refuse to proclaim their Hell belief.
Let me tell you a story about a man named Bob. (Bob is a pseudonym, but all the details that follow are real.) Bob was raised in a Fundamentalist Baptist home. His parents were stern, devout, Christians who helped start several local Baptist churches.
At the age of 17, Bob attended a revival meeting at the local Baptist church. When the invitation was given, Bob walked down the aisle, knelt at the altar, prayed the sinner’s prayer, and at that moment became a born-again Christian.
A short time after his conversion, Bob had a falling-out with his family and moved out of his parents’ home. Bob never attended church another day in his life apart from an occasional funeral or wedding.
Bob lived to be 83 years old. From the time Bob was 17 until he died, he lived a life of sin and infamy. Bob was a child abuser. Bob beat his wife. Bob was a drunk. No woman was safe from Bob’s leering eye and his groping hands.
Bob was a nasty, vulgar kind of drunk.
Bob raped a woman while her 12-year-old son was home from school sick. He was never prosecuted because his victim was a mentally troubled family member.
Bob died recently.
Bob’s funeral was held at the same Baptist church he once attended. His family still attends the church. The funeral was the first time that Bob had been to church in over 60 years.
The preacher mentioned what an ornery man Bob was. And then the preacher spent the next 20 minutes preaching AT Bob’s friends. The funeral service was not about Bob at all, it was all about Jesus. Maybe that was better because it was probably hard to find much good to say about Bob.
Mercifully, the preacher brought his Jesus talk to a close with an invitation to trust Jesus as savior.
Why? So they too could be in Heaven someday with Bob. The Bob, who at age 17 walked down the aisle, knelt at the altar, prayed the sinner’s prayer, and became a Christian.
Shocking?
Hardly.
I have attended dozens of funerals over the years. I have preached a good number of funeral sermons myself. In every case, the deceased was preached into Heaven. No matter how the person lived, no matter what they did, heaven was their final destination.
Baptists are known for believing in what is commonly called “once saved, always saved.” While I no longer claim to be a professing Christian, and I am quite vocal about my atheism, according to many Christians, I can’t get “unsaved.” Once saved, always saved (also called eternal security or the preservation of the saints). God has me whether I want him or not.
According to the preacher at First Baptist, Bob is safe in the arms of Jesus. Pity all the women he raped, abused, and molested over the years. Pity all those he terrorized when he was drunk. The fire insurance Bob bought at age 17 covered everything he would ever do. This gave him immunity from prosecution for all his debauchery.
It matters not that he did not attend church in the past 60 years. He never prayed; never read the Bible. In fact, he cursed God, hated God, and lived as if there is no God.
But, at age 17 . . . well, you get the gist of the story.
It is time to be honest, preachers. Hell doesn’t really exist, does it? For all your hellfire and brimstone preaching, when it comes right down to it everyone makes it in. Anyone who EVER had a momentary religious experience is safe.
Preachers, if you object to what I have written, why not tell the truth about the Bobs of the world? If your God be true and every man a liar, if your Bible is true, then people like Bob are burning in Hell. It seems you can quite easily tell wonderful stories about people going to Heaven, why not the opposite?
Personally, I do not believe in Hell. If there is any hell at all, it is here and now. But, if you claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God, then speak as if you do. Don’t pollute God’s Heaven by sending any more Bobs there.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This is the latest installment in The Voices of Atheism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. Know of a good video that espouses atheism/agnosticism or challenges the claims of the Abrahamic religions? Please email me the name of the video or a link to it. I believe this series will be an excellent addition to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Today’s video features a Freethought Matters interview of agnostic Dr. Bart Ehrman about his latest book Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. Enjoy!
Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
My posts on Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jack Schaap, and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement and its bombastic luminaries have wide circulation on the internet. With wide circulation comes an increase in comments from Baptist Fundamentalists who feel it is their duty to expose their ignorance for all to see. While they THINK they are putting the preacher-turned-atheist in his place, what they are really doing is illustrating the bankruptcy of the IFB church movement. Their emails, comments, blog posts, forum comments, and sermons are reminders that IFB preachers and church members are unable to embrace or accept any form of criticism. When you are certain you are right, it is hard to accept anything/anyone that says you are not right or that your thinking is flawed.
Several years ago, I received an email from a Jack Hyles-loving older woman in Florida. I assume she is older because she references a picture in the post from the early 1970s. Without further adieu, I present to you yet another reason why I am glad not to be a Christian:
Hi, I want to thank you for the picture of Dr. Hyles on your article. I am going to copy and print it for my husband who was in Hammond at the time of this photo. He dearly missed by us and we both think he was honor to be in his ministry for seven years. By the way, I am glad that you are an atheist and out of all church. Maybe you can join Madame Murray O Haire in Hell one day and you both can have a heyday criticizing each other. Good luck with the hereafter, there is one but you are going to in the dark place where no one can see your ugly face again. So glad for that place called HELL.
(All spelling and grammar errors in the original.)
If there was, in fact, a Hell, and there’s not, I too would be glad for its existence. Why would I want to spend eternity in Heaven with the likes of this woman? Long-time readers of this blog have read scores of comments and posted emails I have received from Evangelical and IFB critics. If these Christians are representative of the fine, upstanding folks found in Evangelical churches, why would any of us want to spend one moment in this life with them, let alone eternity? No thanks. Give me Hell. At least there I will have friends, people who loved and accepted me as I am. I hear the weather in Hell is awesome, and the parties are out of this world. Hmm . . . partying on a beach with friends or spending every hour of every day worshiping a narcissistic deity with people who spent their lives on earth attacking and judging anyone and everyone who didn’t worship their God. Which should I choose?
I have been blogging since 2007. I was a Christian when I first started blogging, deconverted in 2008, and have been drawing the ire of Evangelical Christians ever since. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians have visited this site. Some of them, particularly Fundamentalists, attempt to set me straight or to win me back to Jesus. When Evangelicals fail in their endeavors, it is not uncommon for them to turn on me, often acting in ways that are decidedly un-Christian. For the life of me, I don’t understand why some Evangelicals act this way. What do they hope to accomplish? Do they think that their atrocious behavior will make Christianity more appealing to me and the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines who read this blog? Or maybe they write us off, and in doing so show their true nature. All I know is this: Evangelicals who behave this way have done more than I ever could to advance the cause of atheism.
Keep preaching the “word” Evangelicals. We are hearing you loud and clear.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
I often write about the extreme right of Evangelicalism, the end of the Evangelical spectrum inhabited by churches and sects that nice, friendly Evangelicals like to call Fundamentalist nut jobs. However, as I clearly show in my post titled Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?, ALL Evangelicals are Fundamentalists. Evangelical belief requires theological fundamentalism, a core set of beliefs that one must adhere to be a Christian and considered an Evangelical in good standing. Some who deny this fact are really liberal/progressive Christians living in denial. Raised in the Evangelical church and familiar with its worship and practice, these liberal/progressive Christians don’t want to abandon the only church they have ever known. Their theology puts them squarely outside of Evangelicalism, yet they refuse to accept this, digging their heels in when attempts are made to drag them into the liberal/progressive church. There’s not much anyone can do for these folks. In time, the keepers of Evangelical truth will expose and embarrass them and they will be forced to leave. For now, they play pretend Evangelical.
There’s another subset within Evangelicalism that thinks they are what I call a nicer, friendlier version of Evangelicalism. They are convinced that legalism, rules, moralizing, and the like are the problem, so they attempt to advertise their churches as places that are judgment free; places where sinners can come to find healing and deliverance. However, these nicer, friendlier Evangelicals hang onto theological fundamentalism. While their lifestyle or what they consider a sin might be different from their legalistic brethren, theologically there is very little difference between the two.
Here’s how you force nicer, friendlier Evangelicals to show their true colors. Forget this or that doctrine. Forget everything except what I share next:
Evangelical: The church I go to, First Church of the Most Awesome People in Town, is the nicest, friendliest church in town. We love everyone, and I am sure that if you come to our church you will feel right at home!!
Bruce: Let me ask you several questions. First, do you believe in a literal Hell?
Evangelical: Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches.
Bruce: Who ends up in Hell?
Evangelical: Well, um, uh, I am not the judge, only God is. But the Bible does say that a person must know Jesus as their Lord and Savior to go to Heaven when they die.
Bruce: So, since I am not a Christian and I refuse to acknowledge Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I will go to Hell when I die, right?
Evangelical: (looks down to ground) Uh, well, um, yeah, if you don’t repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you will go to Hell when you die.
Bruce: How long will I be in Hell? Is it like Catholic purgatory where I’ll suffer for a time and then be taken to Heaven?
Evangelical: Well, uh . . . (long, long, long pause) if you die without knowing Jesus as your Lord and Savior you will spend eternity in the torments of Hell.
Bruce: Fire and brimstone and where the worm dieth not?
Evangelical: Yes.
Bruce: Since this body I currently have would burn up if I was thrown into a pit of fire and brimstone, does this mean God gives me a new body that will withstand the torments of Hell?
Evangelical: (silently praying the Rapture would happen)
Bruce: And doesn’t this mean that your God created me, killed me, and sent me to Hell with a new body fashioned by him to withstand day and night torture for eternity?
Evangelical: (God, won’t this atheist go away)
Bruce: Is this the God you worship? Why would anyone want to worship such a horrible deity?
Forget all the other doctrines, this is the only one that matters. I don’t care how nice or friendly Evangelical churches thinks they are, if they believe in Hell, then they are party to their God’s savage, endless torture of billions of people. They might smile more or practice friendship evangelism, but the result is still the same: those who don’t repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ go to Hell when they die. (Please see We Love People and Are the Friendliest Church in Town.)
The next time you run into a nicer, friendlier Evangelical, go for their jugular. Ask them point-blank if they believe in Hell. Their answer(s) to this question will tell you all you need to know. Personally, I have no interest in being a part of a group or being friends with anyone who thinks that I will burn in Hell for eternity because I am not like them. This kind of thinking is no different from the thinking of the demented killers portrayed on Criminal Minds. Our God is an awesome God, the Evangelical says, and He loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And if you refuse to accept his gracious, wonderful offer of salvation, our God will someday torture you for all eternity.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Originally published in 2015. Updated, corrected, and expanded.
According to those who KNOW the mind of God (Please see Do Evangelical Christians “Know” the Mind of God?) and KNOW the names written in the Book of Life, when Christopher Hitchens died on December 15, 2011, he went straight to Hell to be tortured day and night by the Evangelical God for refusing to admit said God exists and for rejecting the salvation proffered by Jesus Christ. (The irony here is that all four Evangelicals mentioned in this post are Calvinists, men who believe no one can “choose” to be saved.)
We have no indication that Christopher ever called on the Lord before he died, and if he did not, then Scriptures plainly teach that he is lost forever.
And finally, Chris Hohnholz, a writer for the Defending Contending blog (link no longer active), took the pious approach and said that Hitchens lived his life as a hater of God, but since no human can know the true spiritual state of any person, he couldn’t say whether Hitchens is in Hell:
The question that stands before us today of course, is where is Christopher Hitchens today. According to Mr. Hitchens, he simply ceased to exist, nothing more. But for the Christian, we know that we exist for eternity once this mortal body ceases functioning. There are only two possibilities as to where, Heaven or Hell. As Mr. Hitchens was created by God, and was bound to God’s laws, as we all are, he can only be in one of those two places. At first, it may seem quite easy to figure it out. He denied God, spoke vehemently against the Christian faith, and was often hateful and vitriolic in his speech regarding it. Considering that he made the statement there would be no deathbed conversion, it would be a simple thing to declare God sent him to hell. However, the truth is, we simply do not, and cannot know.
It is clear that Mr. Hitchens made a career of hating the very idea of God. But it is also clear that he was a common sinner just like the rest of us. He had a conscience, he was aware of right and wrong. He, like the rest of us, committed acts that were in violation of that conscience. We know that our consciences are God’s laws written upon our hearts. When we violate our conscience, we are violating God’s laws. Additionally, Mr. Hitchens debated with many Christians, he had heard the gospel presentation many times. There is little question that by the time of his death, Mr. Hitchens knew what God required of him. It is that time just prior to his death that we cannot know about. Is it at least possible, that as he faced those last moments, knowing death was coming that he considered those sins he committed, that he contemplated the gospel he had denied so many times, that he just might have repented and trusted Christ. If we are intellectually honest, we must say that it is possible. And since we cannot know, we hope that is what happened. We hope that we will find Mr. Hitchens in Heaven one day, for we do not wish the wrath of God on any man.
But we must also be honest say that he may not have repented. It is entirely possible that Mr. Hitchens held on to his rejection of God all the way into death. If so, Mr. Hitchens now stands before God in judgment for his sins. And not just for his atheism. As said before, our consciences are merely God’s law written on our hearts. When any man or woman breaks those laws, through lying, stealing, coveting, lusting, or blaspheming, they have sinned against a holy and righteous God. It is not just because he was an atheist that Mr. Hitchens may have stood condemned, it is because, as we all are, he was a sinner against the God who created him. And if that indeed is what occurred, even we Christians must mourn his death, for we do not wish Hell on any man. But we also rejoice that God is glorified, because His justice is perfect.
So what does that mean for the Christian? First, let us not run around proclaiming we know where Christopher Hitchens is, only God knows that. Let us share with people the truth, that if he repented and trusted Christ (which is our hope), he is in Heaven. But if he remained in his sins, he was condemned (as we all deserve). Let us not rejoice that another atheist voice is silent, that presents us as unkind and unloving. But let us not ignore that what he taught was blasphemous. As we engage in conversation with others on this, let us remember that, whatever Mr. Hitchens fate was, all of us face the same date with death.
This “sounds” nice, but don’t be deceived. I have heard these words many, many times, and they are words uttered by people who don’t want to look bad before the world so they refrain from saying in public what they proclaim every week in the pulpit or behind closed doors.
There is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, in the life of Christopher Hitchens that remotely suggests he is now with God and the angels. He is in Hell and Hohnholz knows it! I wish Evangelicals like Chris Hohnholz would at least own the abominable, horrendous doctrine of eternal punishment they preach.
The Dead Logic blog (link no longer active) pretty well sums up my feelings about people such as Mohler, Warren,Wilson and Hohnholz:
I feel even more sadness for those who are so blinded by religious prejudice that they see the death of Hitchens as an opportunity to peddle their religious wares. I’ve already expressed what I think about Albert Mohler’s recent comment on Twitter. Turns out that “purpose-driven” Rick Warren is just as classy as Mohler. Warren had his own douchebag moment on Twitter when he wrote: “Hitchens has died. I loved & prayed for him & grieve his loss. He knows the Truth now.” Yes, Rick, use a man’s death as a tool in your propaganda machine. If Warren truly “loved” Hitch, he would be honoring his memory instead of disgracing Hitchens for the sake of “the Truth” with a capital T.
The place where Christopher Hitchens spent his last few weeks was hardly bookish, but he made it his own. Close to downtown Houston is the Medical Center, a cluster of high-rises like La Défense of Paris, or London’s City, a financial district of a sort, where the common currency is illness…..
….. While I was with him another celebration took place in far away London, with Stephen Fry as host in the Festival Hall to reflect on the life and times of Christopher Hitchens. We helped him out of bed and into a chair and set my laptop in front of him. Alexander delved into the Internet with special passwords to get us linked to the event. He also plugged in his own portable stereo speakers. We had the sound connection well before the vision and what we heard was astounding, and for Christopher, uplifting. It was the noise of 2,000 voices small-talking before the event. Then we had a view from the stage of the audience, packed into their rows.
They all looked so young. I would have guessed that nearly all of them would have opposed Christopher strongly over Iraq. But here they were, and in cinemas all over the country, turning out for him. Christopher grinned and raised a thin arm in salute. Close family and friends may be in the room with you, but dying is lonely, the confinement is total. He could see for himself that the life outside this small room had not forgotten him. For a moment, pace Larkin, it was by way of the Internet that the world stretched a hand toward him.
The next morning, at Christopher’s request, Alexander and I set up a desk for him under a window. We helped him and his pole with its feed-lines across the room, arranged pillows on his chair, adjusted the height of his laptop. Talking and dozing were all very well, but Christopher had only a few days to produce 3,000 words on Ian Ker’s biography of Chesterton.
Whenever people talk of Christopher’s journalism, I will always think of this moment.
Consider the mix. Constant pain, weak as a kitten, morphine dragging him down, then the tangle of Reformation theology and politics, Chesterton’s romantic, imagined England suffused with the kind of Catholicism that mediated his brush with fascism and his taste for paradox, which Christopher wanted to debunk. At intervals, Christopher’s head would droop, his eyes close, then with superhuman effort he would drag himself awake to type another line. His long memory served him well, for he didn’t have the usual books on hand for this kind of thing. When it’s available, read the review. His unworldly fluency never deserted him, his commitment was passionate, and he never deserted his trade. He was the consummate writer, the brilliant friend. In Walter Pater’s famous phrase, he burned “with this hard gem-like flame.” Right to the end.
Christopher Hitchens is greatly missed. I always appreciated his sharp tongue and pointed critique of religion. He made the religious fuss, fume, and squirm as he attacked their beliefs and practices.
Someday, I will die. I have thought a lot about this, and while I am no Christopher Hitchens I can only imagine how my demise will play out in the blogosphere and in the pulpit. According to my critics, when death comes to take me, I will be cast in Hell with the Devil and Christopher Hitchens. A special Hell, punishment, and torture await me because I was once a believer and an Evangelical pastor.
I’ve spent the last twelve years being threatened with Hell and God’s judgment, and if I have a choice between Heaven with Mohler, Warren, Wilson and Hohnholz and Hell with Hitchens, Steven Hawking, my dear friend Steve Gupton and a cast of people I greatly admire, give me Hitch and Hell every time.
The world is richer because a man named Christopher Hitchens lived among us. While his body rots in the grave, his words remain. May his words continue to inspire people to consider a life and world without religious ignorance and oppression. There can be a better tomorrow without God.
Let me conclude this post with a few quotes from Hitch’s last published work Mortality:
The notorious stage theory of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whereby one progresses from denial to rage through bargaining to depression and the eventual bliss of ‘acceptance,’ hasn’t so far had much application to my case. In one way, I suppose, I have been ‘in denial’ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me. Rage would be beside the point for the same reason. Instead, I am badly oppressed by the gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read — if not indeed to write — the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger? But I understand this sort of non-thinking for what it is: sentimentality and self-pity.
To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?
Myself, I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.
It’s normally agreed that the question ‘How are you?’ doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like, ‘A bit early to say.’ (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, ‘I seem to have cancer today.’) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of ‘life’ when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe: the boring switch from chronic constipation to its sudden dramatic opposite; the equally nasty double-cross of feeling acute hunger while fearing even the scent of food; the absolute misery of gut-wringing nausea on an utterly empty stomach; or the pathetic discovery that hair loss extends to the disappearance of the follicles in your nostrils, and thus to the childish and irritating phenomenon of a permanently runny nose . . . It’s no fun to appreciate to the full the truth of the materialist proposition that I don’t have a body, I am a body.
The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.
However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. In fact, I now sometimes wonder why I ever thought it profound . . . In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.
Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don’t so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it’s time to be on my way. No, it’s the snickering that gets me down.
So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion. It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don’t live up to their apparent billing.
“From Alan Lightman’s intricate 1993 novel Einstein’s Dreams; set in Berne in 1905:
With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts…and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.”
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Raising Hell by Kesha.
[Verse 1]
Hallelujah
I’m still here, still bringin’ it to ya
Ohm, like Buddha
Good girls know how to get hard too, ya (Uh huh)
[Pre-Chorus]
I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best
No walk of shame ’cause I love this dress
Hungover, heart of gold, holy mess
Doin’ my best (Ah), bitch, I’m blessed
[Chorus]
Oh, if you couldn’t tell
We can always find the trouble, we don’t need no help
Singing oh, mama raised me well
But I don’t wanna go to Heaven without raisin’ hell (Get it)
[Post-Chorus]
Get it
Drop it down low, hit it, hit the floor with it
Drop it down low, drop it down low
Drop, dr-drop it down low, drop it down low (Get it)
Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop-drop-drop it down, down low
Bounce it up and down where the good Lord split it
[Verse 2]
Hands up, witness
Solo cup full of holy spirits
Somethin’ wicked (Ooh)
Speakin’ in tongues in my blood-red lipstick (Brrah)
[Pre-Chorus]
I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best
No walk of shame ’cause I love this dress (Ooh)
Only God can judge this holy mess (Ah, ah)
Bitch, I’m blessed
[Chorus]
Oh, if you couldn’t tell (Oh well)
We can always find the trouble, we don’t need no help
Singing oh, mama raised me well (Uh huh)
But I don’t wanna go to Heaven without raisin’ hell (Ah!)
[Post-Chorus]
Get it
Brrah
Drop it down low, hit it, hit the floor with it
Drop it down low, drop it down low
Drop, dr-drop it down low, drop it down low (Get it)
Drop it, drop it, drop it, drop-drop-drop it down, down low
Bounce it up and down where the good Lord split it
[Interlude]
Ladies and gentlemen (Oh, shit)
Let’s shake what the good Lord gave us (Oh yes, baby)
Come on, let’s go
[Bridge]
Aw, dang, this that shit (Uh huh)
Beat like this, wanna shake my ooh
Oh, dang, this that shit (Ah, ah)
Beat like this, wanna shake my ooh
Aw, dang, this that shit (Ah)
Beat like this, haters, suck my ooh
Woo, Lord, feelin’ it
Beat like this, make me feel that power
[Chorus]
Oh, if you couldn’t tell
We can always find the trouble, we don’t need no help
Singing oh, mama raised me well
But I don’t wanna go to Heaven without raisin’ hell
[Outro]
Can I get an amen? (Ah)
This is for the misfits of creation (You’re welcome, ah)
Take this as your holy validation (Come on)
You don’t need to hide your celebratin’ (Sing it, Kesha, bitch)
This is our salvation
An Evangelical man by the name of Stephen left the following comment on a post titled, Christopher Hitchens is in Hell. It’s the only post Stephen read, so I assume he was searching for a writer who told the “truth” about Hitchens’ eternal destiny. I am sure he was disappointed to find out that I, too, am an atheist. Rather than approve Stephen’s comment, I thought I would turn it into a post. My comments are indented and italicized. All grammar in the original.
Hitchens is short for hell’s kitchen
I just love it when a Christian zealot starts his screed with an attempt to be humorous or cute. Sorry, Stephen — epic fail! That said, I do suppose that Christopher Hitchens would enjoy hanging out in Hell’s Kitchen. I hear the food is awesome.
…and he [Hitchens] put himself there out of sheer desire too since he could not be honest and man enough to admit he just hates God and the concept of Him, just like all atheists do
Evangelicals believe that Hitchens died in his sins and is currently residing in Hell — a place where the Christian God tortures non-Christians for eternity. Hitch didn’t have much good to say about Christianity. My God, he even eviscerated Mother Theresa in his book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.
“As an anti-theist, he regarded all religions as false, harmful, and authoritarian. He argued in favour of free expression and scientific discovery, and that it was superior to religion as an ethical code of conduct for human civilization. He also advocated for the separation of church and state. The dictum “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence” has become known as Hitchens’s razor.”
It’s not enough for Stephen to attack Hitchens’ atheistic beliefs. Stephen goes after his character, saying Hichens is not man enough, not honest enough to admit that the real issue he has with Christianity is that he hates God.
Atheists hate God. Where oh where have I heard that before. *sigh* Instead of thinking about why someone might not believe in the existence of deities, Stephen says ALL atheists hate God. Note that he doesn’t say, atheists hate all deities. For Stephen there is one true God, his, and it is that God Hitchens and all atheists hate.
I wonder if Stephen hates Allah, Buddha, or the plethora of other deities humans worship? I doubt it. He would likely say that hating such deities would be stupid. “Who hates imaginary beings?” Exactly, Stephen. Atheists don’t hate your God any more than they do any of other Gods in the panoply of deities. It’s silly to hate imaginary beings, and that’s why most atheists do not hate God — whatever name he may go by. Now, asking if atheists hate Evangelicalism, Christianity, or other organized religions is another question altogether. Many atheists hate religion in general. However, many atheists do not hate religion as a social, cultural, tribal construct. What they do hate are the harmful behaviors committed in the name of this or that God. As a humanist, my concern is with the effect of religious faith and not religion itself. Many atheists agree with this sentiment.
Of course, Stephen will likely reject what I have written here, saying that atheists, deep in their heart of hearts, hate God. No matter what atheists say to the contrary, for the Stephens of the world, atheists hate God.
– imagine up as many logical fallacies you can think of to justify themselves…the human heart is desperately sick, who can understand it?…,
I am not sure what to make of what Stephen says here. He says “the human heart is desperately sick, who can understand it?” This is a loose rendering of Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Evangelicals believe humans, by nature, have been ruined by the Fall; that everyone is born into this world a sinner; that without the salvation offered through the merit and work of Jesus, all of us will spend eternity in Hell (Lake of Fire). As a Christian, Stephen believes he has a golden ticket. His heavenly reservation is secure. When Stephen dies, he will live on in Heaven with Jesus and his fellow Christians. I wonder if the food in Heaven’s Kitchen is better than that in Hell? I doubt it.
Perhaps Stephen might enlighten readers as to what these “many logical fallacies” are. Most atheists value rationalism, skepticism, and intellectual inquiry. Our goal is to construct a logical, consistent worldview. Evangelicals, on the other hand, are required to follow a God-ordained, Bible-based worldview, regardless of whether it squares with science or history. No Christian comes out a winner when arguing worldviews with an atheist/humanist. There’s too much craziness in the Bible for an Evangelical to hold a logical, consistent view of the world. Viewing the world through Bible-colored glasses will always lead to a warped, anti-human viewpoint.
Most unbelievers as atheists themselves might even forget that at one time they had to have chosen to and that must have been out if a high magnitude of shear ignorance if they knew what they were missing..it’s like refusing to believe Gravity exists then jumping of the Empire State building to prove it but never being able to because at the time you find out you were wrong you’re dead.
Most unbelievers (non-Christians) are not atheists. This is a common misconception. Unbelief is not the same as atheism. Most unbelievers are indifferent towards religion or know nothing about it. An atheist is someone who has made a positive affirmation of his denial of the existence of deities. While an argument can be made for all humans being born atheist, it’s preferable, at least from my perspective, to limit the term “atheist” to those who intellectually, rationally deny the existence of gods.
Stephen says that atheists are ignorant. How else can one explain all that atheists give up by not being Christians? Here’s the thing: eternity in Heaven does not sound that attractive to me. What will Evangelicals be doing in Heaven for all eternity? The inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God gives us a good idea. The triune God expects Heaven’s inhabitants to spend their days in worship and praise. Imagine how sore your back will get prostrating yourself before Jesus day and night! Compare what’s going on in Heaven to the atmosphere in Hell. Party Time! Sure, Hell will be a bit warm for my liking, but I sure prefer Hitchens and his crowd to Stephen’s group. Who in their right mind wants to spend eternity in church? No thanks!
Stephen tries to use a variation of Pascal’s Wager to warn atheists of the danger of unbelief. As usual, its use is an epic fail. I would ask Stephen, have you applied Pascal’s Wager to all other deities? Surely, that’s the prudent thing to do right? Stephen can deny Allah exists, but when he jumps off the proverbial Empire State Building, he will quickly know — albeit too late — that Allah exists. The only safe thing for Stephen to do is to believe in every God, covering all of his bases. Better safe than sorry, right? “No, no, no,” Stephen says, “there is only one true God — mine!” And there goes Pascal’s Wager up in smoke.
one thing we know, there’s no atheists in hell.
Finally, Stephen says something I agree with. There are no atheists in Hell! Of course, Stephen means something different when he says this. He means every atheist in Hell is now a believer; that burning in Hell f-o-r-e-v-e-r will teach those awful atheists the TRUTH about God. Regardless, the reason there are no atheists in Hell is this: There is no Hell, no Heaven, no afterlife, and no God. Atheists aren’t worried in the least about going to Hell. Hell, with its eternal punishment, is a religious construct cooked up by clerics and theologians to keep congregants in line and keep money flowing into church coffers. Remove the fear of Hell and judgment from the equation and most people will trade sitting on hard pews for sleeping in on Sunday mornings. The salvation game only works when humans are viewed as broken and in need of fixing — or as Stephen said, “desperately sick.” Once humans figure out the concepts of sin, salvation, and eternal life are myths, the game is over.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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