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Bruce, Do You Hate God?

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hate god

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Plans to Wage War on the FDA if Donald Trump Wins the 2024 Presidential Election

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RFK Jr war on FDA

2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump recently said that, if elected, he plans to turn conspiracy theorist and all-around nutjob Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. loose on the Federal government — specifically the FDA. What could possibly go wrong, right? What follows is an excerpt from an article on the Science-Based Medicine website by one of my favorite Internet doctors, David Gorski. If you are not familiar with the Science-Based Medicine site, please check it out. You will find long-form articles filled with important information/discussion about medicine and science.

By Dr. David Gorksi, Science-Based Medicine, RFK Jr. declares MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] war against the FDA, October 28, 2024

Let’s look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims. Basically, it’s a misrepresentation of what the FDA has done and, of course, the promise of all the things listed. Again, I will start by saying that the FDA has never engaged in suppression, much less “aggressive suppression” of exercise or sunlight that I am aware of. Moreover, as we’ve complained about before, the FDA, if anything, has been far too lax in regulating, for example, quackery involving unproven stem cell treatments for conditions ranging from autism (for which quack clinics have even set up unethical and scientifically dubious pay-to-play clinical trials registered with ClinicalTrials.gov to sell their quackery), to stroke, to cancer. There are even profitable companies marketing stem cell quackery without evidence that it works. Ditto chelation therapy, which has never been shown to work for anything except acute toxicity from heavy metal poisoning and has even been studied for cardiovascular disease in two very expensive and unnecessary (and negative) randomized clinical trials. Let’s also not forget that neither hydroxychloroquine nor ivermectin have been demonstrated to work against COVID-19—quite the contrary, in fact—nor ivermectin shown to be efficacious against cancer. As for raw milk, it has no health benefits greater than pasteurized milk, but it does have a much higher risk of food borne infections. (It is, however, “natural,” I guess.)

Of course, nutraceuticals (and vitamins and supplements) are already legal and weakly regulated (if you can call it regulated at all), thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which we’ve written about here many, many times, most recently how it helped conspiracy theorist Alex Jones fund his media empire. Basically, as long as you are vague enough about the health claims for your supplement, nutraceutical, or vitamin concoction, you can sell it to treat almost anything, and the supplement industry has, through its powerful patrons, prevented any strengthening of the law to deal with all the quacks who claim without evidence that their supplements treat disease. On the rare occasions when the FDA does try to crack down on quacks selling unproven or even potentially harmful supplements, the health freedom movement inevitably portrays it as “fascist” or “jack-booted thugs” trying to “suppress” all those “natural” cures.

….

So what would the FDA look like if Trump were to win next week and actually follow through with his appointment of RFK Jr. to a high-ranking health position? The answer illustrates a bit of the dilemma that the “health freedom” movement has, being, as it is, an uncomfortable alliance between crunchy “all natural” health freedom lovers and more hard core libertarians like Nick Gillespie, who believe that the “power of the free market” will “unleash innovation” if only the nasty old FDA were less strict about its standards for pharmaceutical companies. There is an inherent tension there between wanting to be more strict with the “bad” pharmaceutical companies, while approving modalities (or at least much more weakly regulating them) that alternative practitioners want.

On the one hand, MAHA would seem to want to muzzle the FDA with respect to all the quackery listed in RFK Jr.’s post, basically letting quacks do whatever they want with almost anything. Remember, a lot of what is in RFK Jr.’s list is not “natural.” Certainly extracting and isolating stem cells and injecting them into the bloodstream is not “natural,” nor are chelation therapy and hyperbaric oxygen—and especially ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, peptides, and psychedelics, all of which are manufactured drugs. Again, what “health freedom” really wants is the freedom for quacks to ply their grift without interference from the government.

What will be fascinating to watch is how tensions between the libertarians who believe that big pharma should be unleashed in order to produce “innovation” and cures and the “natural” crunchy crowd and its overwhelming suspicion of anything produced by big pharma will be resolved. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to see RFK Jr. in any sort of official capacity with power over federal health care policy, but, in the unfortunate event that Trump wins and he is appointed HHS Secretary (or, at least, keeps helping Trump pick leaders of the FDA, CDC, and NIH), in particular because his MAHA agenda conflicts with so much of Trump’s other agenda:

RFK’s health mission puts him at odds with Trump’s own track record. As president, Trump heavily subsidized the agricultural industry to alleviate pains he inflicted on farmers with his own tariff policies. His administration peeled back toxic chemical regulations and environmental rules. He undermined school lunch programs and flooded cafeterias with junk food, rejecting the healthy options pioneered by the Barack Obama administration.

The reason is, likely, this:

Being responsive to public opinion doesn’t necessarily make someone smart. It makes them pliable. And perhaps that’s why Kennedy and his followers are willing to take a chance on Trump. They see him as a person who—in his lust for adulation—can be changed or manipulated. 

The challenging thing about being around RFK and his crowd is that while their ideas can be hard to take seriously, the underlying concerns they carry are basically unimpeachable: frighteningly high healthcare costs, the murky relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors who prescribe their pills, and a very real decline in overall health among the population. 

But they are seeking solutions to real problems in the wrong places. Looking into the past won’t save us any more than forgoing your vaccine shots, drinking raw milk, or voting for Trump will.

That is precisely the issue. There are very real concerns about US health policy, but, as is the case with the nostrums RFK Jr. champions for disease and to demonize vaccines, he’s applying policy quackery to address these problems in a way that is inherently self-contradicting. After all, the “free market” contingent of the “health freedom” movement that wants to “unleash innovation” by neutering the FDA is good at manipulation too. I hope we never have to see which faction of the health freedom movement will triumph if there is a second Trump administration. I fear that federal health policy will end up being the worst of both worlds, with far less regulation on big pharma and much laxer standards for drug approval, plus a lot more freedom for quacks to peddle quackery like bogus stem cell therapies, chelation, and “repurposed” ivermectin for everything, while NIH is forced to waste even more money studying useless quackery.

As for a “corrupt system,” no one out-corrupts Donald Trump.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The United States Has an Oligarch Problem

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By Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams, Democracy Dies… in the Pockets of the American Oligarchy, Used with Permission

I canceled my Washington Post subscription Friday evening. Jeff Bezos, Mister “Democracy Dies In Darkness” (the Post’s slogan on their masthead), by blocking his editorial staff from endorsing Harris chose darkness over his nation’s future, and I can’t support that.

The big mistake John D. Rockefeller made back in the day—that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk appear committed to not repeating—was not buying a media outlet like a newspaper. Had John D. had that sort of a vehicle to mold public opinion, American history may be very different.

By 1880, Rockefeller’s Ohio-based company controlled over 90 percent of the nation’s oil, owned 4000 miles of pipelines, and employed over 100,000 people. As Rockefeller’s oil empire got larger and larger, eating alive hundreds of smaller operations, ruthlessly driving up prices, destroying his competitors, and throwing workers out of a job, public outrage grew.

In 1887, Ohio sued him, arguing that he was operating in ways that were detrimental to the state and its citizens and businesses; in 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court ordered his company dissolved. As I lay out in detail in Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became “People,” this led Rockefeller to move Standard Oil to New Jersey after that state changed its corporation laws to allow for his monopolistic behavior.

Which brought in the federal government; in 1890, Ohio Senator John Sherman introduced and saw passed into law the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which provided not just fines but jail sentences against people like Rockefeller who were committed to destroying competition and owning entire markets. The law was flawed with a few loopholes and ambiguities, so it was amended in 1914 with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act.

Nonetheless, in 1906 progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s administration filed an antitrust action against Rockefeller that went to the Supreme Court in 1911 during the administration of progressive Republican President William Howard Taft. The behemoth was broken up into 34 separate companies, an action that, like the breakup of AT&T by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, led to an explosion of competition in the marketplace and a dramatic increase in shareholder value.

But back to Jeff Bezos and his 2013 purchase of The Washington Post.

It was reporters and editors for the hundreds of independent newspapers during the First Gilded Age (1880-1900) era that led the crusades against Rockefeller and his fellow monopolists. Investigative journalism was all the rage then, and it fed public demand for a return to competition and the de-throning of that age’s oligarchs.

The vast majority of workers were struggling and they worked for a very small 10 percent of the population who controlled most of the nation’s wealth (a situation we’re at again).

The result was constant strife, strikes, and the murder of labor leaders; entire towns were in arms (and sometimes ablaze) with labor conflict. The “problem of labor”was the number one issue of the day. As President Grover Cleveland — the only Democrat elected during that period — proclaimed in his 1887 State of the Union address:

“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

There was a broad consensus across American society that those “Robber Barons” were feathering their own nests at the expense of the American public, hurting both working class people and small businesses. The Supreme Court endorsed breaking up Standard Oil in 1911, and even broke up the Associated Press in 1944.

The law was so rigorously enforced — so the game of business could be played by all comers, not just the “big boys” — that in the 1960s the Supreme Court barred the merger of the Kinney and Buster Brown shoe companies because the new combined company would control a mere 5 percent of the shoe market.

Back in the ’60s every mall and downtown in America was filled with small, locally-owned businesses; there might be a Sears to anchor the shopping center or a retail part of town, but most shops, restaurants, and hotels were family-owned.

But then Reagan, in 1983, ordered the DOJ, SEC, and FTC to stop enforcing the Sherman Act, which is why today Nike, for example, controls about a fifth of the entire nation’s shoe market. It’s the same across industry after industry, from retail to grocery stores to railroads to computer software to social media to chip manufacturing to airlines to hotels…and on and on. In virtually every industry, a handful of massive companies control 80 percent or more of the market.

The Biden administration is the first to seriously try enforcement of the nation’s anti-trust laws since Carter broke up AT&T, going after Google and blocking mergers in multiple industries. It’s led a bunch of American billionaires to demand that the Federal Trade Commission’s head, Lina Kahn, be fired.

Kahn and her FTC went after Bezos last year, suing Amazon for running a monopoly that price-gouges customers and blocks out competition. The trial is scheduled for 2026 if Kahn keeps her job; a Trump administration would fire her immediately, and pressure from major corporate donors and billionaires is building on Harris to do the same.

Bezos also must remember well when he got on the wrong side of then-President Trump because of the Post’s coverage of the orange oligarch’s lies and crimes; Trump, in a fit of pique, awarded a $10 billion Pentagon contract for cloud computing to Microsoft, shocking analysts across the industry.

Bezos is also working for his Blue Origin spaceship company to get more billions in NASA and Pentagon contracts. He and his companies also own billions in Google and AirBNB stock as well as owning outright almost a hundred other companies.

Might be a good time to own one of the two most influential newspapers in America, eh?

Similarly, billionaire oligarch Elon Musk, in addition to apparently taking orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, is fighting numerous government efforts to regulate his companies (which exist in large part because Obama bailed out Tesla in 2010 with $465 million, and NASA is now pouring hundreds of millions into SpaceX):

— Tesla is fighting the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over union-related issues, with Musk taking a lawsuit to the Supreme Court alleging government protections of unions are unconstitutional.
— SpaceX is battling the NLRB over employee firings.
— The SEC is investigating Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X) and his “funding secured” tweets about taking Tesla private.
— The FTC is investigating X’s compliance with a $150 million privacy settlement.
— The Federal Communications Commission recently denied SpaceX’s Starlink a $886 million rural broadband award.
— The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Tesla over alleged racial harassment.
— The FAA is in conflict with SpaceX over launch licensing and environmental reviews.
— The EPA has fined SpaceX for water-related violations.
— The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened multiple investigations into Tesla’s vehicle safety and Autopilot system.
— SpaceX faces scrutiny over its environmental impact at its Texas launch site.

To avoid the Rockefeller mistake, Musk — with the apparent help of two Russian oligarchs and the leader of Saudi Arabia — purchased Twitter, the online digital equivalent of our nation’s largest newspaper.

And he’s now using it to try to get Trump and Republicans into office, presumably so they can gut the FTC, FCC, SEC, NLRB, and any other regulator that might take him on to protect workers, the public, and the national interest.

We took on the superrich with success during the First Gilded Age, and our enforcement of antitrust laws lasted all the way to 1983, when Reagan blocked them, leading to the “merger mania” of the 1980s and bringing us today’s oligarchic business empires across multiple industries.

Now that we’re in America’s Second Gilded Age — with today’s billionaires vastly richer than Rockefeller’s wildest dreams — we confront a similar crossroads to that of previous generations.

Is it okay, for example, for billionaires to own media properties they can use to manipulate politics and government agencies to amplify their other business interests? Or that five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have ruled that our morbidly rich plutocrats can own judges and politicians? Most Americans would probably say “No” to both.

At some point, America is going to have to confront its oligarch problem. And the sooner the better, if we don’t want darkness to entirely subsume our democracy.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Twelve Things I Wish Trump Supporters Would Admit Are True

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evangelicals and donald trump

For most of my adult life, U.S. politics has ebbed and flowed at the local, state, and federal levels. Democrats come and go, as do Republicans. Prior to Donald Trump riding down the escalator in 2015, there was never a time when I feared what the Republicans or Democrats might do to our country. Trump changed everything. Overnight tens of millions of Americans became enamored with Trump’s bombastic rhetoric. Today, it is almost impossible to have civil discussions with MAGA supporters over policy differences. We now have a man running for president who is threatening to arrest (or deport), prosecute, and incarcerate anyone who disagrees with him, including people in the Republican Party. Trump has even threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of networks that fail to confess fealty to him and only report in ways that are unfavorable to him.

Sadly, it seems as if many Republicans, and even non-voting citizens, are unable to differentiate between facts and lies. What do we do when we no longer have a common knowledge and understanding of facts; politicians such as J.D. Vance even admit to making up lies to advance their political agenda — as in the case of Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

Twelve Facts About Donald Trump

☑ Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

☑ Donald Trump is not a Christian.

☑ Donald Trump is a misogynist.

☑ Donald Trump is a xenophobic racist.

☑ Donald Trump is not a self-made billionaire (if he actually is one).

☑ Donald Trump is a narcissist.

☑ Donald Trump is a failed businessman, having filed for bankruptcy six times and closed numerous business ventures.

☑ Donald Trump has sexually assaulted numerous women.

☑ Donald Trump will use anyone to get what he wants, discarding anyone who refuses to play along, as former cabinet members will attest.

☑ Donald Trump’s stated economic policies will raise the federal deficit, increase inflation, and fatten the bank accounts of the one percent.

☑ Donald Trump has early signs of dementia.

☑ Donald Trump’s promotion of strong-arm world leaders and dictators is not in the United States’ best interest, nor is his threat to withdraw the United States from NATO.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Would I Vote for Donald Trump if I Were Still an Evangelical Pastor?

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evangelicals pray for trump

I have always been involved in American politics. I grew up in a home where my mother was a political operative, campaigning for politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace (twice). Mom veered off into the land of independent candidates, working for candidates such as Wallace, Ross Perot, and John Anderson. She even had positive things to say about 1984 Vice President candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

Mom was outspoken about her political beliefs, writing numerous letters to editors of local newspapers. She was a product of her age — racist and pro-military. Mom defended Lieutenant William Calley of My Lai massacre fame and thought the Kent State students murdered by Ohio National Guard soldiers got exactly what they deserved. Mom was never afraid to speak her mind. I suspect, to a large degree, I followed in her footsteps.

That said, Mom was widely read, a news junkie who spent hours every day watching cable news programs — including C-Span. Mom killed herself in 1991 at the age of fifty-four. (Please see Barbara.) She and I had numerous discussions about politics. Her views evolved and changed, but she remained a conservative Christian until the end.

I voted in my first presidential election in 1976. I voted for Jimmy Carter. He would be the only Democrat I voted for until I left the Republican Party in 2000 and voted for Al Gore. Since then, I have voted for Democratic presidential candidates, even though I am increasingly dissatisfied and disappointed with candidates such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton. I didn’t vote for any of these candidates in the primaries, choosing to vote for Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama instead. Whether I continue to be a card-carrying Democrat remains to be seen. I have spent the past decade voting for the lesser of two evils. I am tired of doing so, but until the two-party system is dismantled and true alternatives come to the forefront (along with ranked voting), I suspect I am consigned to lesser-of-two-evils hell.

I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. For many years, I was unafraid to mix religion and politics, going so far as to endorse and support political candidates from the pulpit. That said, I wasn’t a party hack. Former church members might remember my scathing 1998 sermon about Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky and my 1991 sermon about George H.W. Bush’s murderous war in Iraq. George Bush would get similar public castigation for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Above political affiliation, I put morals and ethics first. I was unwilling to give politicians a pass just because we were members of the same party. I have long believed that war-mongering runs deep in our politics, and the 2024 Presidential Election is no different. The unwillingness of Harris, Biden, and other Democrats to take a stand against Israel’s genocidal violence in Palestine disgusts me. If there were a viable third-party candidate who took a clear position opposing war in the Middle East, I would vote for them. Alas, I refuse to throw my vote away to maintain naive political purity.

People who know of my right-wing political beliefs as a pastor wonder if Donald Trump was a Republican presidential candidate back in the day if I would have voted for him. The answer is no. It is unlikely that I would have voted for the Democratic candidate either. I might have voted third-party or abstained from voting, but there’s no way I would have voted for Trump. Morals and ethics matter to me, and Trump is the most immoral, unethical presidential candidate in my sixty-seven years of life. He is unfit to be president, a vile man who sexually assaulted numerous women and has ripped off countless small business owners. He is unfit to be a member of the human race, let alone the leader of the United States. I have no doubt I would have preached sermons about Trump, pointing out his lies and immoral behavior.

All politicians have skeletons in their closets. All politicians lie. Trump’s lies are legion, but Harris and Waz have told a few whoppers of their own too. I don’t expect politicians to live according to my moral and ethical values, but I do expect them to be decent, thoughtful human beings. Trump is neither, and I cannot imagine a scenario where I would vote for him.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Political Yard Signs 2024

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2024 political yard signs

My partner-in-crime, Polly, and I live on a main highway, Route 15, that runs between Defiance and Bryan in Williams and Defiance counties. Our front yard is a high-visibility site, so it is a great place to place political yard signs. Over the years, our signs have been both well-received and hated. Some signs have been stolen or defaced. We have also had people throw empty beer cans in our yard and Ziploc bags filled with feces. Countless people have waved at us when we are outside, giving us a “polite” middle finger “fuck off” you God-hating commie, liberal, LGBTQ-loving socialist. Sadly, this is what passes for political discourse these days. If my detractors would just stop by for a friendly discussion, I would gladly sit down with them, share a beer, and talk politics/religion. Sadly, a handful of people have knocked on our door, but all they wanted to do was set me straight or save my soul from Hell.

2024 political yard sign
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Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Welcome Neighbors!

7 Comments
2024 political yard signs

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

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

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

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

Thank you for visiting my website.

Be well.

Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Former President Donald Trump Is a Racist

15 Comments

Recently, I mentioned on social media that former President Trump and Senator JD Vance are racists. I posted:

Trump and Vance are determined to come off as racists. This may appeal to Confederate Flag waving Whites, but this doesn’t play well in general.

VANCE: Donald Trump said something very simple, totally inoffensive, but frankly, obviously true to me, which is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon.

She’s a fake, and the American people have to look at her record if we actually want to know how she stands on the issues, because her words simply can’t be trusted.

REPORTER: How can you fake a race? If it’s both Indian and black, how can she fake a race?

VANCE: She fakes who she is depending on the audience that she’s in front of, and that’s who she is, and that’s who she’s always been.

A commenter replied:

No Bruce.. it’s called pandering… Somehow the left has been pandered to for so long by their politicians they not only accept it you’re now defending it and promoting it as something good! Don’t let them do that to you man.

My response:

** *, I have no idea 🤷‍♂️ what you mean. Are you saying Trump and Vance aren’t racists; that I shouldn’t take their words and actions at face value?

We went back and forth a bit. The commenter finally said:

The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser but you can’t objectively know they’re a racist when it’s clearly an opinion formed by edited media bites and talking head on certain TV channels and you do not consider other sources of information. You’re objectively not being objective. So it is you who are not being logical aren’t you? You are still using that old time religion epistemology and compartmentalizing your beliefs that you can’t possibly back up and protect them. Also the race card is trite and there is too much information and fact now that refutes most of the claims. When it’s used by the left it’s because they can’t think of anything else.

And:

The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser sigh back at you.. really Bruce? I’m not claiming to 100% know what media you consume but it’s clear from your posts and the echo chamber you created on your profile here that you’re captured by a leftist political ideology and that you’re probably a prime candidate for philosopher Peter Baghosian’s “substitutionary hypothesis”. No I don’t see any credible evidence that Trump is a racist in fact the video link I posted above is one of many pieces of evidence against that assertion. Did you watch it? The only people asserting a name calling “racists” call on him are people who do not look at the evidence. So logically you’re either only consuming false media claims or in the political cult. And it isn’t even controversial to claim the fact that Google is absolutely engaged in result changes on their site and are heavily biased towards the left of the political spectrum. That’s not a conspiracy theory. I hope your hatred for people who disagree with your assertions will go away and you will consider that maybe you can be wrong about politics.

I replied with one word: “sigh.” (Why I Use the Word Sigh.)

What follows is an article by Abby Zimet. Used with permission from Common Dreams

Hopefully, horrifically, the Trump War Room’s “comically racist” new ad – juxtaposing two images of “your neighborhood under Trump” and “your neighborhood under Kamala” – can at last put to rest any ludicrous, lingering questions as to whether the flailing felon, rapist and GOP presidential candidate, whose decades-long history of bigotry is well-documented, is really racist. Screamingly, repulsively, truly-Holy-Mother-of-God-vile: YES. 

A day after Trump’s Megalomaniac Fascist Fest with Elon Musk – more on that soon – comes the latest obscene proof there is no bottom here on race, or anything else. Shocked, we are not. This is the guy who, along with his Klan father, was sued by the Justice Department 50 years ago for refusing to rent apartments to Blacks; who made an ugly public name for himself by loudly insisting the Black, now-exonerated Central Park Five be executed and starting the Obama birther frenzy; who for years reportedly belittled and discriminated against Blacks, including using the N-word, during his crappy TV career; who boasted about all the (imaginary) things he’s done for “the Blacks,” compared himself to Lincoln, cited “Black jobs” and “shithole countries,” and just trashed both Kamala Harris – who “just became a Black person” – and “horrible” black female journalists for being uppity. 

So, sure, bring on a campaign ad deemed “the most racist thing ever.” Tuesday’s post features two side-by-side images: One shows a suburban, flag-draped house captioned, “Your neighborhood under Trump”; juxtaposed with it is an image of a group of mostly Black people packed onto the street captioned, “Your neighborhood under Kamala.” The text above it reads, “Import the third world. Become the third world.” The people on the curb were reportedly African immigrants outside a shelter in New York City; they had come, like so many before them, seeking safety and equality from an America that boasts it will welcome “your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” but too often doesn’t, especially when run by racist clowns who know only how to fearmonger, hatemonger, “other” Black and Brown bodies and mindlessly rip the “shithole” countries they’ve fled in mortal danger.

People who’ve become sorrowfully inured to the outlandish evil of Trump still managed to be horrified by racism so explicit “there have been Klan rallies which employed more subtlety.” “This is one of the most racist posts I’ve ever seen. Wow,” wrote one, and, “The racism is off the charts.” “Don’t just take our word for it,” wrote the NAACP. “They are showing all of us just how racist they are. This is what’s on the ballot this November.” “This” – this abomination – is also what Nina Simone could have been summoning years ago with her song Sinnerman, an African-American spiritual inspired by the Book of Exodus about an unholy man running from God and begging for forgiveness on Judgment Day, in vain, from the rock, the sea, the devil: “Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?/Hear me prayin’, Lord Lord/Hear me prayin’ Lord Lord/Sinnerman, you oughtta be prayin’/Up come power/Power, Lord.”

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Letter to the Editor: Mexican Immigrants

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letter to the editor

Letter submitted to the Defiance Crescent-News

Dear Editor,

I spent most of my sixty-seven years on Earth living in rural Ohio. Outside of a few years in California and Arizona, I lived my formative years in Northwest Ohio, attending schools in Bryan, Harrod, Farmer, Ney, Deshler, Mt. Blanchard, and Findlay. My travels put me in close contact with Mexican migrant workers. While most of these workers would come and go depending on what crops needed picking, some of them stayed in Ohio after their work was done. Migrants, many of whom spoke little English, assimilated into our culture, taking jobs, marrying, and raising their families. Over time, multiple generations of Mexican families made rural Northwest Ohio their home. They have, in every way, added to the richness of our communities, even though racist epitaphs are still hurled their way.

Many of those migrants who originally stayed in our communities are undocumented; people Donald Trump and the Republican Party call “illegals.” Trump would love for us to believe that all of these undocumented workers are “undesirables” who must be immediately rounded up and deported to Mexico. Suppose Trump and his MAGA cronies have their way. In that case, more than eleven million undocumented people — most of whom hold gainful employment and pay taxes — will be violently ripped from their communities and families and returned to countries many of them have never visited.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the United States has an immigration problem; that conditions at our southern border are unsustainable. How to fix this problem is where disagreements arise. Trump wants to ship undocumented workers back to where they came from, wholesale, and in doing so will tank the U.S. economy. Democrats want to see meaningful paths to citizenship for everyone here illegally. If they are gainfully employed and don’t have serious criminal backgrounds, we must provide a way for them to become legal. Trump’s policies, and those of Project 2025, hail to the days when we rounded up indigenous people and Japanese-Americans and locked them up against their will in internment camps or reservations.

Just remember, that dear Mexican family who lives next to you may have parents or grandparents who are here illegally. Do you want to destroy their families so that you can defend the mythical Great Replacement theory? We can and must fix our southern border, but not at the expense of people who have played an essential part in our communities and workforce.

Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

When Democrats Sound Like MAGA Supporters

12 Comments
tinfoil hat

Supposedly, Democrats are (generally) people of science and reason. Conspiracy theories and cultism are largely the domain of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. That is, until a man tried to assassinate ex-president Donald Trump. I am shocked by how many of my fellow liberals and progressives have turned into conspiracy theorists. They think that the attempted assassination of Trump was a false flag; a staged event. In their minds, the whole event was political theater orchestrated by the Hollywood actor Donald Trump.

Imagine, for a moment, how many people would have to be involved in the attempted assassination for it to be a staged event. Right up there with fake moon landings and a flat earth. Do you realize how absurd such thinking is?

Please stop. There’s enough crazy in the world without adding to it.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.