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This Week With Christians on Social Media

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments

social media

Guest post by ObstacleChick

Most of the time when I check my social media accounts, I can be sure to find at least one post by fundamentalist evangelical Christians that either elicits an eye roll or a chuckle from me. Here are some good ones from this week, along with my comments.

“To pray ‘Thy Will be done’ I must be willing, if the answer requires it, that my will be undone.” – Elisabeth Elliot

OC: Bruce has written quite a few posts concerning Christians’ interpretation of the answers to prayer. If one prays for something that doesn’t happen, then the Christian says, “It wasn’t God’s Will.” If one prays for direction between option A and option B, the Christian usually just chooses what he or she wants to do. If it works out, then Yay! the Christian successfully understood God’s Will. If it doesn’t work out, then it was a “lesson from God”.

“Don’t worry. God’s never blind to your tears, never deaf to your prayers, and never silent to your pain. He sees, he hears, and he will deliver.”

OC: Yeah, that’s what makes him such a jerk – he sees and hears but he doesn’t actually deliver . . . just ask all the victims of every natural disaster EVER. Oh, yeah, the “God’s Will” thing again . . . it’s a mystery, isn’t it?

“Christ offends men because his gospel is intolerant of sin.” – Charles Spurgeon

OC: Judgmental blowhards like Charles Spurgeon and name-your-favorite-evangelical-pastor offend me with their incessant talk of sin, hell, and damnation for everyone whose interpretation of the gospel doesn’t match theirs. They offend me with their assumption that everyone is filthy and pure evil until they say the magic words and *poof!* Jesus makes it all better. They offend me by offering me a “choice” between saying the magic words to become a slave to Jesus but escaping the eternal flames of hell, or not saying the magic words and facing an eternity of torture – just for existing. They offend me with their insistence that I must vote a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way, give money a certain way – THEIR way.

“We are sent to bless the world, but we are never told to compromise with it.” – A. W. Tozer

OC: Because Jesus needs SOMEBODY to be judgmental and to fight the culture wars. Omnipotence only goes so far with the Trinity . . .

“Drunk Lot impregnated his daughter, who bore Moab, whence came Ruth, the great-grandmother of David. Christ’s own bloodline preaches his will to save even the most messed up of families.” – Chad Bird

OC: I’ll let you guys comment on this one . . .

“Parents who know how to repent in front of their kids give them a greater gift than a Harvard education.” – Scotty Smith

OC: I’d rather have the Harvard education instead of watching my parents pray to Jesus and consider themselves (and me) worms all the time. But that’s just me, and education is what led me down the road to atheism, so there is that.

“When you realize God’s purpose for your life isn’t just about you, He will use you in a mighty way.” – Dr. Tony Evans

OC: I like to be able to make my own choices, to choose my own purpose, to have autonomy as much as possible in my life. It’s worked out pretty well so far. I guess I could just sit here and let God repurpose me. Nah . . .

“Pray, then let it go. Don’t try and manipulate or force the outcome. Just trust God to open the right doors at the right time. Amen.”

OC: The principal of our local high school tells the students every day to CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL. The point is to teach students to assess which aspects of a situation are in their control and which aspects are out of their control. Then students are encouraged to act on the aspects that are in their control. Sitting around and waiting for an invisible and silent deity to manage a situation is poor advice.

What Christian messages have you seen on social media this week? Please share with us in the comments!

This Week With Christians On Social Media

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

social media

Guest post by ObstacleChick

Here is a sampling of some of the posts I have seen this week from Christians on social media. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments!

“If you neglect to instruct (your children) in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; but if you will not teach them to pray, he will curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.” John Flavel

(OC: While it is true that it is our parental duty to teach our children so that they can grow up to be self-sufficient law-abiding citizens, there isn’t a “devil” going around trying to teach our kids to be evil.)

“The gospel is simple to understand:
1) Jesus died on a cross
2) Jesus was buried
3) Jesus rose on the 3rd day
4) Jesus saves man from their sin
5) You must be born again
That is a simple gospel, now let’s tell it to the world!”

(OC: This simplification of the gospel message still makes absolutely no sense. Honestly, what came to light for me was that without the fear of hell part, I read it and thought, um, OK, whatever. Just because you tell me I just be “born again” without any explanation of what that means or why, I just think you sound nutty.)

“Prayer is the most important conversation in your day. Talk to God before you talk to anyone else.”

(OC: Yeah, it’s totally more important for me to talk silently in my head at the ceiling before communicating with real live human beings who are important in my life. Now, if Christians are using this as their version of reminding themselves not to be assholes first thing in the morning, maybe that’s OK.)

“Beautiful Jesus, thank you for taking my place.”

(OC: Jesus, your Dad condemned all humanity to suffer eternity in hell because supposedly a couple of ancestors 500 generations ago ate a piece of fruit. So your Dad had to morph himself into you so you/he could be killed and fake-die because you/he can’t really die being immortal, and if I believe the right way about you/him I won’t spend eternity in hell because of mad Dad.)

“What God knows about us is more important than what others think.” Tim Tebow

(OC: So that’s why, Tim, you had to make a big freakin’ deal about kneeling at your NFL games? Because God was too dumb to know anything about you otherwise?)

“Do you know that nothing you do in this life will even matter unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?” Francis Chan

(OC: I wish more Trump-loving evangelical Christians realized that they needed to love people – and to show their love for people through assisting the less fortunate – rather than trying to legislate their ideas of morality on the rest of the nation.)

“Faith is not about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.”

(OC: While there are times we need to accept what we cannot control, there are other times when we can control outcomes if we take certain actions. Just sitting around passively taking whatever happens in life is not a good way to live.)

This Week with Evangelicals on Social Media by ObstacleChick

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments

facebook and twitter

A Guest Post by ObstacleChick

Many of my relatives and friends from my Evangelical days are prolific in posting their religious views on social media. I’d love to ask them how many converts they think they’ve gotten from their posts. From what I can tell, they get “likes” from those who agree with them in their echo chamber while the rest of us just roll our eyes and scroll by.

Here are some highlights from this week.

Religion:
If I obey, I’m accepted.
If I’m good, God will love me.
People: Good and bad
Focus: What I do or don’t do
Produces: Pride and despair
Motivated by fear

Gospel:
I’m accepted so I obey.
I’m bad and Jesus loves bad people.
People: Repentant or not
Focus: What Jesus did
Produces: Humility and confidence
Motivated by love

Interpretation

“I don’t follow a ‘religion’, I follow something infinitely superior — the Gospel! I’m a bad bad person and Jesus loves me anyway because I was repentant and accepted the fact that I was so incredibly bad that Jesus/God had to become human, die, and be resurrected to prevent himself/God/Jesus/Holy Spirit from damning me to eternity in hell if I humble myself and admit how utterly bad I am. Now I’m confident I won’t go to hell. Because love. Because Jesus committed suicide for us, but not really because himself/his dad could raise people from the dead. So don’t call me religious.”

We must never rest until everything inside us worships God – A.W. Tozer

“We’ve gotta worship God all the time to make sure we keep him happy. Because if God ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Yay God!”

The modern world demands that we approve what it should not dare ask us to be tolerated – Nicolas Gomez Davila

Interpretation

“My inspiration of the Holy Spirit (aka, what my pastor tells me) from the Bible assures me that gay people should not have equal rights to straight people; that women should be submissive to their husbands, fathers, pastors, etc., and should stay home and take care of babies and homes whether they want to or not; that people who do not believe the way I do are apostates and going to burn in hell for eternity; that my religious freedom demands that I be allowed to discriminate against all these apostate sinners. Why? Because Jesus! And you shouldn’t ask me to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs, because they’re wrong — Jesus/my pastor told me they are wrong.”

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me – 2 Timothy 4:17

“I got scared and my mommy wasn’t there so I thought real real hard and remembered this Bible verse. And then I was able to go do adult stuff. Yay Lord!”

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson, but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well. – A.W. Tozer

Interpretation

“My God is an abuser and I am his abused subject. He declares that I am weak and worthless without him. I believe that I am a worthless piece of garbage because he tells me so. But one of himself/his beings became human and committed fake suicide and rose from the dead because he can do stuff like that because he is omnimax so that he wouldn’t have to send me to eternity in hell just for existing if I repented hard enough, believed the right things, and said the right things. Yay God! Isn’t he awesome? Now I’m worth something because he said I am. And you’re a worthless piece of garbage if you don’t believe the right things.”

Satan tries to limit your praying because he knows your praying will limit him. – Toby Mac #SpeakLife

Interpretation

“I believe in a whole mess of supernatural beings that I can’t see. God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, angels, demons, Satan/Lucifer/Devil, Beast, Anti-Christ — they’re all totally real, y’all, and they are out there doing battle. It’s like Harry Potter (but not, because we all know Harry Potter is totally demonic because witchcraft) except you can’t see them and they’re totally all around us and all. And the Bad Guys try to control us and lead us astray and all, and the Good Guys just want us to follow them and do the right thing and not be led into temptation. Yay Good Guys! And I think that if I think hard enough in my head about the supernatural sphere or say words out loud to the supernatural sphere, that the Good Guys will hear me and will get their swords going even harder to defeat the evil old meanie Bad Guys!”

Feel free to craft your own creative responses or to share your own experiences from this week with Christians on Social Media!

Social Media Warrior Tells Me What He Thinks Of Me — And Liberals, Muslims, and Hispanics Too

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments

facebook and twitter

It’s only Tuesday and it already has been one whale of a week. I have lots of “good” stuff to share with readers, so I hope fattening up on turkey, pumpkin pie, and dressing doesn’t get in the way of me sharing the wealth. What follows is a screenshot of a message I received on Facebook from a racist, bigoted, Trump-loving man who thinks I am a sick, fat fuck. His words are typical of Trump’s hardcore devotees. No need for me to comment further.  I will let his word speak for themselves.

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A Social Media Discussion Between an Evangelical and an Atheist

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
pascals wager

What follows is a discussion between an atheist friend of mine and an Evangelical. I no longer engage in such discussions on social media, choosing to focus on my blog, but the following discussion reminds me of the interactions I once had with Christian zealots on Facebook and Twitter. In just but a few comments, the Evangelical trots out an interesting version of Pascal’s Wager, threats of judgment and hell, with a zesty seasoning of “you are angry and bitter” to round out the discussion.

Enjoy!

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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 thirteen 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.

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Christian Fundamentalist Shares the Sweet, Sweet Love of Jesus on Facebook

Bruce Gerencser 19 Comments

found on facebook (8)

Earlier today, I stumbled upon the Facebook wall of a Fundamentalist Christian woman my wife and I attended church with in the late 1970s. After reading her loved-filled words about liberals, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, I took a few screen clips to share with readers of this blog. Enjoy.

 

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Evangelical Gnats Are Everywhere

Bruce Gerencser 15 Comments

Thanks to my public presence on social media and this blog, I frequently come in contact with people who believe they have a duty to “rescue” me from the clutches of atheism. Just today an Evangelical man asked me if I had ever read Lee Strobel? I have been asked this question more times than I can count. What follows is the brief discussion that ensued.

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One of my Facebook page moderators stepped in and told this man to buzz off. I think this man is part of a cadre of Evangelicals who have set up multiple Facebook profiles so they can spread Christian propaganda. Ban one of them and a different commenter shows up and starts commenting. In this man’s case, he left a derogatory comment about gays in the military (using the word homo). I have zero respect or tolerance for such people.

Yes, zealots such as this man are e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. On a warm summer day, so are gnats. Swat!

As Seen on Social Media: Why Atheists Are Praying for the Rapture

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments

Graphics, Memes, Quotes, and Comments I’ve spotted on Facebook or Twitter.  Today’s graphic comes from Facebook. I think it accurately describes how many atheists feel about the rapture. That great day, sometime in the near future, when every Evangelical will be raptured from the earth and taken to their reserved seat in Heaven where they will gleefully watch God savagely maim and kill the majority of the human race.

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