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Tag: Truth

Atheists Like Bart Ehrman Because They Want to Suppress the Truth in Unrighteousness

Bruce Gerencser 14 Comments
bart ehrman

According to one commenter on Dr. Michael Kruger’s blog,  The Canon Fodder, the reason atheists like Bart Ehrman is because they want to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Here’s what a commenter by the name of Grant had to say:

“Jeff, just to add to your thoughts in this, Bart Ehrman has a ready audience of people who want to hear what he’s saying. The world will view him as an authority on the matter, and accept his claims as truth. 1 Timothy 4:3 warns of something similar: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

Ehrman is a teacher who suits the passions of the world: to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Thus, even though someone who refuses to believe the Gospel might spot this hypocrisy of Ehrman’s, rebuking moralizing while doing the same himself, they will likely suppress that truth along with the Truth of the Gospel. Because it suits their passions to do so.

So if we ignored him, Bart Ehrman might “go away” in the sense that we don’t hear so much from him, but he hasn’t really gone anywhere. He wants an adoring audience to validate his unbelief with their attendance to what he teaches as much as they want him to validate their unbelief by him teaching what he does.”

“Very good points. Of course, “agnosticism” and “atheism” are just a smoke-screen for their suppression of the Truth in unrighteousness, and it shows in Bart Ehrman’s hypocrisy. Basically he wants people to believe him, not the Gospel.”

I always love it when Christians tell atheists, agnostics, and humanists the REAL reason they don’t believe. Instead of having to do a bit of intellectual heavy lifting, a Christian like Grant can dismiss a whole class of people with one wave of the proof text hand. According to Grant, the reason atheists read Bart Ehrman is because his writing appeals to their fleshly desires. Atheists are unwilling to hear and understand the TRUTH — “truth” meaning the Bible — so they seek out writers who reinforce their beliefs and opinions about God, Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible. Of course, Christians don’t do that, right? (that’s sarcasm, by the way).

While Grant’s argument might have some merit when it comes to someone who never was a Christian, it falls flat on its face when it comes to people such as myself. I spent 50 years in the Christian church, and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 years. I spent the majority of my life thinking the Bible was divine truth. Yet, here I am at age of sixty-two, an outspoken atheist and humanist. Could it be that the reason I no longer believe is because I intellectually found Evangelical claims about the Bible, God, and Jesus lacking?

Grant is upset because people such as I believe Bart Ehrman and not the gospel. In his mind, if one believes the gospel then everything else falls into place. Because I do not believe the Evangelical good news, that means I am an Ehrman fanboy. My recommendation of Ehrman’s books couldn’t be because I find them intellectually persuasive, right? Of course not. If I just believed the Bible — well actually if I just believed Grant’s interpretation of the Bible — then I would understand that Ehrman wants to be god in place of Jesus.

In other words, atheists, agnostics, and humanists are stupid. They are being led astray by Bart Ehrman, a false prophet. The answer is to have an old-fashioned Bart Ehrman book burning. Then we can return to reading and believing the only book that matters: the B-i-b-l-e. What’s funny, at least to me, is that Evangelical zealots such as Grant have shelves full of books that reinforce their beliefs and worldview. If the Bible is all an atheist needs to read, why do Evangelicals read so many books that purport to tell them what the Bible teaches? If the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul and good enough for Bruce, shouldn’t it be good enough for Grant?

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.

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Bruce, What if Christianity is True?

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments

pascals wager

“It’s just the ocean playing tricks on us. Just because it looks like we’re on land, and it doesn’t seem like we’re moving, doesn’t mean we should risk getting out.” “Our ancestors wouldn’t have sacrificed so much to stay in the boat if it wasn’t really on the water. And I wouldn’t feel such a dark, frightened feeling every time my doubts say we’ve been fooled.” “Absolutely. There’s no other explanation for it.” Source

Countless, Evangelicals have asked me, “Bruce, what if Christianity is true?” Usually, this question is couched in the use of Pascal’s Wager. For those of you unfamiliar with Pascal’s Wager, the RationalWiki explains it this way:

“”Pascal’s wager: Believing in and searching for kryptonite — on the off chance that Superman exists and wants to kill you.

Pascal’s wager is an argument that asserts that one should believe in God, even if God’s existence cannot be proved or disproved through reason.

Blaise Pascal’s original wager was as a fairly short paragraph in Pensées amongst several other notes that could be considered “wagers”. Its argument is rooted in what has subsequently become known as game theory. The wager argues that the best course of action is to believe in God regardless of any lack of evidence, because that option gives the biggest potential gains. Pascal’s original text is long-winded and written in somewhat convoluted philosophy-speak, but it can be distilled more simply:

  • If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
  • If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.
  • If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss.
  • If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain.

….

Pascal’s wager makes a number of assumptions about reality, and a number of theological assumptions about the god it argues for. If any of these can be shown to either be false or undesirable, then the power of the Wager for determining one’s actions and beliefs is severely weakened — indeed, the argument of the Wager can be reversed in some cases and it can argue for non-belief. These mostly stem from the theological implications of applying the Wager to belief in God, rather than the game theory attributes and decision-making process presented.

People asking me this question genuinely fear what will happen to me if Christianity is true. Well, actually, their version of Christianity, anyway. I have yet to have a progressive or liberal Christian try Pascal’s Wager on me. Either out of not wanting to be impolite or believing in some form of universal salvation, liberals and progressives don’t try to evangelize me. All praise be to Loki for such grace and mercy. Evangelicals, on the other hand, adhere to an exclusionary, separatist version of Christianity. For them, it is all about right beliefs, who is in and who is out. Matters of salvation and eternal destiny are elevated to matters of life and death. If God is who Evangelicals say he is, and judgment and eternal torture await all those who refuse to bow a knee and worship Jesus, then I can, on a theological and personal basis, understand why they might be worried about me. There are those Evangelicals who seem to relish and glory in my soon death and torture in Hell, but most Jesus-lovers are decent human beings who don’t want to people to suffer (though their overwhelming support for the vile, anti-human policies of Donald Trump is cause for me to reconsider my view of Evangelicals as a whole). Thus, the question, WHAT IF CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE?

Such questions are laden with presuppositions. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The God revealed in the Bible is the one true God. This true God reveals himself to everyone through creation and conscience, rendering every human who has ever walked on the face of the earth without excuse. That’s why Evangelicals say there’s no such thing as an atheist, or that atheists deliberately ignore the evidence for God out of some sort of secret desire to sin and live licentiously. No matter how many times atheists suggest otherwise, Evangelicals know better. Their presuppositions tell them so . . . end of discussion. This is why it almost always a waste of time to argue with Evangelicals who are psychologically tethered to these beliefs. Until they are willing to at least consider they could be wrong, there’s no way to reach them intellectually.

I get it. Fear of being wrong is a powerful motivator. So is fear of Hell and eternal damnation. Remove fear as a motivator, and I suspect many Evangelicals would be sleeping in on Sundays with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. But, as long you worried about what might happen if you believe the wrong things, go to the wrong church, or any of the other “important” matters they clench their sphincter muscles over, you are likely to, at least, do the things that make one a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, Evangelical Christian. It was only when I no longer believed that the Bible was what Evangelicals claim it is that I was able to break free of a lifetime of Fundamentalist belief and practice. It was the Bible that had a magical, powerful hold on me. Once, however, that hold on me was broken, the jig was up. Once the Bible lost its authority over me, I was free to think and believe whatever I wanted. And, here I am today, an outspoken ex-Evangelical turned atheist; a former card-carrying right-wing extremist who is now a progressive and a liberal. Truly reason and intellectual inquiry have transformed me into a new person. As the good book says, “If any man be in reason, old things are passed away and all things become new.” Okay, the original text says, “if any man be in CHRIST,” not in “reason.” However, I did have a born-again experience of sorts when I deconverted. The difference, of course, is that I have not arrived. I have not bought fire insurance and punched my ticket for glory. I am just a man wandering on the path of reason, knowledge, and understanding. Released from fear of God, judgment, and eternal fire and brimstone, I am free to wander at will across this landscape we call life. This is called FREEDOM.

Bruce, you never did answer the question. “What if Christianity is true?” Fine, here’s my answer. I have weighed Christianity in the balances and found it wanting. I have concluded that the central claims of Christianity are not true. Jesus? A naturally-born Jewish rabbi who got himself killed 2,000 years ago because he ran afoul of Roman (and Jewish) law. Once dead, Jesus stayed that way. No resurrection for Jesus, nor for the rest of us either. But what about all Jesus’ miracles? Works of fiction. That’s what reason and common sense tell me. I refuse to let a largely irrelevant religious text cloud my view of life.

“But, Bruce, what if Christianity is true?”

sigh

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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Songs of Sacrilege: Shallow Be Thy Name by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Bruce Gerencser 1 Comment

red hot chili peppers

This is the two hundredth and seventh 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 Shallow Be Thy Name by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Video Link

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I was not created in the likeness of a fraud
Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God
We are not the center of this funny universe
And what is worse, I do not serve in fear of such a curse

[Verse 2]
Shallow be thy game, 2000 years, look in the mirror
You play the game of shame and tell your people live in fear
A rival to the way you see, the Bible let him be
I’m a threat to your survival and your control company

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

[Verse 3]
To anyone who’s listening, you’re not born into sin
The guilt they try and give you, puke it in the nearest bin
Missionary madness sweep up culture with a broom
Trashing ancient ways is part for the course it’s fucking rude

[Verse 4]
To think that you’re above, the laws of nature is a joke
Purple sashes, feeding masses, smoke on which to choke
I might be a monkey when it comes to being holy
Fundamental hatred get down on your knees and…

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

[Verse 1]
I was not created in the likeness of a fraud
Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God
We are not the center of this funny universe
And what is worse, I do not serve in fear of such a…

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

 

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Atheism is Befuddling and Absurd

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments

atheism is a temporary condition

Atheism is impossible because it falls into absurdity inasmuch as it lacks an ontic base for its epistemic rights; it is self-befuddling. Non-theistic worldviews lead to conclusions that are incongruous with their knowledge claims. A vital question: What will supply the a priori truth conditions that make reality intelligible? The logical actuality is, without the Christian worldview, formally, nothing can make sense. The true and living God is the truth condition for the intelligibility of reality and the understanding of all human experience; He must be presupposed for one to have adequate explanatory power required for the obligatory universal operational features of human experience.

— Mike “Word Salad” Robinson, God Exists: Proof and Evidence, Truth Requires God: Atheism is not Possible, October 18, 2018

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: More Proof That Liberals Are Satan Incarnate

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments

selwyn duke

Truth means nothing to leftists. The ends justify the means and they will literally say or do anything to achieve their aims. They’ll use violence—Antifa, BLM, rioting and attacking Trump supporters—and intimidation (doxxing public officials and confronting them in various public places) while calling conservatives fascists and blaming them for the unrest. They’ll rail against “racism” one moment and then excoriate a race (whites) the next. They’ll preach equality while practicing inequality and discrimination, as with quotas and affirmative action. They’ll claim to care about women victims (Kavanaugh/Ford affair) and then smear women victims (Rep. Keith Ellison case). They’ll say “Do it for the children,” using kids as human props, while abetting the brutal killing of children in the womb. They’ll preach tolerance but then insist this means “safe spaces” excluding conservatives and whites and that opposing views must be squelched. They’ll say it’s un-American to question election outcomes—as H. Clinton did prior to Nov. 8, 2016—but upon losing scream how an election was “stolen,” as leftists did after Nov. 8, 2016. Theirs is the ideology of Anything Goes.

In fact, leftists will swear that Truth (properly understood as objective) itself doesn’t even exist, that everything is shades of gray—but then turn about and sing blatant black-white tunes portraying their political opponents as evil. This is similar to Satan, who knows that God’s rules exist but doesn’t believe they should be considered “Truth.” Leftists will superciliously scoff at traditionalists’ moral positions and insist everything is relative. But they really want to play God and have everything be relative to themselves—like the Devil.

One difference between leftists and Satan is that the latter knows God exists. That’s where the differences end. Leftists hate everything great and good: God, family, country and even the idea of countries (attacks on sovereignty). They hate religion, especially Christianity; the Church; marriage; sexual propriety; and anything else reflecting God’s plan. Thus, they not only hated the Boy Scouts before they became the Gender Fluid Scouts, but hate the idea that “boys” and “girls” even exist in any pure sense; they reject the message that “male and female He made them.” They hate virtues (good moral habits) and do violence—directly or indirectly—to every single one, be it faith, charity, chastity, honesty, diligence, temperance, kindness, humility, fortitude, justice or something else.

— Selwyn Duke, Canada Free Press, To Deal with Leftists, Imagine You’re Confronting Satan, October 10, 2018

The Sounds of Fundamentalism: Christian ‘Truth’ Will Set Us Free

Bruce Gerencser 1 Comment

truth set you free

This is the one hundred and sixth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section.  Let’s have some fun!

Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video of rapping puppets telling children that Christian ‘truth’ will set them free.

Video Link

Quote of the Day: The Outsider Test For Faith

Bruce Gerencser 1 Comment

you might be wrong

The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is based on the following progression of four steps, precursors of which stem back in time to many thinkers, including Anthony Flew, Robert Ingersoll, David Hume, and even Socrates:

  1. People who are located in distinct geographical areas around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and justify a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their particular upbringing and shared cultural heritage, and most of these faiths are mutually exclusive. This is the Religious Diversity Thesis (RDVT).
  2. The best explanation for (1) is that adopting and justifying one’s religion is not a matter of independent rational judgment. Rather, to an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent on brain processes, cultural conditions, and irrational thinking patterns. This is the Religious Dependency Thesis (RDPT). From (1) and (2) it follows that:
  3. It is highly likely that any given religious faith is false and quite possible that they all could be false. At best there can be only one religious faith that is true. At worst, they all could be false. The sociological facts, along with our brain biology, anthropological (cultural) data, and psychological studies, lead us to this highly likely conclusion.
  4. The only way to rationally test one’s culturally adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject. They expresses the Outsider Test for Faith.

The OTF is based on the same kind of data that cultural relativists use when arguing that, because moral practices and beliefs do in fact vary from culture to culture as well as at different times in history, morality is not the result of independent rational judgment but rather is causally dependent on cultural conditions. All we have to do is insert the phrase “religious faith” in place of the world word morality, with one caveat. I’m not arguing that all religious faiths are false because of religious diversity or that they are completely dependent on one’s cultural upbringing. I’m merely arguing that believers should be skeptical of their own culturally inherited faith because it is overwhelmingly the case that one’s faith is dependent on one’s cultural upbringing.

….

The Outsider Test for Faith One More Time for Clarity

  • We are all raised believers. As children, we believed whatever our parents told us, all of us.
  • We were raised in our respective families and cultures to believe what our parents told us about religion.
  • Psychological studies have shown that people have a very strong tendency to believe what they prefer to believe. Cognitive bias studies show this.
  • Psychological studies have shown that most of us, most of the time, look for that which confirms what we believe rather than that which disconfirms it, even though the latter is the best way to get at the truth. This is known as confirmation bias.
  • Neurological studies have shown that people have a sense of certainty about the beliefs they have that is unrelated to the strength of the actual evidence, as Robert Burton argues in, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.
  • Skepticism is not usually an inherited characteristic. We must acquire the capacity to doubt what we were raised to believe. Skepticism is the adult attitude.
  • When there billions of people who are certain of an inherited faith they all learned in the same manner, who live in separate geographical locations around the globe, who all prefer to believe what they were raised to believe, and who seek to confirm that which they were raised to believe, it should cause them to doubt what they were raised to believe.
  • All believers who are certain of their faith will fallaciously argue that this data allies to atheists, too. If that were the case, then which faith should atheists adopt — all of them? You see, this argument does nothing to solve the problem of religious diversity, since believers still have not come up with a method that can solve their own differences. Atheists are doubters. We are skeptics. Knowing this data causes us to require hard, cold evidence for that which we can accept.
  • Skepticism is a filter that adults use to help sift the wheat of truth from the chaff of falsehood. We cannot doubt that filter! There is no other alternative.
  • The Outsider Test For Faith is the best and only way to get at truth if you want to know the truth. Examine your own faith with the same skepticism you use when examining the other religious faiths you eject. We cannot merely say to people that they should be skeptical without offering a standard of skepticism. . Why? Because if we ask believers who are certain of their faith to test it with doubt then, to a person, they will say they have, and that their faith is sure. But ask them to test their faith with the same level of skepticism they use when examining the other religious faiths they reject, and that will get their attention.

A Few Questions

If anyone disagrees, I have five sets of questions to be answered:

  • Do you or do you not assume other religions shoulder the burden of proof? When you examine Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Hinduism, Scientology, Mormonism, Shintoism, Jainism, Haitian Voodoo, the John Frum Cargo Cult, Satanism, or the many African or Chinese tribal religions, do you think approaching them with faith is the way to test these religions, or would you agree with the OTF that a much fairer method is  by assuming they all have the burden of proof, including your own?
  • Do you or do you not think that a consistent standard invoking fairness is the best way to objectively come to know the correct religious faith, if one is?If not, why the double standard?
  • Do you or do you not think that if Christianity is true, it should be supported by the sciences to the exclusion of other, false religious faiths?
  • Do you or do you not admit that if you reject the OTF, then your God did not make Christianity such that it would lead reasonable people who were born as outsiders to come to believe it, and, as such, they will be condemned to hell by virtue of where they were born? If not, and if outsiders can reasonably come to believe, then why is it that you think the OTF is faulty or unfair?
  • Do you or do you not have a better method for us to reasonably settle which religious faith is true, if one is? If so, what is it?

Let the Debates Begin

If religious believers accept the OTF and claim their  faith passes the test, then at that point we have an agreed-upon standard for debating the merits of faith. If the test does nothing else, that is a good thing.

Let the debates begin.

— How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist by John W. Loftus, How to Know Which Religion to Defend, pages 106-108 and 114-117

Purchase the books mentioned in this quote:

How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist by John W. Loftus

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by Robert Burton

Other books by John W. Loftus

 The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True

Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World’s Largest Religion

Christianity is not Great: How Faith Fails

The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails

The End of Christianity

 

 

Bruce, What if You Are Wrong — Again?

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments

afraid of hell

For many people, being RIGHT is crucial. Evangelicals place a premium on being RIGHT. After all, THE Bible says, Jesus is THE way, THE truth, and THE life.  Evangelicals, hanging their entire existence on a definite article, spend inordinate amounts of time making sure that their eternal destiny is settled. Life is viewed as little more than preparation for the life to come. No matter what happens, Evangelicals know that God will grant them a divine payoff the moment they die. Heaven is their goal, and reaching God’s Trump Hotel requires Evangelicals to believe the right doctrines.  Right beliefs lead to heaven, wrong beliefs lead to hell.

No Bruce, Evangelicals say, we believe that salvation, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life are gained through the merit and atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. It is through JESUS, not right beliefs that sinners are saved.  While Evangelicals love to preach up salvation by grace, underneath all their talk about the freeness of salvation lies a rigid set of beliefs.

Evangelicals love to quote John 3:16:

 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

However, what Evangelicals really mean when they quote this verse is this:

 For God so loved the world, that he gave sinners the right beliefs, that whosoever believeth the right doctrines should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Ask former Evangelicals if being right was of any importance to them and the churches they attended. Ask them if significant time was spent making sure church members believed the right doctrines. If their experiences were anything like mine, they will say that there were certain doctrines which were considered essential to Christianity— inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, salvation through Jesus alone, heaven, hell, physical return of Jesus to earth, to name a few. Believe, and thou shalt be saved. Don’t believe, and thou shalt be considered heterodox, heretical, or unsaved.

Recently, an Evangelical sent me an email that contained one sentence: Bruce, what if you are wrong — again?  The author assumes that atheism is my destination, that I have intellectually arrived and no further inquiry is required. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When I walked out of the doors of church seven years ago, I left behind being right on the church’s altar. From that day forward, my life has been one of seeking and exploration. My goal is not to be right as much as it is to drink deeply at the well of human existence.

Now, this does not mean that I don’t value truth. I do, but my search for it is no longer has as its goal some sort of metaphysical payoff. As an Evangelical, I diligently read and studied the Bible. The Apostle Paul spoke of KNOWING whom I have believed, and that is exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to intimately know the King of Kings and Lord of Lords — Jesus Christ. I spent thousands of hours immersed in the Bible and prayer. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you, the Bible said, and I wanted to be a spiritual seeker and door knocker. These days, I still do a fair bit of reading and study — as my health allows — but I no longer feel pressed to make sure I am right. I want to be right, but I know that — unlike the Bible — the pool of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding is so great that I will likely leave most of it untouched by the time I die.

I spent 50 years in the Christian church. While I am sure there are things that I do not know about this or that branch of Christianity, when it comes to Evangelicalism I have exhausted the subject matter. It has been years since Evangelicals have used original arguments in their attempts to woo me back into the fold. Most public Evangelicals-turned-atheists will say the same. Instead, Evangelicals trot out well-worn, easily refuted arguments, thinking that they have won the day. Sorry Evangelicals, until you come up with something new, I am content to ignore you and move on to new and exciting ideas.

While I have shut the book on Evangelicalism and Christianity, this doesn’t mean that I have all the answers. While I am certain that the Gods created by humans are no Gods at all, there could come a day when I am presented with new data concerning the existence of a God or Gods. Who knows, right? I doubt it, but I it certainly is “possible” that our alien overlords could make themselves known some day and I will have to admit that I was wrong — again. Until then, I plan to keep walking on the path of reason, science, and skepticism. And if I find out I am wrong? I will likely write a blog post detailing the data that turned my beliefs on their head.

How about you, Evangelicals? Are you willing to openly engage the vast bookstore of literature that challenges the truthfulness and veracity of Christianity? Are you willing to follow the path wherever it leads? Are you willing to call into question those beliefs you hold dear? Are you willing, if the path leads to such a conclusion, to abandon Christianity? Are you really a seeker of truth, or are you just looking for data that reinforces your beliefs? Are you willing to lose your salvation for the sake of intellectual honesty? Or does the comfort that comes from certainty trump intellectual pursuit?

If you answer NO to these questions, I understand. That said, don’t tell me that you are a seeker of truth. A truth-seeker is one who is willing to follow the path wherever it leads. You are not willing to do this. Until you are willing consider the possibility of being wrong, you will remain safely lodged in the Evangelical castle of certainty. Millions will join you in its safe confines, but I hope, some day, that you will venture outside of the castle’s secure walls, and enter the wild, woolly, and wonderful world of reason.

[signoff]