Welcome

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Bruce

Welcome to the NW Ohio Skeptics website.  We are a group of agnostics, atheists,skeptics, humanists, and non-religious people who desire to present an alternative viewpoint to to the conservative, Christian viewpoint so common in NW Ohio and  many parts of the United States. You can expect to find regular commentary on politics, social issues, culture and religion, with a focus on issues and news affecting NW Ohio. From time to time you will also find concise, passionate commentary on national politics, social issues, culture, and religion.

The NW Ohio Skeptics website is owned and maintained by Bruce Gerencser. Bruce is a former evangelical pastor turned agnostic. You can find his personal writing about the ministry, family, etc. under the personal category.

If you are interested in writing for or helping with the NW Ohio Skeptics website please let Bruce know via the contact form.

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you will frequent the NW Ohio Skeptics website often.

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Bruce You Need Help

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Bruce

A few years ago a family member told me I needed help. They disapproved of way of living. They didn’t like the trajectory my life was taking.

They have watched my life slowly drift leftward. They have watched me become worldly. They have watched me become a liberal that voted for a negro.

And now………I have lost my faith in God altogether.

I have forsaken all that matters.

After all, only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

I am sure they wish I had gotten help.

I did.

Just not the help they wanted me to get.

I started blogging about my journey.  This put me in contact with other people who were on, or had been on, the same journey as me. I found people who understood, people I could relate to. Wow, there really are people who understand what I am going through. I hope now that I can be a help to others, the same way other people were a help to me when I needed it the most. In many ways this blog saved me. Thanks be to the blog. :)

18 months ago, for the first time in my life, I saw a counselor. Twice a month I see Doctor D. He’s a liberal, a progressive, a kindred spirit. He has helped me in more ways than I can count. It was hard for me to get up enough courage to see him and harder still to speak openly with him about my life.

I found new authors to read. Authors like Bart Ehrman. I found new magazines to subscribe to. I found books and magazines that challenged my worldview and forced me to reexamine my beliefs about God, the Bible, and the afterlife.

I have indeed been helped.

Thank you.

Posted in Personal, Religion | 7 Comments

I Am Who I Am

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Bruce

People pat me on the back for being brave.

They applaud me for standing up.

They wish they had the courage they think I have.

If they only knew…..

I am not as brave as they think I am.

I am not as courageous as they think I am.

I have days like today where I want to crawl into the rabbit hole and be forgotten by foe and friend.

I brought this on…….I have no one to blame but myself.

I could have stayed in the closet.

I could have lived a lie.

Knowing what I know now I don’t condemn anyone for pretending.

Better to be a Christian in name only, wait that’s what most Christians are anyway.

Why couldn’t I have just been an unbelieving preacher?

No one would have been the wiser.

No God to worry about, just people to fool.

That’s easy. Any preacher worth his salt can fool a congregation.

I was a Christian for most of my life.

Living a lie should have come easy for me.

But it didn’t.

Few people give me credit for being honest.

Would they have rather I lived a lie?

Maybe.

It would have made their life easier.

No explaining what happened to the pastor,father, husband, son-in-law, uncle or cousin named Bruce.

I am sorry I have become a problem to explain.

I am sorry my life makes people feel uncomfortable.

You see living openly and authentically matters to me.

When I go to bed at night I want to know that I have been honest with all those I came in contact with.

That’s why I can’t be silent about my agnosticism.

It is who I am.

I am not going to pretend there is a God.

I am not going to pretend I love Jesus or that I go to Church.

I don’t.

Love me, hate me, it is who I am.

I am sorry people are disappointed with me

I am sorry people are worried about my soul.

I know…….they want me to come back to Jesus.

I know….they just want things to be the way they were.

I can’t.

I won’t.

How could I ever live with myself if I stopped living my life authentically?

Do with me what you will.

I am who I am.

Posted in Personal, Religion | Tagged , | 9 Comments

The Problem With Glenn Beck’s Civil Religion

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Bruce

Robert Cargill writes:

The problem with American civil religion is that it reduces faith to a particular brand of nationalism, which is precisely the opposite of the message preached by Jesus and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. By ignoring passages about social justice and community and highlighting appeals to individual liberties, Deuteronomistic theology, the Exodus, and conquest narratives, Beck attempted to weave together a generic, nationalistic religion that he hopes will appeal to the lowest common denominator of both faith and politics – personal ‘salvation’ via individual liberties – and overlook the more pervasive themes of social justice, equality, and community – which all people of faith are called to do! We are called to live together in community together as one body, not as rugged individuals.

Posted in Politics, Religion | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

1 in 5 Americans Believe Obama is a Muslim

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Bruce

obama_muslim

Nate Beeler, Artist

HT: AZspot

Posted in Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Unanswerable Prayers by Christopher Hitchens

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Bruce

When I described the tumor in my esophagus as a “blind, emotionless alien,” I suppose that even I couldn’t help awarding it some of the qualities of a living thing. This at least I know to be a mistake: an instance of the “pathetic fallacy” (angry cloud, proud mountain, presumptuous little Beaujolais) by which we ascribe animate qualities to inanimate phenomena. To exist, a cancer needs a living organism, but it cannot ever become a living organism. Its whole malice—there I go again—lies in the fact that the “best” it can do is to die with its host. Either that or its host will find the measures with which to extirpate and outlive it.

But, as I knew before I became ill, there are some people for whom this explanation is unsatisfying. To them, a rodent carcinoma really is a dedicated, conscious agent—a slow-acting suicide-murderer—on a consecrated mission from heaven. You haven’t lived, if I can put it like this, until you have read contributions such as this on the Web sites of the faithful:


Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God’s revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a “coincidence”. Really? It’s just a “coincidence” [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yea, keep believing that Atheists. He’s going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he’s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.

There are numerous passages in holy scripture and religious tradition that for centuries made this kind of gloating into a mainstream belief. Long before it concerned me particularly I had understood the obvious objections. First, which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god? Second, would this anonymous author want his views to be read by my unoffending children, who are also being given a hard time in their way, and by the same god? Third, why not a thunderbolt for yours truly, or something similarly awe-inspiring? The vengeful deity has a sadly depleted arsenal if all he can think of is exactly the cancer that my age and former “lifestyle” would suggest that I got. Fourth, why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. While my so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed …And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)

The absorbing fact about being mortally sick is that you spend a good deal of time preparing yourself to die with some modicum of stoicism (and provision for loved ones), while being simultaneously and highly interested in the business of survival. This is a distinctly bizarre way of “living”—lawyers in the morning and doctors in the afternoon—and means that one has to exist even more than usual in a double frame of mind. The same is true, it seems, of those who pray for me. And most of these are just as “religious” as the chap who wants me to be tortured in the here and now—which I will be even if I eventually recover—and then tortured forever into the bargain if I don’t recover or, presumably and ultimately, even if I do…

You can read the entire article here.

Posted in Religion | Tagged , , | 24 Comments

Paying Attention To Extremists

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Bruce

I am a big believer is freedom of speech. That said I also think that it behooves law enforcement to pay attention to extremist groups. A book burning one day can turn into a bombing the next.

The Dove Outreach Center is planning a Qur’an burning on 9/11. Great. They are enjoying the freedom this country affords them.  Like it or not people are free to be assholes as long as their constitutionally protected speech doesn’t turn into violent acts.

That said, law enforcement officials would be foolish to wait until a group’s actions turn violent before they pay attention to them. I was pleased to see in the site log that the FBI and the Gainesville Police Department checked out my my post on the Qur’an burning and my post on the Church’s racist youtube video.

Thank you for watching out for all of us.

Posted in Religion | Tagged | 6 Comments

I Am Not Going to Let You Control the Storyline

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Bruce

It’s my life.

I have spent recent days trading emails with Christian family members and friends. Some of them don’t like that I have made them a part of what I write about on this blog. It seems that want me to sanitize or excise their part of  the storyline.

What I write makes them uncomfortable. (even though I never mention them by name) They disagree with my take on matters, and since they are fundamentalists there can be no doubt as to who is right.

All I know is that I have experienced what I have experienced. I saw what I saw.  I heard what I heard. I know that perception is reality.  I know I could be wrong or my view could be skewed. I am well aware of my frailties.

As I talked with several of my children about this the other day I realized that my experiences are not theirs. They see some things differently than I do

Most of the emails I have answered this week have come from younger members of the family. I am 12-25 years older than them. They have difficulty understanding some things because they haven’t experienced the same things I have.  If I told them that a noted member of the family physically assaulted a family member years ago they would not believe I was telling the truth. From their vantage point such a thing could not have happened. But it did. I was there when It happened. 1983 was the year.

Part of the problem is that we only see some of our extended family once every year or two. They no longer know us and we no longer know them. When we are together we rarely make any attempt to know each other any better. (and I am just as guilty as they are) Discussions are perfunctory and polite. Even with my wife’s parents, we only seen them about 4 times a year. My wife talks to them on the phone every week, but we know very little about their day to day life and they know very little about ours.

Every once in awhile something major happens. There is a blow-up. An “event”. Since we don’t see our extended family very often the “events” become more prominent in our minds. We tend to then judge them by the “event” rather than by the totality of their lives.

I have been married 32 years. Our marriage is far from perfect.  Believe me , we have had some “events”. We have had some same time, next year “events”. But, we don’t judge one another by the “events” in our lives. Why? Because we have a 32 year history with each other. When the “event” is judged in the context of our 32 year history it looks very different than it does when we only have a limited history with someone.

This blog puts me in somewhat of a difficult place with family. They can come to here and read everything I have written.  They assume , that once they have read my blog, they can then “know me”. They then feel they have the right to make judgments about me, about my spiritual or emotional state, or the things I believe. At best, this blog is a partial picture of who and what I am. Readers only see what I let them see.

What’s interesting is that a lot of people who react negatively to me do so based on “reading” my blog. Yet, when I check the site logs to see what they  actually read I often find out they actually only read a few blog posts. Even after I point them to the personal section of my blog many of them never bother to take the time to read the posts in that category. In other words, they are staying true to the fundamentalist credo….”My mind is made up, don’t confuse with the facts.”  As the one fundamentalist preacher told me “now we know the REAL Bruce Gerencser.” No you don’t.

I refuse to surrender the storyline of my life. It’s my life. To the degree that someone is a part of my life they are going to be a part of my storyline. Warning: Never be friends with a writer.  :)   The same could be said of a boyfriend of Taylor Swift getting upset that she wrote a song  about him after they broke up. Dude….she’s a song writer and that’s what song writer’s do.

I write.

That’s what I do.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Homosexuality According to the Bible and Stephen Anderson

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Bruce

Stephen Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe Arizona said the following in a sermon:

You want to know who the biggest hypocrite in the world is? The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers and not for homosexuals. Hypocrite. The same God who instituted the death penalty for murderers is the same God who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals – sodomites, queers! That’s what it was instituted for, okay? That’s God, he hasn’t changed. Oh, God doesn’t feel that way in the New Testament … God never “felt” anything about it, he commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed.

You know why God wanted the sodomites in the Old Testament to be killed? You know why every good king of Israel, the Bible says they got rid of the sodomites in the land? You know, the good kings that came after the bad kings who had allowed the sodomites to infest their land, they had infiltrated … King Asa got the sodomites out of the land, Jehoshaphat exterminated the sodomites that were left from the days of his father, Asa. Why? Because the sodomites are infectious, that’s why. Because they’re not reproducers, that goes without saying, they’re recruiters.

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they’re multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there’s more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They’re reproducing right? No, here’s a biology lesson: they’re not reproducers, they’re recruiters! And you know who they’re after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That’s who they’re after. You drop them off as some daycare, you drop them off as some school somewhere, you don’t know where they’re at. I’ll tell you where they’re at: they’re being recruited by the sodomites. They’re being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.

They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It’s not a physical disease, it’s a sin disease , it’s a wicked, filthy sin disease and it’s spreading on a rampage. Can’t you see that it’s spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it’s just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting ‘em.

So how many sodomites is one sodomite going to produce? A lot, and that’s why it’s just exploding. The only way to stop it, you say “how do we stop it?” … You want to know why sodomites are recruiting? Because they have no natural predators.

Hateful. Awful. And true to the Bible. Anderson is far more honest than most Christians when it comes to what the Bible says about homosexuality.

That’s why the Bible is the problem. Anderson is wrong because his view is morally repugnant, His view is offensive to all those who believe in decency and tolerance.

I am sure some of you think that anyone who believes like Stephen Anderson MUST be deranged and suffer from mental illness. The truth is there are a lot of people, sound in mind who believe exactly like Stephen Anderson. Check out The Anderson Family blog. They seem to be a normal, happy family, that just so happens to believe that homosexuals should be killed.  :)

Let this be a warning……….that “nice” Christian person that lives next door just might be another Stephen Anderson. True blue Bible believers. Nice, but deadly.

HT: Mike Tidmus

Posted in Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , , , | 30 Comments

Understanding Christian Fundamentalism Part 2

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Bruce
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Understanding Christian Fundamentalism

If I were to choose one word to describe Christian fundamentalism it would be the word authority. The word authority is defined as:

the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.

bible_silent The foundation of Christian fundamentalism is the authority of the Bible. The Bible is central to everything the Christian fundamentalist believes and practices. The Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God. The Bible, from Genesis through Revelation is God’s words to man. Every word is truth.

Most Christian fundamentalists are literalists. While they allow for some spiritualizing of the Bible, for the most part they believe the Bible should be taken in literally. A common ditty that is oft repeated in Christian fundamentalist churches is God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me. I never liked this little ditty so I changed it to say God said it and that settles it whether we believe it or not.

The children of Christian fundamentalists learn the B-I-B-L-E song at an early age. The B-I-B-L-E yes that’s the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.  BIBLE! Children are taught that the Bible can be trusted and that every word in the Bible is true. (however they do seem to skip a lot of stuff in the Old Testament when teaching children in Sunday School. teacher why did God kill everyone on earth?)

the_problem

Proof-texting is a common practice in Christian fundamentalist Churches. Every belief and every practice must be “proved” from the Bible. If a Christian fundamentalist can “prove” it from the Bible then a particular belief or practice is acceptable. (it is for this reason Creationism is so prominent in Christian fundamentalist churches)

When I was in High School, back when we were still fighting a war in Vietnam,  a girl that was dating a boy from the Church I attended came up to me in the school hallway and asked me “ _____________showed me from the Bible that is ok for us to fool around as long as we don’t go “all the way.” Do you think the Bible really says that?”  I told her in no uncertain terms that what her boyfriend was telling her was wrong. No wonder I couldn’t get laid in High School.  I was misinterpreting the Bible. :)

38 years later this story is a reminder to me of how Christian fundamentalists, armed with a literalist hermeneutic, can make the Bible say virtually anything. It should come as no surprise that Christian fundamentalists fight endlessly with each other over whose interpretation of the Bible is right.

Let me diagram for you the authority structure within the Christian fundamentalist Church:

  • Bible Authority
  • Pastoral Authority
  • Husband/Father Authority

These three authorities dominate Church beliefs and practices. (there is also congregational authority and state authority but they are not as dominant as the three listed above)

The Christian fundamentalist believes all human authority is given to man by God.

The pastor (preacher, elder, bishop) is God’s man. He has authority over the Church because God gave him that authority. The pastor has been called by God to be head of the local Church. While the Christian fundamentalist will say that Christ is the head of the Church, the mouthpiece for Christ in the Church is the pastor.

The pastor decides what truth is. Through his preaching he establishes what is acceptable belief and practice.  His word is the law in the Church.

While most Christian fundamentalist churches have a congregational form of church government, the pastor is the decision maker and arbiter of all things. The pastor has to really screw up or screw someone else for him to lose his authoritative grip on the Church.

Most Christian fundamentalist churches have one pastor and a few deacons. Often, the pastor and deacons are in conflict over beliefs and practices. I have arbitrated a few knock-down fights between a pastor and the deacon board. Usually, the pastor wins these brawls, He is ,after all, the man of God. If the disagreement remains, Christian fundamentalist pastors will often try to get the dissenters off the deacon board. In some cases they are kicked out of the Church.

messing To go against the pastor is to go against God. The Bible says  in Hebrews 13:17, Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

The Bible teaches that church members are to obey the pastor and submit themselves to him. After all, he has been given the responsibility to watch over their soul.

Church members are often reminded that the Bible says  Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. (1 Chronicles 16:22)

In other words don’t mess with Sasquatch, err I mean the pastor.

Lest you doubt that God is serious about this, remember the story of Elisha the children who mocked him:

So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. (2 Kings 2:22-24)

elisha_bears

Here are a few other Bible verses that bolster the notion of pastoral authority.

Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. (Hebrews 13:6)

Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. (1 Timothy 5:19)

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

pastorsauthority Anyone who has grown up in the Christian fundamentalist Church has heard the phrase “pastoral authority” bandied about. “The pastor is exceeding his pastoral authority” or “the Church is rebelling against my pastoral authority.”

Pastoral authority is another way of saying “I am the boss.” Even in churches that attempt to correct the pastoral authority abuses by having a plurality of elders (pastors) there is always one elder that is the head honcho, the super elder. (also known as the teaching elder)

The pastor becomes the CEO of the Church. He becomes the power behind everything in the Church. His word is the law. He decides, people obey. After all………it’s in the Bible. People taught to unquestionably obey the Bible believe they should submit to the authority of the pastor no matter what. He is the man of God who speaks to the people of God.

The pastor’s sermons are treated as divine messages from God. Ask a Christian fundamentalist pastor how he gets his sermons and he will invariably say “from the Holy Spirit”. I preached thousands of sermons over 25 years I sincerely believed that my sermons were given directly to me by God. I could stand in the pulpit with great confidence and say “God says.”

Many Christian fundamentalist pastors are type A, driven narcissists. The Church becomes their Church. The Church becomes their little kingdom on earth.  The pastor rules and reigns with a rod of iron, disguised as a Bible. This is a recipe for abuse.

Some people have described many churches and pastors within the Christian fundamentalist movement as cultic. Sadly, I believe this is an accurate observation.

I could give story after story about how Bible authority and pastoral authority were used to dominate and control the lives of people.  ( read my story about being excommunicated from Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf , Texas)

Hundreds of NW Ohio Skeptics readers were abused in churches where the Bible was the law and the pastor was God. An hour of reading websites like exchristian.net will give up story after story about people abused in Christian fundamentalist Churches.

Narcissistic men, a literal interpretation of the Bible, and a belief in pastoral authority provide a perfect recipe for abuse. People are robbed of their individuality and their ability to make decisions for themselves. Church members will strenuously object to this assertion and there is little hope to convince them otherwise. They sincerely believe they are “free” when in reality they are in bondage. They are in bondage to the Bible and to men who wield the Bible as a club.

How do I know this? To put it quite simply, been there, done that.

In my next post I want to deal with the third authority in the Christian fundamentalist Church, the husband/father authority.

Posted in Religion | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Glenn Beck’s God Encounter

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Bruce

Is this Christianity?

Posted in Religion | Tagged , | 17 Comments