CJ Werleman, author of ‘’, was interviewed by prolific atheist and incredibly sexy blogger, Jake Farr-Wharton in October 2009 on RustyLime.com. This interview remains the most commented-on article in RustyLime.com history, and while that is mainly because a handful of half-human-half-bible commentators lost control of their perception filters and became stuck in a perpetual feedback loop, it was a fun ride for professional obfuscators, of which Jake is one.

Due to a particularly lucrative deal with Lucifer (Satan’s sexually ambiguous half sister) CJ’s latest book, has been released with much critical acclaim! So much so, in fact, that CJ has had to renounce his atheism in favour of being placed among the pantheon of atheist gods.

From his new throne, and after answering my prayers, CJ has agreed to a second interview.

Jake Farr-Wharton has read this book, and personally endorses it! In the same punch, yet hilarious style as his last book, CJ has thrust the sword of truth into the gizzards that are the many lies of Jesus Christ. He critically analyses both the commentary of many of the theologians and apologists of antiquity and the scriptures themselves.

This book demolishes the position that Jesus Christ, King of the Jews and saviour of the Christians, was anything more than an apocalyptic preacher… and maybe not even that.

Now, to the interview:

You are the kind of atheist my mother used to warn me about, why do you hate god so very, very much?

Well, let’s be honest. Would you invite him to your party, with strippers and shit? There’s old Yahweh sitting in the corner watching everyone, being all-judgmental with a pen and scorecard. Kind of takes the fun out of evening, huh?

More than that, I hate the God of the Bible because he is the mirror of our species at our most ugly i.e. racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, violent, and vengeful.

We last spoke to you late last year after your first book, “God Hates You, Hate Him Back”, was published, what have you been doing since then?

Reading, writing, blogging, twittering. That’s my life in four words or less.

Most of that time, however, has been spent completing my second book, ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’, which is a natural sequel to my first.

Occasionally, I receive an email from people I’d spoken to or debated or who had read a particularly provocative blog post of mine on religion, telling me that what I’d said/written had infuriated them at the time, but had apparently planted a seed of doubt. This kind of feedback blows my mind, but I imagine you would have had some pretty interesting comments following the sublimely provocative book that was “God Hates You, Hate Him Back”. Can you tell us some of your favourites?

I wish I could report an actual death threat, because as Christopher Hitchens commented only recently, “the person who doesn’t threaten you is the one to worry about.”

I do receive plenty of “hasta la vista in hell, baby” type of emails, or the ever condescending, “I pray for you” kind. But what really gets my goat (is that still an expression?) is being called a racist whenever I dare denounce a particular aspect of Islam (despite the fact Islam isn’t a race), or unfairly labelled an anti-Semite because I’ve said the Israeli government behaves like the Nazi overseers of the Warsaw ghettos.

I guess that’s all the part of the game, though. The opposition will always attack the messenger rather than the message, particularly when their counter argument is as weighty as OJ Simpsons was.

The title of your next book, “Jesus Lied: He was only human”, is just as inflammatory as your last book, “God Hates You, Hate Him Back”. In GHYHHB, you ripped apart the bible and showed the world that the God character is infinitely malicious and apparently does hate humanity; what evidence do you bring to the table to show that Jesus was in fact a liar?

Without trying to giveaway the ending, we have examples in the New Testament whereby Jesus lied to his followers, the teachers of the Law, the Jewish elders, and the High Priest. Much of Paul’s letters, which make up the majority portion of the Christian Bible, concern themselves with Jesus’ big whopper, the promise to return before 100 A.D, at latest.

It’s not only Jesus’ lies that I highlight; I also demonstrate the historical, theological, and geographical flaws of the so called “messiah’s” biographers, while also bringing to light the irreconcilable discrepancies between their respective accounts of Jesus birth, youth, baptism, ministry, trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

The writing style is very similar to my first book, with the emphasis on entertainment rather than trying to impress the academic community with the lifeless and meaningless words, and phraseology only they use. 

What inspired you to focus on the biblical claims attributed to Jesus?

After the release of my first book, the typical Christian response went a little like this, “Oh, sure, that’s the Old Testament. But all that barbaric shit goes out the window once Jesus arrives on the scene.” Therefore, the initial inspiration for writing this book was to demonstrate that Jesus is inextricably tied to the angry, vicious, vengeful, woman loathing, gay hating, foreigner murdering Yahweh.

How much of what is attributed to Jesus in the Bible is able to be verified as a ‘factual’ account of Jesus’ life?

Based on a lack of external evidence, eyewitness testimony, conflicting Gospel accounts, and an absence of independent records – the only thing we know about Jesus, with any degree of certainty is the following:

• He was a Palestinian Jew
• He was raised in Galilee
• He spent most of his life in that immediate area. A rural area, outside of the more ‘sophisticated’ Jerusalem, that practiced a primitive form of Judaism.
• Jewish parents raised him.
• He was circumcised as a Jew.
• He observed all the Jewish holidays, and ceremonies
• He lived and taught as a pious God-fearing Jew.

Other than the above, we safely conclude the remainder of his biblically reported life to be based on neighbouring mythology at worst and contradictory hearsay at best.

Was Jesus just a human?

Well, with no self-written manuscripts, an absence of birth or death certificates, no actual artefacts, or independently verifiable and external unbiased accounts of Jesus, it is very difficult to presume he really did exist. It is my sense, however, that an eccentric Jew, an apocalyptic preacher by that name, existed in or around the first century. But his life was written about at least a half-century after he died, with the campfire stories and legends tacked on later. Moreover, his posthumous biography was disingenuously hacked together using prophecies from the Old Testament as a means to appeal to the Jewish people.

What is your favourite lie that Jesus ‘told’ from the bible?

Simply, the one that proves he was a phoney – the promise to return before his early followers (the then “current generation”) would “experience death”. Unequivocally and irrefutably, this proves Jesus to be a false prophet. And the Jews picked him as much from the start, but it would appear that 200,000,000 Americans remain a little slow on the uptake.

Do you have a favourite character from the New Testament?

Judas. You’ve got to feel sorry for this fall guy. He played his part in the whole Jesus myth, but then gets brutally murdered by God, his intestines blown apart. So much for no Jew left behind, huh? I mean, Judas helped the Romans arrest Jesus, and had Jesus not been arrested, there’d have been no trial. No trial, no crucifixion. (Remembering Jesus had said he had to die in order to save humanity) No crucifixion, no resurrection. No resurrection, no Christianity. But a supposedly forgiving God then splatters him. It’s all utter nonsense, plain and simple.

I personally love reading your regular blog posts on your website www.cjwerleman.com, but for those who don’t subscribe, why should they?

Because it’s fair and balanced. Not sure if that slogan is already taken, but it’s a good one. Whenever I write an article, I ask myself what would Glenn Beck do, and then do the opposite. It’s a straight forward mantra for living a mentally healthy life.

I particularly enjoy the regular tweets from your twitter persona @Rationalists. Where are you going to take your bite-sized comedy?

Is this a backhanded compliment? Are you implying my comedy falls short of an adequate meal? If so, then that’s probably a fair call.

I love Twitter. I love that you can create a punch line in 140 characters or less. I love that people have the option of un-following me when my jokes bomb. That kind of keeps me on edge. And I like pressure, except whenever someone is standing too close to me at a urinal. 

How many twitter followers would you need to consider yourself a success (keeping in mind that Lady Gaga has 5.5million)?

Well, for the past few months, I have been averaging 20-30 new followers per day. So if that pick up rate continues, I should hit Lady Gaga’s number by the year 2250. And to be honest, if I make it to that age, I will care very little for Twitter followers, I will be more impressed, however, if medical science will provide me the ability to sustain an erection.

If you put all of your hate towards god into loving god, do you think that you would be a better person?

Not at all, in fact, the opposite. If I became more concerned with loving God, I’d become more concerned with the self-obsession of making it to the celestial afterlife (pleasing him), and therefore less concerned with whatever small contribution I can make to ensure a better life with the one life we have here on earth. After all, if you believe in the Book of Revelation, how can you not see that global warming is anything but a positive sign?

Finally, why should people buy your book?

Because I make a $1 each copy sold. You’re not going to print that, right?

Ok, here goes a shameless piece of self-promotion. I like to think my books make what is largely the exclusive pursuit of theologians and high fluting, badly dressed university professors, accessible to people that would ordinarily not bother to pick up a book that examines religious faith. Religious beliefs should be exposed and made fun of, because they’re darn funny and illogic. More than that, we have allowed the protectors of these ludicrous beliefs to play too large a part in our day-to-day lives and politics for far too long. I believe with some certainty, the more that people become cognizant of these beliefs and doctrines, the closer we as a society will come to laughing the believers out of relevancy. Hello, modernity. Hello, the wonders of healthy secular societies such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Goodbye, Taliban controlled Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.