RE: 30 Questions for Fundamentalist Christians
I agree with the premise: a faith that cannot stand up against rational thought is no faith at all. Here is how I answer the 30 questions (my answers in bold).
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Part 1: Introspection
1. Many adherents of other religions believe just as strongly as you do. They often even cite many of the same reasons for belief that you do, and cite reasons for not believing in your religion that mirror your reasons for not believing in theirs. Do these parallels concern you?
Yes, they did concern me when I was first exposed to them. This forced me to see if there is any reason for my faith beyond my personal enthusiasm. The rationality and positive influence of Christianity won me over.
2. Religious people overwhelmingly follow the religion of their parents, their surrounding culture or both. If this applies to you, don't you find it convenient that you just happened to stumble upon the right religion without investigating the thousands of other potential options?
Yes, but no more convenient than the fact that I believe in free markets in a free-market economy. I don't need to investigate all other options, because free markets work. The supremacy of Christianity can be seen in the positive effect it has had (and still has) on cultures, economies, and governments world-wide. Rather than thinking it merely convenient that I was born here to Christian parents, I consider myself blessed by God.
3. If faith is a reliable pathway to truth, why does it lead people to such inconsistent conclusions? Why does it result in so many thousands of religions, and even thousands of conflicting Christian sects?
Faith is not a reasonable pathway to truth. Revelation is. In the Bible, we have revelation from God, that is believed due to faith. Other religions arise because Satan directs the production of counterfeit revelations, to confuse people and keep them in darkness.
4. When meditating Zen Buddhists feel a state of transcendent bliss and oneness with the universe, their brain activity looks the same as that of Franciscan nuns communing with God. "Religious" experiences also occur in other religious adherents, in users of drugs like psilocybin mushrooms and even in temporal lobe epileptics. Why would God give us brains that are so easily fooled by false religious experiences—and how do you know yours aren't among them?
I don't think I've ever had any 'religious experience.' Nor do I base my faith around them. But the reason we have brains that are so easily fooled is because of the fall of Man, at which moment we lost our innocence, and our ability to hear God directly. Suddenly, due to Adam's desire to be like God, we found ourselves open to be deceived, by experience as well as words.
5. One day in 1995, thousands of people across India and throughout the world allegedly witnessed statues of the Hindu god Ganesha drink milk that was fed to them from a spoon. The Hindu milk miracle has widespread, modern eyewitness testimony and even video evidence in its favor. Why do you believe in Christian miracles, but not in miracles of other religions that offer much better evidence?
I do believe in well-documented miracles in other religions, because I believe in an actual and active deceiver, named Satan, who masquarades as an Angel of Light to cause men to stray from God.
6. You may expect God to have a positive impact on the world. But both good and bad things are bound to happen even if God doesn't exist. If you credit God for the good things that happen and never blame him for the bad, all without any sort of evidence, isn't your expectation self-fulfilling?
God is in control, both indirectly allowing good and bad, and directly causing good and bad. We may see events as positive or negative due to our lack of perspective, but God is using all these events to bring about his good purpose in the end. So God is to be praised both in the rainbow and the tornado, by the one who has faith in his goodness.
7. God is often said to answer prayer in three ways: "Yes," "No" and "Wait." But if God's responses are so vague, how could you distinguish them from the results of prayer to any other god?
That maxim is not in the Bible. It is a good saying to help us understand how God acts, but it is just a man-made illustration. I concede it is not perfect, but what illustration is?
Part 2: Doctrine
8. The gospel message—the very core of Christianity—seems fundamentally unjust: In what sense is temporarily punishing one innocent man an acceptable substitute for endlessly punishing billions of guilty people?
Who knows? You're asking questions about metaphysics that we can't completely understand. That being said, God had set up the world so that rebellion against God must be forgiven with the shedding of blood. This how crucial sin is--rebelling against God, even in a small (to our eyes) way, is a deadly offense.
As far as the unjustness is concerned: of course it is unjust! Praise God that it is. Were it not, we would all be in big trouble.
That being said, it was not merely an innocent man that was punished for our sins, but a person of the godhead himself. That changes things somewhat, making it less unjust and more sacrificial.
9. This message seems not only unjust, but patently illogical: God (the Father) has another part of God (the Son) killed to save humanity from being punished… by God. Why couldn't God just decide to forgive us without killing Jesus?
I don't think it's illogical at all. Think of it in the words of John. God is light, and in him is no darkness. Due to our sin, we are covered in darkness. When you turn the light on in a room, what happens to the darkness? It ceases to exist. In the same way, we are unable to exist in the presense of God, because we are sinful, and unable to stand in his purity. Christ cloaks the Christian in his own purity.
So why didn't God just make us pure? I think it has something to do with God wanting children and not slaves. He desires worship--people who follow him out of choice. Christ allows us to choose to follow God, and makes it possible to obey God, thus increasing our worship of God.
10. Salvation depends on belief in a specific event that most people who've ever lived never even knew about: people in remote parts of the world, human zygotes (half of which abort spontaneously before birth), the severely mentally disabled, etc. If these people go to hell, how is that consistent with a God of love? If they go to heaven, does that mean God doesn't value their free will to choose or reject God's gift of salvation?
Most evangelicals believe in the age of accountability, which states that a child who dies before he is able to understand what Jesus did is covered in his salvation. For those who have never heard, we have to trust in God's wisdom and love; that he will provide a way to follow Christ for anyone who would, and that people who never hear about Jesus would not have followed him if they had.
11. God is supposedly a single being. But in what sense can the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be considered one and the same God when they have different wills (Luke 22:41–42), different knowledge (Mark 13:32) and different levels of authority (John 14:28; 1 Cor. 11:3)?
Who knows? We're talking about God, who is different from and higher than we are. Why should we expect to understand every element of him? Wouldn't it be disappointing and suspicious if we could?
12. We’d expect a perfectly wise, good God to have a composed, even-handed personality. Yet God brags that he'll make Israel's enemies eat their own children and grow drunk with their own blood (Isa. 49:26; Jer. 19:9), he delights in animal sacrifice (Lev. 1:1–9), he's so jealous of other gods that "Jealous" is his very name (Ex. 34:12–16), and Moses has to calm his fury to keep him from killing his own people (Ex. 32:1–14; Num. 16:41–55). Does this sound more like a transcendent deity or a vindictive tribal leader invented by a barbaric Iron Age culture?
Why would we expect this? Because most wise, good people are composed and even-handed? But surely that is false; I know many wise and good people who can be very dangerous when they are angered.
The question is whether in these situations God's anger is based upon ration or irrational means. What we see is that in all the above examples, his actions are consistant with his attributes of justice and righteousness. He is acting against sin, and thus his actions are severe. This is very composed and even-handed. Sin is treated severely, in every situation. The only exception to this is when a righteous man (Moses) asked God to spare his anger, proving that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much, as Jesus said.
13. Frontotemporal dementia can alter one's entire worldview, including one's religion, and severing connections between the two brain hemispheres reveals that they respond independently and hold different desires and beliefs. In one case, a brain’s right hemisphere professed theism, and the left, atheism. How do you explain the concept of the soul in light of such phenomena? Do these souls go to heaven or hell?
Just as no one would blame a person with a broken leg for failing to save a drowning child, no one should blame a person with a diseased brain for having changes in personality or for saying strange things.
The soul is spiritual, and may be expressed by material things (ie. the brain), but is separate from material things. So, this would be a situation where we could not tell based upon someone's actions whether he was a Christian or not. So what? Presumably, God knows the state of his soul. His salvation and damnation will be based upon something other than a physical injury.
14. In Mark 16:15–18, Jesus lists several signs that "will follow those who believe," including drinking poison with no ill effects. The few Christians who try this fail unless they take special precautions, like ingesting it only in small, harmless amounts. Why is this? (If you believe this passage is a forgery, as most scholars do, why would God allow it into the Bible?)
This passage was likely included later, and not refelctive of the actual words of Jesus. The reason why God would allow it to be included are the same reasons why God allows people to do evil. People are fallen. They make errors and commit sins. God doesn't stop them because without free will there is no worship. Inspired texts will undergo textual corruption just like uninspired texts, unless there are people who are very dedicated to maintaining accuracy.
15. God already has a perfect plan for the world. If we pray for something that's already in that plan, the prayer is redundant. If we pray for something that's not in that plan, the prayer is futile. What, then, is the point of asking for things in prayer?
Bringing us along with God's way of thinking. Additionally, you can presume that God knows what will be prayed for when he creates his plan, and takes that into account, meaning that our prayer may influence things. Again, it's difficult to fully understand because we're talking about a being who is very different from us.
16. If God made the universe for us, we would expect it to be hospitable and human-scaled. But the universe is billions of light-years across, composed mostly of dark energy and filled with black holes, cosmic radiation and the vacuum of space. Why is the universe so full of vast, uninhabitable emptiness?
It is heresy to say that God made the universe for us. He made it for himself. He also made us for himself.
Part 3: Errancy
Note: The following questions assume you believe the Bible to be the literal, inerrant and inspired word of God.
17. The Genesis creation story directly conflicts with evolution. Endogenous retroviruses— remains of viruses embedded in the genome millions of years ago—appear at the same place in human and other primate genomes. We've found many key transitional fossils like Tiktaalik (fish to tetrapods), Archaeopteryx (dinosaurs to birds) and **** habilis (human ancestors). Atavisms like teeth in chickens, legs in whales and tails in humans sometimes reappear as relics of evolutionary history. Can creationism offer a better explanation for such evidence?
Too big to be argued here. Suffice it to say that their are many Creation-believing scientists who would say "yes."
18. Biblical genealogies imply that the universe is about 6,000 years old instead of 13.75 billion. This is disproved by data from tree rings, ice layering, coral reefs, lunar craters, continental drift, distant starlight, human civilizations and more. As another example, scientists have traced back the orbits of the Baptistina asteroid family and found that they were formed by a collision that occurred 80 million years ago. Can the young earth view offer a better explanation for such evidence?
I don't personally hold to a young earth view, because the days of creation occur before the sun is created, implying that the word "day" is better translated as "time." Many earth years could pass in that time.
19. If 2 million Israelites resided as slaves in Egypt, wandered in the desert for 40 years and conquered a host of rival nations, we would expect to find massive, widespread archaeological evidence—but we don't. Instead, excavations have revealed the Israelites as a relatively small Canaanite tribe whose "conquered" cities were often uninhabited at the purported conquest date (e.g. Jericho was already in ruins a century earlier). How can inerrantists account for this?
Not being an archaeologist, it is difficult for me to comment, except to say that there have been many arcaeological findings over the years that have seemed to contradict the Bible, yet further discoveries have proved those implications false. I don't worry myself too much with recent findings that 'disprove' the Bible, for this reason.
20. Careful study of the Bible reveals many internal contradictions. For instance, Matthew 2:1–20 says Jesus was born a few years before Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Yet Luke 2:1–2 says Jesus was born during the Census of Quirinius, which occurred in 6 AD—well after Herod's death. Why do the two gospels contradict each other?
I'm not an expert on this, though what little research I did revealed that some have argued that Luke 2:1-2 should be translated to say that the census occured before Quirinius was ruler of Syria, rather than during his reign, as it is commonly translated. As to why this mistranslation happened, I refer you to my reply to point 14 above.
21. The Bible contains several instances of failed prophecy. For example, Jesus repeatedly said he would return to earth before the disciples and the rest of that generation had died (Matt. 10:23, 24:34; Mark 9:1, 14:61–62). The New Testament writers said his return was imminent and would not be delayed (1 Cor. 7:29–31; Heb. 10:36–37; 1 John 2:18). So why hasn't Jesus returned after almost 2,000 years?
The first issue: it is generally taught that that "generation" Jesus was referring to was in reference to the jewish race, or the Christian church, and not a generation as is generally understood.
The second issue: New Testament writers continually say that Jesus is returning soon. Most explainations I have heard refer us to the timelessness of God (his soon may take many years for us). Also, some hold that language of Jesus' imminent return is merely stating that we live in the last age of the earth (often called the "church age"), and that Jesus will come at the end of this age. He coming is soon from the perspective of the ages of the earth, which would not seem soon in relation to the span of one human life.
Part 4: Morality
Note: The following questions assume you believe your God to be all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good.
22. The Euthyphro Dilemma asks, "Is whatever God does good by definition, or does he merely follow some outside standard of goodness?" If the former, God would be good even if he did everything that we now call evil, so does it even mean anything to call God "good"? If the latter, shouldn't we judge him according to that standard?
The former. God follows his nature. Evil is acting against the nature or will of God. God cannot do evil because he cannot act against his own nature and will. Goodness is what God does. What God does is good.
23. Why is there so much manmade evil in the world? The usual response is that God allows it because he values our capacity to freely choose between goodness and sin. But in heaven, a place supposedly free from sin, people would presumably have free will. If God is capable of somehow allowing these two conditions to coexist, why not do the same on earth and prevent tremendous suffering?
There will be free will in heaven, but the people there will already be followers of God. Upon arriving at a place where that which they have worshipped by faith is now present in sight, why would they choose to do anything but worship him?
So why doesn't just make earth like heaven? I guess he has his reasons--they're probably the same reasons he had for creating the universe in the first place.
In re: tremendous suffering, again, if God were to remove suffering from the world, he would be removing one of the tools that best draws us to God--suffering and pain caused by sin. It is this that forces us to deal with God and leads us to understand that we are sinners and need a savior. If we sinned without suffering, few would ever repent.
24. Why does God allow natural evils like floods, earthquakes, wildfires, famine, hurricanes, pestilence and disease? Even if these phenomena are a punishment for human sin, it seems unjust for them to be doled out indiscriminately: For example, why must billions of animals suffer through no fault of their own, and why do about 17,000 children starve to death every day?
Everyone dies. Surely you have noticed this? What difference does it makes if they die young, old, in comfort, in pain, in disaster, or quietly?
When Adam sinned, his consequence was death (eventually). Adam being the head of humans, passed sin and death on to all of us. It is our consequence for our sin too.
Adam was also given authority over nature, so when he fell, nature was corrupted with him. Thus, animals die.
The point is that sin is not to be trifled with; it's deadly stuff.
25. The billions of people who don't believe that Jesus died for their sins will supposedly suffer everlasting punishment in hell. Take a moment to really think about the gravity of a punishment that has no end. How is God justified in carrying out this punishment? What makes even the tiniest sin so heinous that it must be met with infinite suffering?
The person who commits a sin (tiny or big) is rebelling against God. And it is not just the tiny sin that we commit. We constantly sin, by thinking primarily of ourselves and not of God, who deserves our worship. As to the eternity of suffering, some have posited that Hell is a place of torment precisely because God is not there; that when he leaves us to ourselves, we realize that all the good we knew flowed from him. Hell, by this thought, is being left alone with our pride, hatred, spite, self-importance, and desire forever, but without any of the good that, on earth, can mask its true horror. In a sense, we create this hell by living as if we wish God would leave us alone. How can we say he is unjust when he finally gives us what we've asked for?
26. In the Bible, God directly sanctions permanent slavery (Lev. 25:44–46), as well as the beating of slaves to within an inch of their life (Ex. 21:20–21). There’s even a loophole allowing Israelites to use emotional blackmail to permanently enslave entire families (Ex. 21:2–6). Is this consistent with a God who claims to be the personification of love?
Sure it is. It was a moral step forward in that time to punish a person who killed his slave (the part of Ex. 21:20 that was not mentioned above). There would have been no such punishment prior to the giving of this law.
It sounds barbaric to our ears to allow a person to buy slaves or beat them without consequence, but, ask yourself, why does this sound barbaric? It is because of the actions of Christians, who were following to its logical conclusions the idea taught in the New Testament that in Christ there is neither slave nor free. Were it not for Christians following God, no abolition movement would have likely succeeded.
Abolition of slavery was a slow process. In the Old Testament, we see rules for governing slaves, which were a moral breakthrough for its day. For two thousand years, this law ruled Israel. Then came the New Testament, and the idea that all are equal in Christ. Another two thousand years (almost) went by before abolition of slavery arose.
In the passages shared above, God started his followers down a long path of removing slavery from the world. I don't know why the length of the path was needed. Perhaps hearts were so hard that no one would have listened had he abolished slavery right then. Regardless, God showed his love by starting us down a long 4000-year path, and guiding us along the way.
27. In the Bible, God bemoans the idea of female leadership (Isa. 3:12), says through his servant Paul that women are to be silent and submissive in church (1 Cor. 14:34–35; 1 Tim. 2:11–14), and sanctions the forced marriage and rape of female captives by the very men who had just slaughtered their families (Deut. 21:10–14). Is this compatible with a perfectly just and loving God?
Sure. God has set men as leaders in church and family (The Isiah passage seems to be referring to the family, not the nation), much in the same way that God the Father is above God the Son. It's not a question of who is better, but what the roles are.
As for the Deuteronomy passage, see 26. above. The barbarism was present sure, but the point of the passage was a moral breakthrough--if you're going to rape a woman as spoils of war, you cannot sell her into slavery. This seems obvious to us, but was a major shift in those days. As with slavery, this was the first of many steps that led to women's equality, which, again, has only happened in countries under the influence of Christians, due to the idea that all are equal in Christ.
28. In the Bible, God kills approximately 25 million people. He kills millions of innocent animals and children in Noah's Flood (Gen. 7:21–23), the firstborn of the Egyptians (Ex. 12:29–30) and countless others. Do you believe that in every last case, killing was the best possible course of action?
As stated above, every one dies because everyone is fallen and sinful. I trust that God knows when and where they should die.
29. In Deuteronomy 13:6–10, God says that if an Israelite's loved one came to them suggesting serving other gods, the Israelite was to help stone that loved one to death—a slow, gruesome, agonizing fate. Imagine that you and your dearest loved one were Israelites, and they suggested worshipping some other god. Would you aid in killing them as God commanded?
It would be hard, for sure. But one should be more zealous for God than for family (even Jesus echoes this in the New Testament, though less violently, in saying that a follower of Christ must hate his family, in comparison with his devotion to Christ. This is why we don't stone anymore, because we are not under the law, thanks to Christ). Being a Christian is not an easy road. The one who is not willing to follow God first, forsaking all others, is not worthy of it.
30. If you see the passages above as perfectly good and just, would you still see them that way if you had read them in the Quran?
Possibly not, but I don't disbelieve the Quran because it is barbaric. I disbelieve it because it says things about God that are untrue.
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Sorry for the length. This is how I deal with these difficult questions. Some are Christian doctrine, and others are my own thoughts.
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