Andswers to ‘10 Questions to Ask your Paster’
I recently ran accross this blog article: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2008/09/ten-questions-to-ask-your-pastor.html Entitled ‘10 Questions to ask your paster. I’m not a paster, but I figure I’ll try to answer it for fun.
Q 1: 1. Why is God called loving or merciful when, in the Old Testament’s stories of the Israelite conquest, he specifically orders his chosen people to massacre their enemies, showing no mercy to men, women, even children and animals?
A 1: Ironicly he hits upon the answer when by using the term ‘their enemies.’ The people God ordered them to fight had treated them just as bad(and sometimes worse) long before the Isrealites moved against them. Also on another note, almost every case the Isrealites wernt order to ELEMINATE their given enemies, but to DRIVE THEM OUT OF A GIVEN AREA. The Isrealites were given orders to kill everybody in that area, but the only people who would be there would be the ones who’d decided to stay and fight. Anybody who didnt want to fight(because they feared for their lives or whatever) could easily have run.
Q2: Does it make sense to claim, as the Bible does, that wrongdoing can be forgiven by magically transferring the blame from a guilty person to an innocent one, then punishing the innocent person?
A2: Unfortunitly he doesnt say why it doesnt make any sense to him. So the only answer I really can give is yes, it does to me anyway.
Q3: Why does the Bible routinely depict God as manifesting himself in dramatic, unmistakable ways and performing obvious miracles even before the eyes of nonbelievers, when no such thing happens in the world today?
A 3: Rountinely? More like once every 400-500 years. And usually as localized miracles, ones that not more than a handfull of people witnessed to begin with. As for why they dont happen today, well if(as in the Bible) they were all small scale, witnessed by a handful of people, then it could be they do and not too many people are seeing them. Another(more likely imo) possibility, is that in the Bible God always sends miracles with his Prophets, the miracles being comfirmation of the Prophets message. And God hasnt sent any Prophets recently.
Q4: Why do vast numbers of Christians still believe in the imminent end of the world when the New Testament states clearly that the apocalypse was supposed to happen 2,000 years ago, during the lifetime of Jesus’ contemporaries?
A 4: Thats actually a good question. I find the answer is generally ignorance combined with a desire to make the Bible more immidently relevent, even at the ’scholarly’ level(Lahay and Ice and such) this seems to be the case.
Q 5: Why do Christians believe in the soul when neurology has found clear evidence that the sense of identity and personality can be altered by physical changes to the brain?
A 5: Because the Bible doesnt teach that the body and soul are seperate, but rather one unified whole. That’s why it teaches a PHYSICAL ressurection, before the Final Judgement and New Heavens and Earth.
Q 6: If it was always God’s plan to provide salvation through Jesus, why didn’t he send Jesus from the very beginning, instead of confusing and misleading generations of people by setting up a religion called Judaism which he knew in advance would prove to be inadequate?
A 6: Thats actually a good question. It’s worth noting that God exists outside of time, and so Jesus’s sacrafice was, in a sense, done before humans even existed, which is how and why it could also save people before he was born. Also the animal sacrafices were ’shadows’ of Jesus’s perfect sacrafice. Beyond that I’m not really sure how to respond to that question honestly.
Q 7: Since the Bible states that God does not desire that anyone perish, but also states that the majority of humankind is going to hell, doesn’t this show that God’s plan of salvation is a failure even by his own standard? If this outcome is a success, what would count as a failure?
A 7: Sorry but the majority of people ARENT going to hell. If one believes the ‘age of accountability’ doctrine(as I do) then nearly half the people who’ve ever lived(up until quite recently, in western, industrilized countries) get a more or less free ride into heaven. When you consider that people who havent heard the Gospel can be saved by sincerely seeking God the best way they know how, then it becomes clear that only a tiny minority of humanity that has ever lived, who heard the Gospel message and concinously rejected it, or who didnt hear it and didnt seek, will be sent to hell.
Q8: Why didn’t God create human beings such that they freely desire to do good, thus removing the need to create a Hell at all? (If you believe this is impossible, isn’t this the state that will exist in Heaven?)
A 8: Sorry but it IS impossible. Ok its POSSIBLE. But it’s impossible if God wanted to make us capable of making a choice between good and evil. As far as Heaven there’s a major difference, in that Heaven will be populated by people who’ve ALREADY CHOSEN GOOD OVER EVIL. IOW the option to do evil is taken away AFTER we’ve decided we dont want that choice, not before.
Q 9: Is it fair or rational for God to hide himself so that he can only be known by faith, then insist that every single human being find him by picking the right one out of thousands of conflicting and incompatible religions?
A 9: Who said God is hiding? Theres evidence for his existance, not everybody looks at it(including, sadly, a great many Christians), and it may not be enough to convince everybody, but it is there.
Q 10: If you had the power to help all people who are suffering or in need, at no cost or effort to yourself, would you do it? If so, why hasn’t God done this already?
A 10: Yes. And I might add that God has given us the capicity to solve most of our problems ourselves. The solution to world hunger? It’s the same as the solution to America’s obesity crisis. Westerners(particularly Americans) need to stop eating so much and share their food with nations that need it. Disease? most can be prevented by having decent food and water, which we can provide if we REALLY wanted to(by one estimation it would only take a one-time investment of about $10 billion to drill clean water wells for EVERYONE in the world, which sounds like a lot till you consder that Amercians spend that much on potato chips, EVERY YEAR). And a great many more could be treated/prevented with modern medicine. Even those problems we dont currently have solutions to, I’m confident we could if we spent our time trying to solve them, instead of spending our time thinking up more efficent ways to oppress and kill each other.
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