I’m an agnostic and for the next four weeks the church I sometimes go to will answer questions during the service. I ask the two pastors tough questions a lot but I wanted to think up some extra tough questions for the services.
They’ve already said they’d talk about the violence (genocide) in the Old Testament. I’m writing down some of my ideas in case I forget them.
Matthew 7:13-14
I guess if every single person was saved then we wouldn’t have free will but for people to have free will only a couple would need to be disobedient. How can God be perfectly loving when an overwhelming majority doesn’t find “life”?
In the Bible the science it talks about always seems primitive. If it was inspired by an all-knowing God why didn’t he include some things like saying the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that our atoms came from the insides of stars or that the universe is about 13 billion years old or about the weirdness of quantum physics? Instead it says that the plants where made a day before the Sun and our hearts are the source of our emotions or that people aren’t allowed to eat blood because the life of an animal is in its blood (Deuteronomy 12:23). Genesis 2:7 - “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Actually the heart is more related to our life than it is to our emotions.
Is there free will in heaven? If so, can heaven crap out the way Eden did? If not, what is all this I hear about how important free will is for humans here on earth?
Generally, the problem of evil is addressed with some reference to the idea that, because we have been given free will, we were free to choose wrong and therefore can be held accountable for it. It would appear that free will has cost 90%+ of all humans who have ever lived eternal damnation, and to avoid this fiasco in heaven, free will to choose evil will be eliminated.
So why not just start there, if you are the Creator and never give humans free will in the first place?
But as an FYI, any minister willing to entertain questions from bright folks will eventually just say, “We cannot know.” It may be helpful to make your first question, “Can we know truth?”
Why didn’t God care about Native Americans for 2000 years? (The OT was written around 500 BC.) The result of that decision seems to have been that, once God’s followers found the New World, they spread disease through it - killing 90% of the population - and forcefully subjugated the rest, forcing them to convert by the sword. Surely there was a better way?
Why didn’t God leave some miracles behind that could continue to prove his existence for a few millenia, like drawing a map of the globe or telling us the number of AU that the Earth is away from nearest extra-Solar star, thousands of years before humankind could possibly know that sort of thing?
Why didn’t Jesus teach democracy and the concept of social equality?
Why did Jesus teach anti-wealth, anti-loan philosophy, when it was once we started to ignore those things that we were finally able to start building up the social structures and networks that would prevent wars and murder, and to start developing proven medications and reduce infant mortality rates?
“I understand your deity’s first commandment was to have no other gods before Him. How, exactly, could He have phrased that to make you realize He was serious?”
I’m not a theologist but come on, put yourself in the position of God for a moment. You have to explain the creation of university to some ordinary Joe, whose reality consist of sand, goats and misery. You calmly and slowly explain everything about Higgs bosom, time-space, antimatter and even give an element solution to Schrödinger’s cat paradox. You don’t get mad and you try to use language comprehensible to illiterate shepherd. You then let him go to tell this to his buddies. The only thing he will be able to blurt out is: “God… errr… created the universe in seven days”. As a matter of fact, God has showed considerable mercy to us humans considering the circumstances.
I guess anyone who has ever tried to explain something to a reporter will understand what I’m trying to say here.
If the NA were Christians when the Europeans arrived, they wouldn’t have gotten European diseases?
Blessed are those who have not seen, but who believe.
You can find those concepts in the NT without torturing the words too much.
When, exactly, was that? Besides, you are focusing too much on this life, my son. This life is not important, when the next life is eternity. Love they neighbor as thyself and have faith in God. Your reward is in heaven, not on earth.
A lot of people have misconceptions about the nature of God’s love. Yes, it’s true that God is perfect love – but God is ALSO perfect justice. The two cannot be understood separately.
The angels are basically robots–they had one, and only one, chance to choose whether they would serve God or Satan. But God wanted intelligent beings who had the ability to choose all the time. Consider–would you really want a spouse whose feelings for you could not change in any way?
The Bible is not intended to be a science book; nevertheless, there is a fair bit of science in it.
Geology–“Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone. . . . As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.” (Job 28)
Meteorology–“To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.” (Job 28:25)
Gravity–“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:7)
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) (emphasis added)
“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
Regarding your first paragraph, why do you think that it was God’s followers who found the New World?
The Bible is not a political science textbook, or a philosophy textbook, or anything like that. Jesus did not come to change the political or societal structures; He came to complete the plan of Redemption.
Jesus did not teach an anti-wealth, anti-loan philosophy. He taught proper attitudes toward wealth. You might be thinking of the rich young ruler; his problem was not his wealth, but rather that there was something in his life that he was not willing to give up in order to follow Jesus. It could just as easily have been a relationship; it could have been power; it could have been any number of things.
Some of this stuff isn’t actually hard. If we have free will, then it wouldn’t make sense for God to prevent us from killing each other. God’s job is to keep life from being wiped out by a single natural disaster, other than that we sleep in the beds we’ve made.
Well, hey, faith in You, I got; faith in various pagan deities, I don’t got; and faith in the blasphemer who cried out that You’d forsaken him, I don’t got; yay monotheism.
In the garden of eden, why is the tree that can bestow eternal life only mentioned after we ate from the knowledge tree, wouldn’t both be off limits, if not wouldn’t the serpent have us eat from the life tree first, and what was the serpent’s beef with God’s plan, anyway?
Explain to me the bit about Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and banging him.
Why did God make meningococcemia?
I guess that just leads to the question of why a time-transcending omnipotent deity chose that point in human history to tell a bunch of goatherds how he made the universe.
That one makes sense. If the Jews are God’s chosen people it would make sense that the Messiah would come from among them. In fact, the New testament goes to great lengths to connect his lineage to David to prove that he has the right bloodline for being the Messiah.
The belief follows along along these line.
You, were a member of a premortal world, in the presence of the Father. You are there because you choose to back the Father in an uprising that pitted free will against Satan’s plan. Because you choose to be on the right side, you are rewarded with an eternal life, to one degree or another, after a mortal tour. Eternal damnation is eternal life in the absence of the Father, not burning in hell.
When you are sent off for your tour of mortality, you are blessed with a veil of forgetfulness. You remember nothing of the preexistence and your “free will” guides your decisions thereafter. Some preform better than others are achieve a greater (higher) eternal reward.
Once you have completed your mortan tour, your veil of forgetfulness is removed. You clearly see what was right and what was wrong. You can weigh your earthly performance with full knowledge of what was required of you.
Free will isn’t as strict as you might think. It’s based on your understanding of the gospel. If you are the Pope, then your charged to a greater degree with your performance. On the other hand, if you’re some poor tribe member in some jungle in New Guinea, you are held to a lesser standard.
Why free will? It’s something like this. Assume you have a multi-million dollar estate that you worked your entire life to build. You have three children. You choose to leave the bulk of your estate to those children who are responsible enough to protect it. As a test, you give each of the 3 kids a million dollars and watch how they use it (free will). 2 of the children invest and protect it, while the third spends it on fast women, cars and alcohol. Who do you trust to protect your assets in your absence? Yet, being a loving father, you still provide some reward to the wayward child.