Four Questions Every Christian Must Answer
Sure, you can believe what you like in today’s society, but I for one am I firm believer in the fact that all beliefs must be justifiable logically. For Christians, I present four questions that will make you think about the consistency of your chosen faith. In other words, if you cannot answer these questions, you ought to re-evaluate your chosen religion. These are open-ended questions by the way; there is no definitive right-or-wrong answer. As long as there is consistent logic throughout, it all works.
Question One: Why would you pray if God has a divine plan?
“What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up your plan?”
- George Carlin
A major part of Christianity is praying. Christians pray for everything; promotions, new cars, miraculous cures, of course choosing to ignore that God, in his omniscience, created the very situation they are seeking to change. Christians are so arrogant that they value their importance and intelligence high enough to make a perfect being with perfect intelligence change his perfect plan because their boss is giving them a hard time at work.
Question Two: Why is life valuable when it continues forever (after death)?
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.”
- Emily Dickinson
This is a very simple concept: if you eat sweets every day, they become commonplace and unappreciated; whereas if you eat them only once a week, you relish and enjoy them far more, and their value to you thus increases. The same concept applies with life: if life comes back after death, where does life get its value from?
Question Three: Why do amputees receive no miracles?
“If God intervenes with cancer patients to remove cancerous tumours, then God should also intervene with amputees to regenerate lost limbs.”
- www.whywontgodhealamputees.com
The Bible is packed with claims of God’s miracles: Matthew 17:20 – For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. In other words, faith as small as a mustard-seed will move mountains—which isn’t much compared to restoring a lost limb. Yet still, it never happens. Why not?
Question Four: Why are intellectuals more inclined to be atheist?
3.3% of the Royal Academy believe in God; along with 68.5% of the British population. 7% of the American National Academy of Sciences believe in God; along with the 71% of the US population.
Human history has been a steady progress of scientific knowledge and intelligence. After the renaissance, people started to question the logic behind God, and indeed his very existence. From thereon, as human intelligence has progressed on an incomprehensible scale (one week’s worth of the New York Times contains the same amount of information as a medieval farmer was likely to come across in a lifetime), atheism has increased too. This correlation is significant; it proves that intelligence is directly proportional to an inclination to reject the idea of a God. Now if religion was an equally plausible alternative, why is it on the decline?
Those are my questions. I would love to see some answers from believers; just leave them in the comment field, and I will probably get back to you. If you have no answers, then, as I said, it would be worth reconsidering your chosen faith.
I don’t really choose to believe in any religion. I would like to make my own choices, not choices that are influenced by something printed in a book.
I think that you need to take the idea of faith into account with your arguments, for surely it is what religion itself is based upon. Even though you say that you think that all beliefs must be logical I think that if you are going to apply something based on faith to logic then you are bound to find issues as they are simply two different, incompatible concepts.
In response to Redfox.
The purpose of this article was not to provide sufficient proof against the existence of God to be able to deter a believer from their religion. I understand this may have been delusional, so I will edit my post.
Second, “faith” is a word made up by religious people to make people feel that they have a right to believe something without evidence. The truth of the matter is that the universe operates on a wholly logical level. If we lived in an illogical universe, where there were no rules of physics and no consistency in chemistry … you can imagine what it would be like. Therefore, I take it to be true that either something must justify its existence in terms of logic, or cease to exist. Faith, as I said, is just something made up to make people feel that they have a right to their unproven belief. They don’t.
As an atheist I think that this does raise some interesting questions towards christianity. But, I do think that your arguments could be made better by not trying to tear into religion, and instead want to make well rounded points and questions.
Topic 1:
This is probably the most challenging of all the questions.
To begin, we must first recognize prayer not being so much about giving and receiving, but more about a relationship between God and his creation.
God loves his creation, and if he is being ignored will create a situation where a human is forced to acknowledge that he alone is insufficient, requiring a higher power, that is, God. Thus, God created the situation the human seeks to change so that the human must pray, (thus acknowledging
God’s ultimate authority in their life), and so God corrects the situation.
It could also be that because this is a flawed, imperfect
world controlled by Satan, bad situations will always arise. God might not have directly caused the situation, but indirectly allowed it to happen by giving Satan reign over this earth. Now, taking into account that God wants a relationship with his creation, if the creation does not bother to ask God to rectify the calamity, will God bother to change the
person’s circumstances? Certainly not!
A third solution to your question is that God has allowed the situation to arise to test the faith of the individual, such as described in the book of Job. I would go into more detail but I believe if you are going to so repeatedly attack (or probingly question) Christianity, you should read it for yourself, so as to refine your arguments.
Topic 2:
This question simple:
This life is valuable because it determines under what conditions the following life will be experienced. Aside from the standard Heaven/Hell, some Scripture describes certain rewards to believers for actions in this life, or special positions awarded once in Heaven.
Topic 3:
One explanation is that God prefers to work in more subtle ways than spontaneously regenerating a severed limb. Another is that perhaps the patient really has no faith that his leg or arm could be regrown. Or maybe, just maybe, God really hates amputees.
Topic 4:
The discrepancy can be attributed to vehement attack and ridicule from the scientific community on anyone attesting to Christianity. While in other professions it makes little difference what faith you subscribe to, in science and other highly educated fields, to claim any other religion aside from Atheism (or Agnosticism, whatever you call yourselves now), you are automatically labeled a whackjob.
There is extensive documentation of scientific anti-Christian discrimination, and was recently featured in
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
(starring Ben Stein)
Well i’m agreeing and the second question is the best one =P
Yay, we got Anon back :D.
Concerning question one – I am willing to accept your explanation for this; my objection was against actually asking for favours from God.
Question two – in an infinite amount of time, everything would get boring. The key is to understand infinite–no matter what happens, it would get boring.
Question three – I don’t feel you’ve answered this question sufficiently. Perhaps God does work in more subtle ways, but Christians still claim that God heals cancer tumours and other difficult diseases.
Question four – I don’t believe this is a sufficient explanation either. The fact that religion has become so out-of-fashion must have some origin; there is no smoke without a fire. People do not suddenly decide to abandon their faith and bully those who do not.
While there would indeed be an infinite amount of time (it makes you dizzy just to think of it sometimes), you also fail to recognize the ramifications of a Heaven where there is an all-powerful deity capable of transcending all 10 Dimensions.
There would be infinite time, but we would also become able to move through the 9th dimension to any alternate time we chose, to any possible number of infinite beginnings, infinite possibilities. Imagining the 10th Dimension describes it better than I can.
The problem is that you are interpreting the concept of infinity in a linear fashion, when time is a 3-dimensional concept.
Perhaps the main difference is that losing an arm or leg is not life-threatening, whereas cancer usually ends in death.
I believe religion is not “out of fashion”. People simply choose to swing with the times. In Roman times, while there was a strong underground of Christian believers, you would be hard-pressed to find a single one of their political elite or educated that would profess Christianity. The opposite happened under Constantine, and the majority of the elite became professing Christians.
im so fuckin pro;)
nice article btw
I realize now I did not address the point you made when you described Christians as pretentious and arrogant in presuming to ask repeated favors from an all-powerful deity.
This point cannot be debated really, as it all depends on one’s concept of the Christian God. While I see your point of view, but perhaps Christians are taking to heart Philippians 4:6, which encourages Christians to “present their requests to God”
I am willing to concede my questions one and two granted that one does not pray for supplication and that one can be content with eternal existence respectively. In any other cases than these, I believe my questions remain unanswered.
I will, however, defend my questions three and four.
Q3: Your rebuttals are besides the point, and only excuse God in some cases, but don’t answer my question in its entirety. You say that God works in subtle ways—well what a coincidence then, that the subtle things are the ones most easy to fake, and the obviously visible things are the hardest to fake. Surely, the difficulty of the issue should not be an obstacle for an omnipotent God?
Q4: It is odd that the only example you can find of a religious environment is one that existed nearly 2,000 years ago. It is also odd that since these 2,000 years ago, human development has occurred at an astonishing rate, in tact with the growth of disbelief in God. Furthermore, your argument that the intellectual elite are biased against Christians does nothing but prove my point: for no matter their behaviour, the existence of an intellectual elite is precisely what I am arguing for. If I am incorrect, how do you propose this intellectual elite came about?
Concerning question three:
Honestly there can be no one final explanation for this, as no one can truly presume to speak for God. The simplest is that he simply does not want to. Why? It is impossible to say. I for one see a difference between a handicap (such as an amputee) and a person afflicted with malignant cancer. Another very possible explanation is that the amputee simply has no faith that he will be healed. How many amputees would you say seriously even stop and consider praying that their limb regrow? I would venture none.
(Yes, I do know that is a lame explanation)
Question 4:
Intellectual environment 250-350 years ago: All colleges are run for the sole purpose of educating ministers and the clergy, government is controlled by raging religious leaders, who dictate societal norms in every aspect of a citizen’s life. Dissenting educated men, even those of the same faith like Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, are banished from the country or colony. There has always been an intellectual elite, and their views shift from era to era, the only thing that remains the same is their treatment of anyone that disagrees with the accepted belief at the time. (Galileo anyone?)
Q3: If you admit that your argument is lame, then we are in agreement; and surely a lame explanation is insufficient?
Q4: I do not believe that you have addressed the issue relevant. You have not explained HOW the intellectual elite change their opinions; instead, you have only given an example of a change. I shall be interested to hear your explanation of this.
3:
The simple fact of the matter is that God doesn’t have to heal anyone, and the fact that he doesn’t is not viable evidence that God does not exist.
4:
I was not attempting to explain HOW the elite change their opinions, only that they do indeed change, and simply because the scholarly elite believe a certain way does not automatically make it correct.
You have avoided the question two times.
Q3: As I said, I am not trying to disprove God. I am trying to make you think. Whether God has to heal someone or not is beside the point; Christians claim he do, and it is from there my argument forms. What you have done is just repeat a premise.
Q4: If you look at my comment to you from March 31, you’ll see that I’ve posed you a question that you have not answered yet.
So there is. Apologies :)
Give me a bit, I’ll get back to you
Question One: Why would you pray if God has a divine plan?
God knows what will happen but we still make the choice. he knows that you will make the choice. God never is suprised. We pray to God because it shows respect and it is our way of asking God to do something, such as save a friend in the hospital. Our prayers are not always answered and that is because our will is not always God’s will.
Question Two: Why is life valuable when it continues forever (after death)? Because we were made in Gods image. Since you asked for a christian to answer we can say this. Our lives were made by some one and he took the time to creat us. By creating human life in his image we see that it is important. we would be disrespecting God by destroying his image. What about War? The diference between killing in war and killing not in war is that war is a event that has to happen. the world is fallen and in our fallen nature war must exist. In the bible it says “there is a time for peace and a time for war” that is the main reason that i believe that war is ok.
Question Three: Why do amputees receive no miracles?
In the bible its says that if you have faith like a mustard seed then you can move mountains. I have looked at this and allways thought that this is not true. I have faith but some how it is not good enough. In the bible all the miracles were done by Prophets, Jesus, or the apostles and i just believe that our generation has been sucked of all its faith. I dont know why God does not reach down to help people like amputees but i believe that since we feel sorrow towards them then the one whos image we were created in must feel the same sorrow. It was not his idea to creat sin. He knew that it would happen but he let it. I dont know why he does not enforce his will on everyone. that way there would be no sin, no pain, not problems, but that kind of relationship does not appeal to him. Back to the question if God had his way there would be no sin, pain, or problems, he lets us make the choices and because we are in a sinfull world things happen. Pain happens, but why no miracles after the pain? I dont know. Good question
Question Four: Why are intellectuals more inclined to be atheist?
Brilliant people can make mistakes too. =p Albert Eginstin, wrong spelling, has a quote on why he was an atheist. I might get a word or two wrong but it goes “How can a god who clames to be loving let us go though sin”. he was saying why did god not tell us how bad sin was in the garden. If you adam and God comes to you and says heres what hate is. How could he understand something that he has not experienced before.
I am not the best debater and i dont know everything so i might have some gaping holes in my thoughts….
Just curious…
Why would God create humans as inquisitive creatures and then punish us for that same quality that He gave to us? I am referring to the story of Adam and Eve, wherein humans are cast out of paradise because Adam and Eve ate the fruit.
My knowledge of the Bible is a little shaky, so please correct me if I’m wrong on any account. (I plan to read it when I have time to devote to it, perhaps in the summer.)
God gave them all the trees in the garden except one. there were three mistake prior to the eating of the fruit, Eve was looking at the tree, Adam was either right next to his wife or did not know were she was, Eve listened to the talking snake. Eve placed herself in temptations way and made it easy for the snake to tempt her. The snake or satan placed in eve the desire to, as the snake says “be more like God” and this is not a bad thing in its self but God said dont eat from the tree, God did not place the iquisitiveness in humans. Eve would not have eaten the fruit if the snake had not come along.
and as a side note….. i left some out in question 4
When people call themselfs intellectuals they place them self on a higher level than th regular people. I think that those people would be more like christians in your last topic that close their ears and yell because they would not like to think that their lives are not in their control. They are prideful enough that they came up with a new system in which they are the smartest and most influential people in the universe.
So you are saying that God created humans and our qualities but he did not imbue us with inquisitiveness? Humans are not inclined to follow rules blindly.