20 Questions Christians Can't Answer!

reply to post by r2d246


reply to post by wildtimes

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by r2d246

 

This whole thing is such a pointless argument. The Atheists believe there is no god. Christians believe there is. So what? We each believe our own thing. Some of us agree to disagree. Problem solved.

r2d2,
the problem won't be "solved" until everyone agrees on the eventual discovery of the TRUTH. Like everyone agrees on MATH.
Disagreement is the heart of conflict. So, it's not pointless at all.

Allow me to throw some of my own insight into this particular tangent of the discussion.

Agreeing to disagree is only an effective solution in allowing all parties involved to cool down. It gives some free time to think matters over and consider other points of view, while you're not so hot under the collar. But if an agreement is not reached, there will be that one guy who is CONVINCED he is right, and yet has a niggling little doubt creeping under the rug in the back of his mind. And the fact that someone disagrees has given that doubt credence.

As a result, the guy is a bit insecure, and wants closure in the matter. Only when all parties agree will he be satisfied that he actually does know the truth. And since he is afraid of admitting he is wrong, there's only one option left: convince the other parties that THEY are wrong.

And that's where things start to go sour. See why agreeing to disagree doesn't always work? Some people just can't accept that others don't agree because that leaves room for doubt in their own mind, something they are terrified of because that forces them to confront their own uncertainty.

reply to post by Deetermined

What do you think, AfterInfinity?

Do you think LOVE is all we need?

Why do you disagree? What more is needed than love? Love ensures that all else is attended to, because love does not allow negligence or unnecessary cruelty. This world boasts an abundance of everything but love and compassion - see what it has done for us? We throw each other under the bus just so we can live another day in this terrible hell.

Money is more popular than love. And money is on its last legs. What comes next? If not love, then what? What do you predict will happen to the world if we don't learn to love one another? If we don't love, we will hate and despise, and we will tear apart this earth to spite those who remind us of ourselves.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

See why agreeing to disagree doesn't always work? Some people just can't accept that others don't agree because that leaves room for doubt in their own mind, something they are terrified of because that forces them to confront their own uncertainty.

Brilliant insight. Disagreement on how many onions to add to a stew is a far different matter than spiritual ones....
we can make two pots of stew, and agree to disagree and eat the one we prefer. But "stew" is not a very heavy issue. Discussing the eventual fate of our mortal bodies and whether or not we have a "soul" that is either anihiliated at death, sent to some perfectly nice dimension, or facing eternal burning in hell is a little different.

I don't think the argument/disagreement will ever go away without the occurrence of something so universally indisputable that everyone is forced to experience it (like gravity). Even gravity, though everyone admits it's a definite thing, can't be "explained" properly.

Yet.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


In all honesty, the only reason I asked you that question was because some of your posts made you sound removed from the ability to express or feel love yourself. Is it possible to truly love others if we feel removed from it ourselves?

reply to post by Deetermined

In all honesty, the only reason I asked you that question was because some of your posts made you sound removed from the ability to express or feel love yourself. Is it possible to truly love others if we feel removed from it ourselves?

Some of my posts give that impression because the weight of mankind's cruelty wears heavily on my shoulders. Cruelty done to everyone, not just me.

Love is removed only by withholding it from those who need it. If everyone is loved, then everyone will love...eventually.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Money is more popular than love. And money is on its last legs. What comes next?

When you contemplate this question, was does your gut tell you?

reply to post by Deetermined


My gut tells me that if I'm honest with myself, I'll know that I can't rely on my intellect or intuition for that answer. I don't know enough.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


So, if you can't rely on your own intellect or intuition, what can you rely on?

Don't have enough time to answer all the questions at once - and others seem to have done a very reasonable job - some of the answers blow me away too.

Just to add to the thoughts on question 4: (first ten questions)

The tree may have been put in the garden, because God created Adam and Eve with free will - even though they had no knowledge of good and evil. They weren't being forced to follow his instructions.

Originally posted by namine
1. The Bible tells us that God sacrificed his only son so that we can go to Heaven (John 3:16), but the Bible also tells us that he raised his son back from the dead again. If God didn’t really lose his son, then how is that a sacrifice?

Other Christians might differ on this issue as I have answered it.

First of all: Jesus was created as a human being. He had his life taken from him - so there is a sacrifice here.

Second of all: If you claim to be the son of God, and can't get killed and yet come back to life, you have very moot proof of your divinity.

reply to post by sensibleSenseless

The tree may have been put in the garden, because God created Adam and Eve with free will - even though they had no knowledge of good and evil. They weren't being forced to follow his instructions.

He had a lot of rules, and yet instead of simply disabling those negative aspects, he enabled the aspects and provided the temptation so that they simply couldn't NOT disobey. And then, he was ready to punish them because of his omniscience, he knew exactly what would happen.

For being an omniscient omnipotent benevolent being, he sure did screw up a lot. And now he's punishing us for his faulty designs - which he should have foreseen!

According to the Bible, anyway.

Originally posted by namine

Originally posted by dollukka
God did not and Jesus did not write any chapters of the Testaments, people did. And this is science.

And this is exactly why the Bible can't be taken at face value, or even assumed to be perfect in anyway. God doesn't make mistakes, people make mistakes, right? Not to say you can't learn anything from the scriptures, but they cannot be considered the perfect word of God.

I happen to be Christian, and I believe the bible, though I don't necessarily cater to the same interpretation as everyone else does.

The bible is a book full of all kinds of wisdom and all kinds of prophecies, in addition to other things. It was written by human beings on divine inspiration, is what we believe. Translations and mistranslations and missing parts may exist because every one who worked on the bible weren't all necessarily divinely inspired. That being said, a book is permitted to have spelling mistakes or even grammatical mistakes, and sometimes it is still easy to understand the meaning of the paragraphs.

For the greater part, the bible serves it's purpose. Those who have faith in the scriptures, know that the whole book cannot be thrown out because of a small human error here or there.

One of the possible errors might be the translation of 6 days in the book of Creation, for instance. The actual word was translated from a word that meant "time period". So, six days may not mean 6 literal days.

Additionally, you are correct. Even Christians in their multiple interpretations (including myself), can make mistakes in interpretation of the scriptures. How can we therefore judge something as perfect, if the interpreter (the human reader) himself is not perfect. I analogize this to how you accept science, even if everything is based on relative proof, given that science doesn't know absolutely everything about the universe.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


God is infinite, and we are finite creations.

Limitations exist. We'll live.

His punishments are for not following things that can be observed eg: morality. This is why Cain was punished for Abel's death (he didn't have a bible to tell him it was wrong).

reply to post by sensibleSenseless


So you've chosen to "interpret" the Bible? How can you "interpret" something that is pure truth? How can there be multple interpretations of something that is pure truth?

That implies that we can choose how to understand the Bible, which throws truth right out the window, because next thing you know, all we'll want is a good story to help us sleep at night. Considering all the other lies we live with, what's one more?

I mean, if we're going to build a world of lies, at least make it worth our time, right? That's how I feel this whole thing is going. That's what I feel this reality has become. Truth no longer matters, is no longer worth as much as a useful lie. Because by now, the truth will only hurt. A lie can at least cover the wounds, and help us pretend we're okay.

Science hasn't proven the absoluteness of human observations either.

We are weak. We need reference points and a finite understanding. Lessons in history work fine.

Originally posted by namine

Not only that, the Bible tells us that Jesus explicitly upheld the ghastly Mosaic Law that requires children to be killed if they became unruly (Matthew 15:3-4, Matthew 5:17-18, Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

Is this the person we should be emulating?

[/quote]

I dont have time for the whole thing, but next time, I'd do at least a little homework before you jump out onto your soap box thinking you've found it all - I seriously googled JUST ONE of the scripture references above to fact check...

Matthew 15:3-4 does seem to indicate that Jesus supported the death of children:

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

Until you expand out the verse and quit cherry picking:
Matthew 15:1-7:

15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

*8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
*9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.

OOPS... fail.
I know it's fun to poke at Christians and then drag up scripture that is literally thousands of years old, it's an easy target. But at least be diligent about it, don't look like a lazy moron or a selective con-artist.

Originally posted by namine
No thanks. This thread is about the questions in the video, not your ego, or my beliefs.

Oh it is very much about your ego, and beliefs. I guess you're not really confident in your thread title, huh? Imagine that. Yet, believe me when I tell you that I understand your fear of truth, and your state of confusion and doubt. It will pass in time.

You are free to leave now

Yes indeed; once again the game has ended in fear and humility. But look, the game of all games is starting- and you will be playing whether you like it or not. Spoiler: It ends the same way.

And now, I leave you to wallow in your confusion.

reply to post by MrCobb


Perhaps there are some who are genuinely interested in finding out about "our versions" of understanding the premise of religion and even biblical scripture.

I feel I have given them the benefit of the doubt by adding my answers to the questions posed.

If in the future someone should choose to ask the same questions or a variant of these same questions, perhaps the poster will be able to help cover the material, after all many of those who respond to us go through a lot of trouble to post their understanding/mis-understanding of what it is we believe.

I have to admit that I too have learnt from some of these answers as they may not be entirely evident to the reader while reading scripture. So, in asking difficult questions, they offer us a means to defend what we understand, and pose the opportunity that even some of the atheists who understand some of what they have gleaned from past discussions/research may contribute to our understanding.

It isn't to say that the atheists are going to decide to convert to some form of religious understanding. But perhaps they will feel less threatened by what is written, if reason is presented to them. I myself believe what I read in scriptures because I've had my own set of experiments and very helpful teachers... I only wish to extend that courtesy to others. This is part of what it means to be Christian.

reply to post by sensibleSenseless

Science hasn't proven the absoluteness of human observations either.

We are weak. We need reference points and a finite understanding. Lessons in history work fine.

From what I can see, we're only taking one lesson from history: "Be good, or be good at it."

I'm not entirely sure I caught your drift.

If I were to interpret what you said: "Be good, or be good at it" - Are you referring to being good at figuring things out?

reply to post by sensibleSenseless


No. "Be good, or be good at it." If you're going to be bad at being good, then be good at being bad.