Super Tough Questions Christians Have Never Answered: Winning Arguments That Render Their Dogmas Impossible
To the following Christian apologists in particular who adamantly declare the Bible and Christianity to be the one and only truth and all others false:
Kent Hovind, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Josh McDowell, JP Moreland, John Lennox, Mike Licona, Ken Ham, Stephen Meyer, Ray Comfort
Especially to Dr. William Lane Craig, since he runs ReasonableFaith.org and claims that the Christian faith is reasonable and rational. And to Dr. Frank Turek and Dr. Kent Hovind, since they are very vociferous and fearless and act like they can answer anything skeptics put their way. If anyone knows them, please forward these questions to them. Thanks.
I have a series of tough and important questions that Christian apologists have never answered in their books, media, lectures or FAQs. I've seen books that claim to answer common questions from skeptics, such as Josh McDowell's Q&A books about the Christian faith back in the 80's, and others by Lee Strobel and Frank Turek. But they only answer superficial and basic questions though, not tough unanswerable ones like mine are. So I'd like to challenge them to answer these tough issues that strike at the core of their belief, and which constitute my objections to Christians who ask me why I don't "return to Christ". I invite Christian apologists to debate me on this too. This will be an ongoing series. I will post 3 tough questions per post, starting with the 3 most important ones. Here is a summary of the first three, followed by an elaboration about why they are significant.
Summary of Tough Questions #1, 2, and 3:
1. Why does God blame us and punish us for something we didn't do? Everyone knows that is unjust and wrong, so why do you accept that since it goes against your own common sense justice? Why are we to blame for the Fall in the Garden of Eden? Especially since the offense was simply that Eve ate an apple or fruit off the wrong tree, which is very trivial and no big deal, certainly not big enough to punish the world with suffering, pain, injustice, and death for the past 6000 years or so. No parent would punish their children for life for a trivial offense, even a bad parent would never do that. So why would a "just God" do that? How is Original Sin justified morally or logically? How is punishing an entire world for the trivial "sin" of two ignorant people justified and considered the act of a "just God"? Why would a "just God" do something so 100 percent UNJUST?! Isn't this the ultimate contradiction of all time?!
Furthermore, isn't the notion that all the problems, pain, suffering, injustice, and evil in this world, all stem from the act of two foolish people eating an apple or fruit in a Garden that God created, the most ludicrous and ridiculous concept in the world if you think about it? How can any mature adult take that seriously? It boggles the mind since it sounds too completely nonsensical and absurd to entertain for even a second. Think about it. Nothing could be more absurd than that. Also, wouldn't that make God the worst computer programmer or creator in the world, since anyone who creates a system where one little flaw (e.g. eating an apple) can crash and corrupt the whole system for good, would be considered a horrible programmer in our world? Such a programmer would be far from perfect of course. So this refutes the Christian claim that God is perfect obviously.
2. "What are my orders sir?" Christians say that you should "give your life to God" otherwise you are in rebellion. Well suppose I gave my life to God as you suggest. How are you supposed to serve God and do his will if he doesn't talk to you directly in a clear manner? That's like working for an employer and not knowing what your duties are. How are you supposed to know what he wants you to do in your everyday life, since God doesn't talk back as we all know. So how can he be my master or boss? If he has no time to talk to me, why doesn't he appoint an angel to be my manager? Otherwise, you cannot serve a master who won't even tell you what he wants. How can I have a relationship with a God who can't or won't talk to you?
Sorry but reading a man made text like the Bible isn't enough. And looking for signs and omens would be a guessing game, and too subjective as well. This just cannot work and is not viable, realistically speaking. What's more, if Jesus came into my heart and became my Lord and Savior, as you say, then why can't he talk to me directly, especially if he's "inside me"? Same issue with the Holy Spirit, which allegedly is inside every believer and is a sentient being. It's totally nonsensical.
Moreover, why would a God who frequently spoke to people in the Bible, like Moses, and appeared as a burning bush to him, be totally silent now? That makes no sense and is inconsistent. Some Christians claim that God has decided to never speak again and only speaks to us through the Bible. Yeah right. That sounds like a convenient copout and is a red flag too. Why would an unchanging God do a total 180 like that and be so inconsistent? There are those who claim God speaks to them, but that is considered iffy even in the Christian community, and they are seen as nutcases by most people.
3. How do you know which parts of the Bible are literal or metaphorical? There seems to be no objective or consistent standard for this. Even the most ardent Christians admit that you cannot take every part of the Bible literally or you will run into many contradictions. Yet they have no standard to discern which parts are literal and which are metaphorical. So there is no reliable way to interpret "God's word". Christians cherry pick the Bible like everyone else, accepting the verses they like and ignoring the verses they don't like and rationalizing them away. Since it's impossible to take the Bible literally without incurring countless problems, why not take the whole thing metaphorically, like all great geniuses in history have done? In that case, the Bible will not be a serious authoritative book as you claim, only allegorical, like any good fiction, hence undermining its own authority. How can you resolve this logically?
Let me expound on the above questions and explain why they are important and come to mind first when considering the Christian faith.
Elaboration of Tough Question #1:
My first and biggest issue is this: Why does God blame us and punish us for something we didn't do? Everyone knows that is unjust and not right at all. Even our courts of law know that. So why do you accept such a claim that goes against your own common sense justice? Why are we to blame for the Fall in the Garden of Eden? Especially since the offense was simply that Eve ate an apple or fruit off the wrong tree, which is very trivial and no big deal, certainly not big enough to punish the world with suffering, pain, injustice, and death for the past 6000 years or so (or whatever age you think the world is since the Fall). No parent would punish their children for life for a trivial offense, even a bad parent would not do that. So why would a "just God" do that? It makes no sense at all.
So how is Original Sin justified morally or logically? How is punishing an entire world for the trivial "sin" of two ignorant people justified and considered the act of a "just God"? Why would a "just God" do something so 100 percent UNJUST?! Isn't this the ultimate contradiction of all time?! Christian Evangelists say that mankind is fallen and needs salvation because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden by eating the forbidden fruit. That's a weird explanation for all the problems in the world. But supposing that's true, why is that my fault? Why does that mark the whole world as "wicked and deserving of hell"? I've never understood that, even as a Christian.
Why do Christians say that "we all deserve to go to hell?" Why do we deserve to go to hell, even if we are good people, just because we were born imperfect, and Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and the book of Romans says "all have sinned and there is none righteous"? How is that just and righteous? That makes no sense at all if you think about it. Isn't that the most UNREASONABLE thing in the world, to say that you DESERVE to go to hell because you were born IMPERFECT???!!! Don't Christians wonder about this too? How can you not?
This is the first question that comes to my mind when analyzing the Christian gospel logically. So I am surprised this obvious key question has never been directly addressed in Christian media or literature. Very odd. I must be on a different wavelength than everyone else. Furthermore, doesn't the Bible contradict itself when it says none are righteous in Romans, yet it says in the OT Bible that Noah and Job were righteous? Also the Catholic Church says Mary was born by immaculate conception which means she was born without sin. How do you explain that?
In the late 1980s, I asked a Christian friend about why the doctrine of Original Sin is fair and just. His reply was: "Well have you ever done something you knew was wrong?" I replied, "Very rarely, maybe once or twice". Then he said "If you have done so even once, then you are just as guilty as Adam and Eve are and no better." WTF kind of reasoning is that?! So basically, if you are IMPERFECT then you DESERVE to go to hell? WTF?! Isn't that the most UNREASONABLE thing you've ever heard? How can a just and good God be LESS reasonable than normal humans are by demanding perfection, which is impossible? That's crazy and deep down everyone knows it. How can you not?
Let me ask you this: Suppose your children did something trivial like steal cookies from a jar after you told them not to. Would you punish them for life about it and cast them off from your permanently and make them suffer for life? Of course not. Even bad parents would not do that. So why would a "just God"? That's 100 percent UNJUST and absurd. How can anyone take that seriously? The punishment is supposed to fit the crime, and a trivial misdemeanor like that does not warrant eternal punishment. Everyone knows that. Even in a court of law, if someone commits a crime and is ignorant of what they are doing, they are not held to full punishment. So how can a court system in a corrupt country like America, be more just and reasonable than God Almighty? Again, it makes no sense! How can a just God be 100 percent UNJUST? Isn't that the ULTIMATE contradiction of all time?!
It's impossible to justify this of course. So Christians have to use fear and appeal to authority, by saying that this is God's law and you can't do anything about it, because God's the boss, so it's his way or the highway. And that it's not your place to disagree with him, because you are just the creation and not the Creator. Blah blah blah. You get the idea. But they never actually answer the question of why original sin is justified and why we are all penalized and punished for it, when we didn't do it, and were born imperfect in an imperfect world. If God were born imperfect too, then he'd be a sinner too, does that mean he would deserve to go to hell too? See how nonsensical this is? If you are born imperfect, how can you be expected to be perfect? Makes zero sense.
This is a very key and important question. But Christian apologists and evangelists have never addressed it in their Q&A or FAQ books. It's probably the first objection I would have to the Christian gospel if I were hearing it for the first time. That's why I list it as #1 here. Yet oddly, it is not brought up in Christian books and lectures during the Q&A session, such as when Dr. Frank Turek is speaking. Those in the audience only ask very trivial and inane questions. Never the key ones like I do. I don't know why the general public is so dumb. Seriously.
Furthermore, isn't the notion that all the problems, pain, suffering, injustice, and evil in this world, all stem from the act of two foolish people eating an apple or fruit in a Garden that God created, the most ludicrous and ridiculous concept in the world if you think about it? How can any mature adult take that seriously? It boggles the mind since it sounds too completely nonsensical and absurd to entertain for even a second. Think about it. Nothing could be more absurd than that.
In addition, wouldn't that make God the worst computer programmer or creator in the world and far from perfect? Ask anyone in the computer industry if a programmer who creates a system where one little flaw (e.g. eating an apple) crashes the whole system and corrupts it for good, is a good programmer at all, let alone a perfect one. Of course, we all know that such a programmer would totally suck. So this refutes the Christian notion that God must be perfect, which is without basis, since nothing could be more imperfect than to create a system or program where one little flaw or wrong turn crashes and corrupts everything. We all know that. So why deny the obvious? To deny the obvious requires one to be brainwashed and mind controlled right? Because truth does not deny the obvious. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that Christians do not have the truth, but are brainwashed and mind controlled by cult-like tactics, right?
Elaboration of Tough Question #2:
This is also an obvious question that comes to mind if I were considering becoming a Christian, so I am surprised it is not asked or addressed in any Christian videos or FAQs. Very strange indeed. The question is: Ok suppose I want to surrender to God and give my life to him and serve his will, as you Evangelists suggest. How would I serve God and do his will, if he can't or won't even talk to me? How do I know what he wants me to do? How do I know what my orders are?
For example, when you start a new job, your manager or supervisor will tell you what your duties are, not keep you in the dark. If you are in the army, your commanding officer will give you clear orders and make sure you understand them. That's his job. But as a Christian, you have no orders or instructions. So how can you do the will of God and serve him? This makes no sense and is an obvious obstacle. So I'm surprised no one asks about it in any Christian media and it is never addressed either.
Now, I am not talking about following a moral code like the Ten Commandments, or the basic teachings of Jesus or anything like that. Sure you can find all that in the Bible. But I am talking about God's will for your day to day life and what to do with your life, where to go, what path to take, what choices to make, both on important and trivial matters, etc. Like how do you know what job he wants you to get, or where he wants you to move to or live, or who he wants you to marry, or what he wants you to do on any given day? You cannot function or serve a master or commander if you have no orders.
I guess you could look for signs and omens, like ancient people did. But wouldn't that be a nebulous and subjective guessing game? I could see many signs and synchronicities outside and never know if they were from God or just a coincidence. How would I know? I know that many spiritual teachers say that if you are attuned on a higher frequency, you will be able to recognize which synchronicities are meaningful and which are just coincidence. Or perhaps there are no coincidences, as many spiritual New Agers such as Deepak Chopra say. Now even if that is true, I don't think the average person is attuned enough to intuit which synchronicities and omens are from God and which are just coincidence. And since Christianity is tailored to the masses, not to spiritual adepts or initiates of higher mystery religions, I don't understand how the average person is supposed to know what God wants him or her to do. This is an obvious stumbling block to the Christian path, so I am surprised it is not addressed.
Now if God is too busy to give me orders, why doesn't he appoint a supervisor or manager over me like a CEO would with his employees? Like a managerial angel to tell me what to do? If he does then how do I talk to this supervisor angel of mine? You've never addressed any of this even though it's a practical and obvious question.
If God can't or won't talk to me and give me clear orders and instructions, then what's the point? You can't have a relationship with someone who won't talk to you. It just won't work. Sorry. And no, reading a man made text like the Bible isn't enough. We need clear orders and instructions. Otherwise, it simply won't work. This is an obvious issue. I'm surprised you don't address it. It's like working for an employer without any assigned duties. This is a big conundrum. If God won't talk to us, then he's not worth giving our life to. And if God can't talk to us, then he's not all powerful like you claim. Either way, you lose. This is a no win for you.
Moreover, why would a God who frequently spoke to people in the Bible, like Moses, and appeared as a burning bush to him, be totally silent now? That makes no sense and is inconsistent. Some Christians claim that God has decided to never speak again and only speaks to us through the Bible. Yeah right. That sounds like a convenient copout and is a red flag too. Why would an unchanging God do a total 180 like that and be so inconsistent? There are those who claim God speaks to them, but that is considered iffy even in the Christian community, and they are seen as nutcases by most people.
Two more important points:
* If one "invites Jesus into their heart" and he comes in, as you say he would, then wouldn't someone who is inhabiting my body be able to speak to me? You'd think so, gee whiz. Even animals can use body language and facial expression to communicate with you, so why not Jesus, especially if he's "inside you"? Are animals smarter than Jesus and God are? LOL. Go figure. This makes no sense yet again. Same with the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to inhabit every true believer. If the Holy Spirit is a sentient being and the third person of the triune Godhead, then why can't he talk to you? Again, it makes no sense.
* Even if I did what typical Christians do and just follow the moral code and teachings in the Bible, and "gave myself" to God metaphorically, that would still not be "giving your life to God" in the literal sense. It would only be following a certain moral behavioral code. Either way, your claim is nonsensical and not viable. What do you have to say to that?
On another note: Pantheistic philosophers like Spinoza, and geniuses like Einstein, have said that we most likely cannot talk directly to the creator of the universe. Just like the trillions of cells in our body cannot talk to our mind or brain directly. It's simply impossible and out of scale. This sort of makes sense if you think about it. If this is so, then we cannot serve God directly then, if God is the body of the universe like Pantheists claim. All we can do is perform some role or function in this world, just like our cells each perform some role or function in service to our whole body. If so, then we must follow the New Age path of discovering one's destiny or bliss. In that case, Christianity is the wrong religion then. So again, you lose.
Elaboration of Tough Question #3:
Most Christians admit that you can't take everything in the Bible literally otherwise there will be many contradictions and you will be left confused. So they admit that some of it has to be taken symbolically. But the problem is, there is no clear set rule or standard for knowing what to take literally or symbolically. It seems to be a matter of interpretation, which is subjective and relative. What I've noticed is that when Christians like a particular Bible verse, they will take it literally. If they don't, they will ignore it or say it is a metaphor or that it's situational and doesn't apply to them. So like everyone else, Christians cherry pick what they want and leave out what they don't want. Yet the irony is that they also claim that the whole Bible is the inspired complete word of God, even though they ignore the parts of it that they don't like. Go figure. This is yet another irresolvable problem.
Now I've heard Christians say that as a general rule, you should take the Bible literally unless it indicates not to. However, that makes no sense, because there are no Bible verses that say "Don't take the following verse literally." So how can you know what the Bible wants you to take literally or metaphorically? It makes no sense. They've never addressed this, let alone solve it. Either way, it's impossible to take the Bible literally, even most of it, because there are too many unreasonable and extreme things in it that no one can do, nor should do. And many contradictions and discrepancies as well, which is normal for a man made book written by many authors over thousands of years. Here are some examples.
* Jesus told a rich man in the Gospels to give away all his money and possessions to the poor. No Christian wants to give away all his money and assets and become a homeless bum, especially if he has a family to raise. Every Christian family wants at least a middle class lifestyle for their children. No one wants to become a bum and homeless beggar. So no Christian would follow this of course. But it's in the Bible. Furthermore, the prosperity Gospels promoted by prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen claim that God wants every Christian to be rich. So go figure.
* Jesus said in the Gospels that if your body parts cause you to sin, to cut them off, for its better to lose your body parts then to have your whole body thrown in hell. These are sick verses, even if they are only parables. But again, no one would do that for obvious reasons. Not even Christians.
* At the end of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said that believers can drink poison and be bitten by poisonous snakes and yet be unharmed. Of course, no sane person would risk their life to test that claim. That'd be foolish and insane.
* In Mark's Gospel, it says that "faith can move mountains" but of course no Christian can literally move a whole mountain with his or her faith.
* There are many Bible verses that indicate the Earth is flat too, if you take them literally that is. You can look them up. Many websites have them. If you don't believe the Earth is flat, you gottta admit that the Bible is wrong about that. So you can't take it literally.
You get the idea. Plus there are countless hundreds of contradictions and discrepancies in the Bible. Many websites and books have listed them, so we do not need to get into that here. Even authors in the 1800s such as Robert Ingersoll listed scores of contradictions in the Bible that are impossible to resolve. But that's to be expected of course, in a series of 66 books written by many men over thousands of years. When you have multiple authors and books, of course they will say different things. Christian fundamentalists don't get this, because they are conditioned to think that the Bible is one book with one author and one unified message. But it just isn't so.
I know Christians try to weasel out of the above verses by saying they should be taken as parables or allegories. However, those verses do not say "Don't take this literally". So what's the rule or standard on what to take literally or metaphorically? It seems very arbitrary. The rule seems to be: If you don't like a verse or find it abhorrent, then you take it symbolically as a parable or as situational, meaning that it doesn't apply to you, only to those in the Bible stories. If you do like the verse, then you take it literally. So it's very arbitrary. There's no true objective standard here. Christians have never resolved this to my knowledge. But it's important of course. The obvious truth is that Christians cherry pick what they WANT to believe and what makes sense to them, just like everyone else. In that sense they are no different than secular people or people of other religions. Everyone cherry picks what they want and rationalize away what they don't want. So the Bible does not have absolute authority as they claim, and Christians contradict themselves in many ways, this is just one example.
The real question is: Why not just take the WHOLE Bible as metaphor then? That would be the wisest thing to do, and that's what wise people usually do (who are not brainwashed by fundamentalims that is). Otherwise you have countless contradictions and irresolvable problems if you take it literally. Christians have never been able to resolve this. In fact, all the greatest scholars of comparative religion have taken the Bible metaphorically, not literally. For example: Huston Smith, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, Manly P. Hall, Rudolf Steiner, etc. And all the greatest geniuses in history have looked for truth beyond organized religion and atheism. For example: Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Leonardo DaVinci, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Emmanuel Swedenborg, etc. These greatest of geniuses were never dogmatic about religion or the Bible, nor did they deny divine intelligence in the order of the universe like atheists do. What this means of course is that the smarter and wiser you are, the more you see the Bible and organized religion as metaphor, not as literal truth. Therefore, I'm in very good company of course.
(see my Einstein quote below)Obviously, common sense says that the Church cannot just declare the whole Bible to be metaphorical only. Because that would be like declaring it to be mythology or meaningful fiction. The Church loses its power and authority if its religion is metaphorical only. It becomes like good literature, full of archetypes, but with no power or legal authority. Every institution has to legitimize its authority somehow, and they can only do that with literal dogmas and creeds. It would be like the government declaring all laws to be metaphorical, if it did that, no one would take the laws seriously. So the government cannot afford to do that. Neither can the church. So you see, it's about CONTROL and legitimizing the authority of man made institutions, NOT about truth.
One more important point to keep in mind: Even if the Bible is mostly meant to be taken literally, and is mostly true, that doesn't mean the Evangelical Christian interpretation of it (which was made in the USA and didn't become mainstream until 1910) is the only correct one. As you know, there are many different interpretations of the Bible. That's why there are tens of thousands of different Christian denominations (over 30k I last heard). You see, you could take a team of the most logical rational brilliant people, and have them all read the Bible, and they'd all come to different intepretations of it on various issues. So there is no single correct interpretation of it that is objective and correct.
Even if you do what Christians say and "let the Holy Spirit" interpret the Bible for you, you would still get different interpretations among believers who are each "filled with the Holy Spirit". (so much for the "Holy Spirit" lol) Even if they all agreed on the core teachings, with only minor differences, it is still subjective, because anyone can find verses in the Bible to justify anything, even slavery or stoning people to death for minor infractions. It's a dangerous book to take literally, because there are many terrible verses in the OT and some in the NT too.
To close, let me show you a quote from Albert Einstein about divine intelligence and the universe. This is an example that shows my point that the greatest minds and geniuses in history did not endorse religious dogmatism or dogmatic atheism either, but saw both sides as a false dichotomy, neither having the truth. So don't fall into that kind of trap.
Ok those are the first three tough questions for now. The next three will come later. If you are a Christian and you have any answers to the above questions, feel free to post them below."I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things."
― Albert Einstein