6 difficult questions...

I'm a Christian. I believe in Christ; what he preached; that he was God; and that he died for our sins and rose again.

But... there are still some things that don't quite make sense to me. And when my atheist friends ask me these things I have no answer for them...

1. Torturing the innocent
Many Christians believe that those who aren't saved will go to a place called hell where they will be eternally tortured. This includes innocent people who have never even heard of Christianity, or happen to have the wrong faith. Why would God be so cruel as to torture innocent people? Isn't God loving and kind?

2. Salvation to believers
Why doesn't God's salvation just instantly come to all humans? Why must we believe in, or even know about, Jesus in order to be saved? Isn't this cruel?

3. Salvtion to modern humans
Why did God only choose to save modern humans? So far, something like 99.95% of all humans who ever lived will not be saved because they were born before Jesus. Isn't this cruel?

4. Knowledge of evil
Humanity turned evil because Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree (the tree of knowledge). But why did God forbid her to eat the fruit? And why didn't he want her to know the 'knowledge'? Does The Bible give us any explanation of this?

5. Whole Bible is God's word
Most Christians believe that the whole of the New Testament is the word of God, without exception, yet there are some things that couldn't possibly be true, such as Jesus being born in Bethlehem. According to the world's top historians, the nativity was 'obviously' made up. So why do people ignore these facts and believe that the whole New Testament is God's word? Or, are historians wrong? Or — even more incrediblly — does God want us to believe the lies?

6. 75 generations lasted a long time
According to The Bible, Adam and Eve were the first humans, and came 75 generations before Jesus. What does this mean, 'first humans'? We know from science that humans have been around for millions of years, so how could 75 generations last millions of years?

The only answer I can come up with is that Adam and Eve were originally the first humans on Earth, but then later on when God made a change to the universe (perhaps when new creatures were added), it resulted in humans having a much longer ancestory. But this explanation seems a little messy.

7. Liars?
How do we know that the people who wrote the New Testament weren't just lying, in order to gain some kind of authority over the followers of the new religion? This is obviously extremely hard to believe, given the principles they taught, but it can't be ruled out, and it's a question I get asked a lot and I find it difficult to give a definite answer.


I must just point out that the above questions are questions people often throw at me to 'prove' that my faith is wrong, and suggest that when you ignore these kinds of question, your faith loses its objectivity.

But to me, none of these details are fundamental to faith; they're mere trivialities. These issues are just curiosities about God's word and his judgements, they neither prove nor disprove his existence. Indeed, if you're contemplating what The Bible says then you're already making the assumption that he exists.

Faith in God is not based on studying what God allegedly said; it's based on deciding if God exists, which you can't do by reading The Bible. The word of what Christ did has been spread around the world and passed down from generation to generation and that is why people believe it. The Bible is just the documentation to go with this beleif.

As for the above 7 questions: I must say, these are the only issues that puzzle me. Everything else makes perfect sense, which is good going in my opinion. When dealing with a being who can create universes, I don't expect to understand everything.

 

1. God is a spirit - interested in spiritual things. Also, if God believes that we are all sinners, I doubt He sees any of us as Particularly 'innocent'.

2. Jesus said: the words I speak; they are spirit and they are truth. Salvation is a spiritual matter, and like all spiritual matters, involves communication - that is, both the giving and recieving.

3. Your friends have a 'cruel' fettish. Old testament salvation was under a different dispensation. It's like this: the first time around, spiritual ends were achieved via physical means, I.E., laws and social customs. The second time around, the drift is no longer from physical to spiritual, rather the spiritual (faith) validates the physical (works). God has been described as the spirit of all the living - He has lost nothing.

4. I have yet to find anything remotely approaching a definition. I wonder if the story of Adam and Eve might not have more to do with mankinds attainment of sentience?

5. The New Testament definitely has Jesus being born in Bethlehem. The Old Testament, moreover, has a prophecy that He would be so born in Bethlehem. According to the historian, Josephus, Jesus was an actual historical reality. Josephus is among the top historians.

6. 75 generations is about 3000 years - that is if a generation is still set at 40 years. But civilizations come and go, as do whole species. Maybe Adam and Eve were the first in a new epoch in mankind's history.

7. We can't know; we weren't there. But, it is said that these writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Something was communicated to them from the spirit. Jesus said, the words I speak, they are spirit and they are truth. On those days when I have an inspired thought or two, it sorta feels like something being dropped into my head - suddenly it is just there - and a rather loud echo.

You are right, theosophical issues aside, the Christian faith is about treating your fellow man decently. Jesus said, if you have done this to the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.

 

Thanks, Daniel. Some interesting answers, there. I'm learning!

 

Daniel was pretty accurate. The issue is, of course, who is innocent? Is never having hear about Christ an excuse? Would some incredibly horrendous evil person be called "innocent" just because they had never heard? We Christians believe that no one is innocent, however, God is *just.* Those who have not heard will be judged fairly. They will not be cast aside simply because they have not heard. The same applies to the idea of the wrong faith. If they reject Christ, then they have effectively said "I'll do it my way." God says, "Okay." Then, when they die, they are judged. As they do not have Christ's righteousness, then they have chosen a path that is not in accordance with God. They cannot stand on their own righteousness.
Hell exists not because of cruelty, but of love coupled with mercy and justice.

Some people believe that it does. However, there are people that do not want to be saved. There are people that hate God. God would be incredibly unjust to force salvation on everyone. He gives us the option to choose to be with Him. Unfortunately, we can choose to NOT be with Him (we call that Hell) as a result of the ability to choose.

This statistic is unrealistic. There are more people alive right now than have ever lived in preceding centuries (possibly combined). And being born before Christ doesn't automatically disqualify believers from heaven. This related to presumptions that were apparent in the previous questions. People before Christ were saved in the same way that people after Him were (and are) saved. Through recognition of our sinful state, recognition that we are incapable of saving ourselves, and faith that God would provide a means of salvation (Christians believe that He did).

He gave us the free will to choose to rebel, but without the actual ability to rebel, the conceptual ability is meaningless. God gave only one command, He only had one request of them. Adam and Eve had the ability to obey God and honor His request. However, they excerised their free will and chose not to. By the way, humanity didn't "turn evil" because of Eve. That wonderful distinction falls to Adam alone. Lucky guy.
I don't think that God wanted to withhold knowledge of good and evil. But then you have to look at what evil is. It is anything that does not conform to or parallel God's nature. To know good and evil would mean that they had experienced both good and evil. God wanted to spare us from experiencing evil and the disastrous results of it.

Why is Jesus being born in Bethlehem impossible? There are opposing/alternative views, but I do not see anyone claiming that it is impossible. However, most people's view of the nativity is nice, but historically inaccurate. There were no wisemen there, there was no star hovering over the manger. It is a nice thought, but it is unbiblical. What other things couldn't possibly be true? To the best of my knowledge, there is no archaeological claim in Scripture that has been disproven. Generally though, anytime some historian says X is so, there are other equally credible historians who come out and say that X is not so. Such is the nature of scholarship.

Wow. Hit all the big ones why doncha? LOL. There are many different views on the subject. There are the Creationists, the Young Earth Creationists (and there is a difference between the two), and Directed Evolutionists. Then there is the philosophical naturalism that is prevalent in the scientific world (unfortunately).
There are many answers to this. They all provide a completely new set of unanswerable questions (this is true even of Darwinistic Evolution and Neo-Darwinistic Evolution). The fact is, we do not KNOW what happened. I tend to approach it like eschatology. We will know someday, but it is generally a secondary issue.

A man will not die for what he knows to be a lie. People can believe and die for a lie that they have been told. But the authors of the New Testament died for saying that Christ rose and that they had personally seen him. They died horrible deaths after losing everything (families, personal posessions, etc.).
Why do we lie? Personal gain of some kind... ALWAYS. Did these authors have some sort of personal gain that was so completely great that it was worth DYING for the lie? If you believe that they did, then I have some beach front property in Nevada I'd like to sell you. It is more reasonable to believe that they believed their claims than to believe that they lied about it. They claimed that they had seen Christ after He had been crucified and that He was God.

It is okay to question your faith. Thank you for posting your questions.

 

Alsharad, hey that was great! Thanks for the answers!

Ha, I just went on and on and on about evolution in that other thread, scratching my head, trying to answer your question about evolution, and you obviously know a lot more about it than me! But I do like to waffle on! ;p

Great answers. You've actually completely cleared up half of them for me and I will tell my friends what you said.

But by all means, if anyone has anything more to say, I would love to hear it.

As for the historians saying the nativity wasn't real. Well, I don't really have access to, or remember al the facts, but I've seen a couple of documentaries about it and it just seems like they're in agreeance that the nativity was made up. If I remember correctly, these were highly credible documentaries (probably BBC) and highly credible interviewees.

Although sadly with any media documentary, there's always the chance of manipulation and sensationalism, even on the BBC!

Anyway, these expert historians say that there were prohpecies before Jesus that the saviour would be born in Bethlehem, so they lied and made Mary journey to Bethlehem to have the child just to fit with the prophecy. But why would she go to Bethlehem for no reason? It was a long way to go just to have a baby.

They say that the 'born in a stable' and 'wise men' things were just added in to make the story appeal more to the lower and upper classes.

They say that the only two books that mention the nativity were the only two books written 90 years after Jesus' death, which looks suspiciously like it was a collaboration, and there's absolutely no other evidence that it happened in The Bible or anywhere else.

To be honest, it's eating away at me and I wish I could see another documentary about it now because I would pay way more attention!

These same historians also speculated that Mary might not have been a virgin, and that the virgin story was the result of her sleeping with Joseph before they were married, and trying to cover it (or even that Mary had been raped by the Roman guards, who did a lot of raping in those days). But the historians were only speculating on this, and had no solid opinion. However, they were quite certain about the nativity being made up.

 

About no.3 :

Righteous Jews, who followed the old Testament, and sacrifices, etc...
Didn't go to heaven. They went to paradise, -the air conditioned side of hell. After Jesus resurrected, Paradise was destroyed and the people went to heaven.

I berlieve most people forgot that!

Otherwise...yeah, pretty much...

 

ok ryupower, im just going by the "Passion" movie [which isnt the greatest] but didnt Jesus say to the saved theif that he would join Him in Paradise?

 

1.god does not condem you,you are already condemed when you are born,adam and eve causedthe whole of mankind to be spiritually dead to god,good news is,if it took one man_adam to get us kicked out of paradises,it tkae one man to redeam us(pay for us)to get back in -jesus.god does not want people to suffer he wants them to be saved,but instead of making everybody believe christ he gives us free will,love wouldnt be love if we were forced to have a freindship with him.and as for the other religious that is why gods will is for each christian to reach out to the world

2.salvation cant come instantly because each person hasto come to a point in theyre life when they can understand what jesus did for them and wan t god for themselves.to be instantly saved you would have no belief anyway,becasue you would have always been that way,when you become saved you can feel and know the difference in your life and god works from there inside you.there cannot be instant salvation becasue there is work in our heart that must be done first.

3.i believe back in old testement times,when the law was differnt if a man did what those laws required and payed for theyre sin in the ways of that time then they will be saved-although it was extreamly hard back then to be righeous in the eyes god.the new covenant of jesus meant if you belief in jesus you will be saved-its not by works but by faith you aer saved

4.god wanted adma and eve to be faithful to him,and love him,the fruit of good and evil i guess tested theyre obediance to god,they failed it.just liek a child needs to be punished in order to understand right fom wrong so did adam and eve

5.jesus was born in bethlehem,his mother was mary his father god!gods word is not the bible alone,but the bible is gods word and stories og other people that were changed by god in those times.god still speaks therefor gods word will always be

6.if you read on in the bible it tels yu that some people lives to about 900,now you can see how it would only be about 75 genenrations.tye diet was better and the wrold was better back then

 

Christianity is not christian. if it were, it would use the teachings of Christs alone from
the "new gospel" that he gave. He overturned and railed against the tenets of Judaism (which is why he was crucified by the Jews) that were hundreds of years later incorporated into the bible ~ very much against his teachings. So modern christianity names itself after Christ, yet answers doctrinal questions using the very material christ rejected! Brilliant!
The good questions asked are worthy of much more than doctrinal pretence.

 

You are welcome.

Good luck.

The scriptural reason is that there was a census. The historians object because, in their eyes, there is no record of a census conducted in Israel at that time. However, Luke, as a historian, has not yet been mistaken in his comments regarding people, places, or political environments. These historians dismiss Luke as a historian, however. There is no collaborating evidence of a census, so they say that it must have been made up. What they do NOT have is any evidence showing that a census did NOT occur. So, Luke says it did, the historians haven't found any backup for it, they haven't found evidence against it. They still claim, strangely, that the story was made up.

Nice thought, but the idea cuts both ways. Being born in a stable would DISTANCE Him from the upper class and having magi appear at his house (which is what scripture said happened) would have the same effect of distencing Him from the lower class.

There is no need nor is there any reason to date any book (save possibly the Gospel of John) to post 70 A.D. A full explanation is available here:

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html

Contact the BBC and see if you can get a copy.

Yeah, sounds like the status quo for liberal scholars looking for the "historical Jesus." Most of them denounce miracles a priori and then try to look at the scriptures to see "what really happened." Nothing like isogetically interpreting an ancient document as the hight of secular scholarship (and I use the word "scholarship" VERY loosely).

 

Jesus himself was a Jew.
And yes, he did join, I think. Maybe he popped up in paradise and said " 'it's over now, you can go to heaven".

 

but for us to understand the new testement,we haveto knwo about the old testememnt,we are living with new testement covenenant,but if we havwe no understanding of what lead upnto it and what it was liek before then,then we wouoldnt understand why jesus hadto die

 

1. Torturing the innocent
You are only accountable for what you know, i.e. those who have never heard of christianity are only accountable for their actions (they have a sense of right and wrong, they have the right to use it) also, no human is innocent, innocence is the innability to delinieate (sp) between good and evil

2. Salvation to believers
original sin

3. Salvtion to modern humans
those bc were either not jews or preserved in abrahams bosom

4. Knowledge of evil
1. Eve didn't screw us, we weren't out on our asses until adam ate the fruit
2. see my definition of innocence for the other part


5. Whole Bible is God's word
It has been translated and altered by language through time, also the apostles did put their opinions in, but for the most part yes it is gods word (think 98%) consider though that most ministers\priests\pastors haven't even given the bible a once over, this is one of the huge reasons for flexure among christians

6. 75 generations lasted a long time
1. there is some textual evidence that adam and eve may only have been the first in our go round
2. god uses metaphor (parables used by jesus) when asked why he said so that the gentials could understand, would moses an ancient dude with a minor education have understood 65million? maybe god used the 7 days as a metaphor when explaining to moses (the dude who actually wrote down genesis) that the world had been created in a brief time

7. Liars?
There is proof that many of the people existed and that some of this crap happened on the time-frame stated, if they were liars, they'd have to be damn good

I hope I helped, I was asked this sort of question a lot too, I got answers, I love shutting people down

 

great thread, and lots of good, constructive answers! thanks everyone

 

Er, yeah. Thanks everyone!

Seahorse, I like the message in your sig! That never occurred to me before.