Hi everyone,

I have some questions about Christianity and would really appreciate any opinions/answers/views.

1.There are thousands of different religions in the world, and in the vast majority of cases people follow the dominant faith of the culture they were born into.  How can you be so sure that your religion is the 'true' one and all the others are false?

2.What is the point of prayer? Surely your god knows what you are going to pray for beforehand?  Can god change his?

3.Why does god insist that you worship him?

4.Matthew 1:16 'And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.' Luke 3:23 'And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.' The bible is full of contradictions explain how, even with just the small and fairly insignificant contradiction above, the bible can be the infallible word of god.

5.Jesus apparently died for us, facing god's wrath in our place. Why did he have to do this? Why couldn't god forgive us anyway?

6.Someone who has done all manner of terrible things can get to heaven if he "accepts Jesus" in the end, whereas a person who could have dedicated his life to helping others can end up in hell if he doesn’t believe.  Is this fair?

7.Why aren't Christians doing greater works than Jesus did, since he himself said they would (John 14:12)?

8.Where is the justice in punishing us for Adam's sin? The Bible itself says that children will not be punished for the parents' sins (Deuteronomy 24:16).

9. If God exists, is it unreasonable to suppose that there would be at least one irrefutable proof of his existence?

For Fundamentalists

1. 'In the beginning God created the heaven and earth' ... what was god doing before 'the beginning', and where did he reside?

2. Explain how god made light, then separated light from darkness, BEFORE he had created the sun, moon and stars.

3. Explain why 'he made the stars also' - countless billions of them - at the end of the forth day, when it had taken him all of the previous time to work on just one small planet.

4. Why does the Bible teach that goats will have striped offspring if they see stripes when they drink at the watering trough, when this has been discredited by modern genetics?

Thanks,
Alex

(Disclaimer - Questions property of religionis******** and members/chasklu/religion/private/question.  No offence intended)