New here: Questions

[Cheli]

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)

[Alnilam]

Hello Cheli,

You ask a lot of questions, perhaps too many to be addressed at one time.  Why not pick 2 or 3 that are most important to you ?

Thanks !

Alnilam

[Shylynne]

Hello Alex

It appears from the inclusion of scriptural references  that you are familiar with the Bible. I could be  wrong but your post appears to more of a disclaimer against christianity rather than a search for answers?  The Word itself holds the answers to all your questions, and hopefully would be the point of reference to any answers given to you, if your unwilling to first believe God IS, sadly, endeavoring to  answer the rest of your questions would be a waste of all our time.


Act 17:22  Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, [Ye] men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
Act 17:23  For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Act 17:24  God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Act 17:25  Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
Act 17:26  And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Act 17:27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Act 17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Act 17:29  Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
Act 17:30  And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
Act 17:31  Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by [that] man whom he hath ordained; [whereof] he hath given assurance unto all [men], in that he hath raised him from the dead.

[Gracey]

I am not going to answer your questions as a theologian would, but simply as a person who believes (becasue a theologian, I am not!)  

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?

Because my redeemer lives! I worship a living God...the risen Lord, not a dead one.

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

The point of prayer is not always to petition for things. Prayer is also for praising Him; for worshiping Him; and for thanksgiving. Yes, He does know in advance for "we pray in Spirit and understanding" - since the spirit comes from Him, yes He knows. The point is: WILL we pray?

3.Why does god insist that you worship him?

God created us for His pleasure; for His purposes and to worship him. What good is a thing if it is not used for the purpose it was created? For me, it is not a matter of God's insistence.....I worship HIM because I LOVE HIM. Because He rescued me; because he freed me.

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

I see that proof every time I look in the mirror. We were created in God's image.... unless of course you would rather believe in the monkey thing?  

The rest I will leave to others. Yes, I believe the bible is the infallible Word of God and I base the way I live day-to-day on the teachings therein. The understanding I gain from that Word is a gift.... the Spirit God has placed within me provides the understanding, the trust, the belief and the faith which as a human, I cannot have on my own. A huge part of my relationship with Christ is based on that faith.

Gracey

[C C]

Hi Alex,

   I'm not the smartest person here but I do have answers to your questions because these were my same questions a long time ago and I've found my answers.  I will share them with you, as long as you remember that no one is perfect and no one is all knowing, then by these truths you can know that there's probably lots more to know than what I say.

1.)  How can you be so sure your religion is true and all the others are false?

I do not follow the dominant faith and culture I was born into.  The god my parents taught me to serve was not the God I serve now.  I don't know if you know how it feels to love and be loved, but the God I know now is all about loving and when I read the Bible I look for the way that God wants us to learn how to love.  Of course, if you read the Bible you will see all sorts of stories of all kinds of treachery and all sorts of bad things happening--but all in all we find out that to my God love is all that matters.  When you open the Bible read it with the intent that you're going to learn how to love someone, and you will find it out.  All the punishment that God gives to other people in the Bible for worshipping other Gods is about people not following Him--or Her--because Our God wants us to love each other.  The ones that weren't treating people with love really had it hard.  But his life is not all there is. Our God wants you to have a relationship with Him so that You can feel complete.  Once You know you are complete and God loves you just the way that You are, this makes you free to not have to need to want all sorts of the things of this world.  Instead, you are free to focus on what's best for those around you.  If you follow the God of the Bible the way that He wants you to, you will find out that it's most important to love your neighbor.  It wont be easy to love your neighbor, because we all know that man for the most part is hard to love.  But if You have a relationship with our  God His peace He gives to You and with that peace, you don't need anything else.  All You have to do is love your neighbor, and God will be happy with you.  But then again, it's not easy to love your neighbor.  You may have figured this out on your own.    Therefore, you can always go back to God and get forgiveness when you fail at it.  And God will always give you the Hope, and the Faith, that creates the love that gives you joy and that joy is your strength to go out there and try again.  You find this out by experience and only then you know it is true.  My parents didn't teach me this and I didn't learn it in church.  I learned it from God teaching me it, so that's how I know that it is true.  God is a person and He will talk to your heart and you know things in your heart.  If you seek Him so you can love then He will teach you how to love.  And I know this by experience.  I know this by my own personal experience.  Nobody taught me this.  This I learned from God.  I still don't know everything, but what I do know is that God will fill you with Hope and Love if you decide to put your faith in Him.

2.)  What is the point of prayer?

The point of prayer that I have now is that when you actually hear your voice asking for things and you actually get them by SOME NOTABLE MIRACLE then you can say, "Thank you Lord!!"  And if it was something that you really wanted and it made you really happy, then The Lord takes great pleasure in making His children happy.  It's like if you had kids and you already know what they want so you provided it before they even ask, what's the joy in that???  There's a whole lot more to prayer than this, but as a new Christian, this is the most notable thing that made me Know Who my Lord is.  I would ask Him for this and that, and I would sometimes even SEE why I did get this or that, and didn't get the other thing that I wanted.  It helps us to know the Character of our God by talking with Him and seeing how He responds to us.  prayer is not about just asking for things either.  Sometimes you have a complicated issue and You just need to talk it out with someone.  Or if you're angry at someone and You can go to our Lord and tell him just how terrible this world is and You will know our Lord by His answers to You.  It is by faith that You speak to Him and by faith that You wait on Him to answer You.  You will find out Our Lord is quite loving, and He has a sense of humor too.  And He cares about people, and He gets angry when we hurt each other.  And most of all, Our Lord knows how tender Your heart is and He knows your every thought and He cares about Your tears and He wants You to learn.  But without faith it is impossible to please God.  In order to please Him you have to believe that He IS, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently pursue Him.  I've noticed one thing--that the folks that want to get away with cheating their neighbor or doing wrong, those folks don't spend a whole bunch of time seeking out God.  But if you are a person that always tries to do right, You will gain a heart that LOVES MORE because God is the giver of all Good things and  He gives us Love.  And this love makes us have joy and this joy is our strength when times get hard.  Times will get hard because on this earth we have choices.  All men have choices and God's lets people choose.  Many people will choose wrong choices and there will be sorrow and trouble in the world.  But with God in Your  heart, You will have the strength to move on.  That's why prayer is important.  When you feel like you don't have stength and you pray for strength and you actually get it, that gives you joy which gives you even more strength.

[C C]

3.)  Why does god insist that you worship him?

Why does God insist we worship Him.  Our true form of worship is shown every day from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep.  The principles that we use to make our decisions by and the rules and laws that we adhear to -- how we treat our neighbor, how we treat our family, how we treat our wife or husband, how we treat our children--every decision we make is our true form of worship.  God gives us rules.  His greatest command is Love Your God, and the second greatest is love your neighbor.  If we don't know how to go about doing this, we can go back to the 10 commandments.  That's a whole nother chapter.  But in following these rules we worship our God.  There is a part of worship that develops the love that we need to develop our relationship with our God.  We can sing songs to our God and these songs have words in them that tell us why we love our God--in case we forget what kind of God we have, we can remember while we sing the songs.  And our prayer.  When we pray we are telling God about the things that we need, and telling God about the things that are bothering us, and thanking God for the things that make us happy, and telling God how terrible our neighbor is--all this develps a relationship with our God.  That relationship is important if you are to love Him.  He wants you to love Him because it is that love that gives you the joy and the peace in your heart that you can feel and touch and when His child is happy, He is happy.  He wants only good things for you.  And this love that You get from Him and this love that You develop for Him in worship is going to make you very happy and give you joy.  And You know how it is when you love someone and that joy that You get in your heart just makes you want to leap up and down and be happy.  God wants you to have that kind of love in your heart for Him.  The reason is that man and woman, HUMANS--humans will fail you.  But God is faithful and if God is carrying your heart, it's harder for this world to break it.

[C C]

 

4.)  Mathew 1:16  

Joseph adopted Jesus.  The point of this is that God adopts us and makes us His sons and daughters.  

5.)  Why couldn't God forgive us without anyway?  

Love is a delicate thing and I'm not sure I know ALLL about it.  But one thing is sure, with love there is a heart that gets hurt.  I'm not sure why God can't just let everyone be evil to each other and then forgive us just like that.  I'm not sure why someone had to take the punishment for the evil that we humans do to each other.  But the point is, we humans do very mean and evil things to each other.  None of us is every without sin.  I can't explain why we can't just go around and be evil and then say everything is okay.  but the point is, we can't.  Not even on a human level.  If someone has done some great harm to you, you can't just ignore it.  There's something inside you that wants things right.  At least some sort of apology or something.  Anyway, that part I cannot explain.  But the point is that we've all done at least one thing wrong, and the person that says he's done nothing wrong is probably the kind of person that doesn't have a heart and can't tell just how wrong he is.  But we've all done something wrong and when we have love in our heart, we wish we didn't do any wrong.  So, Jesus dying for our sins answers for us that wish that we could take away the wrong we've done and He makes us right.  That's the Good News.  The Good News of the Gospel that you hear people talking about, that Good News is only good news to people that feel that they have done something wrong.  It's such good news to folks that know that they did wrong things and it's such good news to people that want to make things right.  But people that feel like they've never done anything wrong, well, to them it's not such good news because they don't feel like they've ever done anything wrong.  maybe each person should ask their mom and dad if they've always been a good kid.  But some folks don't even acknowledge thier mother's childbirth or the Fathers care and concern for their mother.  So, some people you just wont reach them with the Good News because to them it's simply  not such good news.

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

God wants people to LOVE each other.  It is LOVE that makes heaven be so wonderful.  Imagine a perfect place, a perfect home or a perfect job with no love there.  Does that seem like it's so perfect then?  Love is what makes things be so wonderful, and no matter how perfect, without love, it's pretty miserable.  It's the love in a person's heart that makes them pleasing to God, not so much what they do because some people don't know any better.  Some people go around doing all manner of good things because they like to be the hero or they get something out of it.  Who knows why folks do good things, what good does it do for someone to do good things if the reason they are doing them is because of greed, or some other thing besides love.  God wants people whose heart have love in it.  There are some folks who benefit from doing good and so they do good, but if that person had benefited from doing bad, that person would do bad.  What we do on earth doesn't really show what is in our heart.  The Bible tells us that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light, and No One Enters the Father Except by Jesus.  So, when a person is at heaven's door and Jesus is there, Jesus will let him in or not.  Don't let someone ever come to you and tell you that they are Jesus or they are The Way The Truth and The Light, because there's only one Jesus and He is the gate keeper.  Jesus will decide whether or not you come into heaven.  Don't listen to people who tell you they already know what Jesus is going to decide.  They don't know.  Jesus is the judge and He decides.  He is a just judge and when you hear stories about Jesus being an unjust judge, don't believe them.  Jesus is a just judge and Jesus says that those without the law will be judged without the law.  In other words if someone doesn't know better than they'll be judged by what they do know, not by what they don't know.  Following after Jesus will give you the love in your heart that you need in order to know heaven when you see it and give you the strenght to do the things what You need to be good to your neighbor.  Jesus says we have crowns when we are in heaven.  Those crowns are created out of love.  Love is a thing that grows and gets bigger and bigger.  Imagine the kind of love that you can create in your world and in your heart and the love that's created in the hearts of those who know You.  This takes the power of the giver of all good things.  Some people wont be good to their neighbor because of their beliefs.  It's important that a person have their mind clear of ideas that keep people from doing wrong in the name of doing right.  You see people running around bombing things and blowing stuff up and they think it's right.  They think they are doing the right thing--but it doesn't create love, it creates hate.  If all a person knows is rules and hate, how are they to grow a crown that is made up of love.  It's our responsibility to explain to people why some things are wrong and some things are right.  So, if you follow Jesus, you will have an easier time loving your neighbor and knowing how to do right.  Yet, there are folks that come in Jesus name and do wrong things.  That's like if someone uses your credit card without permission.  It's wrong.

7.)  Greater works are creating greater love than Jesus created.  You can't see love, that's why this question is hard.  But don't worry, you will feel love.  You don't have to believe a religion just because someone says it's right.  You will seek God out of faith and He will be faithful to answer you and you will know it is God because you will have a relationship with Him and ultimately You will love Him if you cultivate that relationship.

there's more but I have to get to work!!