[wajibu]

You have a college degree, and you have been trained to think logically and rationally about the world we live in. For example, you might be:
- An Engineer or Scientist
- A Doctor, Pharmacist or Nurse
- A Teacher
- A Manager or administrator
- A Government employee
- A Business owner
- An Account rep
- An Executive
- A Lawyer
- An Accountant
- A person working in the Financial sector or Human resources
- An Architect or Designer
- A Software developer
In other words, you are a smart person. You know how the world works, and you know how to think critically.
If you are an educated Christian, I would like to talk with you today about an important and interesting question. Have you ever thought about using your college education to think about your faith? Your life and your career demand that you behave and act rationally. Let's apply your critical thinking skills as we discuss 10 simple questions about your religion.
Here is an example of the kind of thing I am talking about: As a Christian, you believe in the power of prayer. According to a recent poll (WorldNetDaily: Poll: Doctors believe in miracles, 3 out of 4 doctors believe that God is performing medical miracles on earth right now. Most Christians believe that God is curing cancers, healing diseases, reversing the effects of poisons and so on.
So here is question #1: Why won't God heal amputees?
It's a simple question, isn't it? We all know that amputated legs do not spontaneously regenerate in response to prayer. Amputees get no miracles from God.
If you are an intelligent person, you have to admit that it's an interesting question On the one hand, you believe that God answers prayers and performs miracles. On the other hand, you know that God completely ignores amputees when they pray for miracles.
How do you deal with this discrepancy? As an intelligent person, you have to deal with it, because it makes no sense. In order to handle it, notice that you have to create some kind of rationalization. You have to invent an excuse on God's behalf to explain this strange fact of life. You might say, "well, God must have some kind of special plan for amputees." So you invent your excuse, whatever it is, and then you stop thinking about it because it is uncomfortable.
Here is another example. As a Christian, you believe that God cares about you and answers your prayers.
So the second question is: Why are there so many starving people in our world?
Look out at our world and notice that millions of children are dying of starvation. It really is horrific. Why would God be worried about you getting a raise, while at the same time ignoring the prayers of these desperate, innocent little children? It really doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would a loving god do this?
To explain it, you have to come up with some sort of very strange excuse for God. Like, "God wants these children to suffer and die for some divine, mysterious reason." Then you push it out of your mind because it absolutely does not fit with your view of a loving, caring God.
Third question: Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible? Look up these verses:
- Exodus 35:2 – God demands that we kill everyone who works on the Sabbath day.
- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 – God demands that we kill disobedient teenagers.
- Leviticus 20:13 – God demands the death of homosexuals.
- Deuteronomy 22:13-21 – God demands that we kill girls who are not virgins when they marry.
And so on… There are lots of verses like these.
It doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would a loving God want us to murder our fellow human beings over such trivial matters? Just because you work on the wrong day of the week, you must die? That makes no sense, does it? In fact, if you think about it, you realize that it is insane. So you create some kind of rationalization to explain these verses.
Question #4: Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? You have a college degree, so you know what I'm talking about. You know how science works. You happily use the products of science every day: your car, your cell phone, your microwave oven, your TV, your computer. These are all products of the scientific process. You know that science is incredibly important to our economy and to our lives.
But there is a problem. As an educated person you know that the Bible contains all sorts of information that is total nonsense from a scientific perspective.
- God did not create the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago like the Bible says.
- There was never a worldwide flood that covered Mt. Everest like the Bible says.
- Jonah did not live inside a fish's stomach for three days like the Bible says.
- God did not create Adam from a handful of dust like the Bible says.
These stories are all nonsense. Why would an all-knowing God write nonsense? It makes no sense, does it? So you create some type of very strange excuse to try to explain why the Bible contains total nonsense.

[wajibu]

Question #5: Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery in the Bible? Look up these Bible verses:
- Exodus 21:20-21 – God says that it is OK to own slaves, and it is also OK to beat them.
- Colossians 3:22-24 – Slaves need to obey their masters.
- Ephesians 6:5 – Slaves need to obey their masters just as they would obey Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:18 – Slaves need to obey their masters, even if their masters are harsh .
And so on…
And why do all intelligent people abhor slavery and make it completely illegal? You have to come up with some kind of weird rationalization to explain it.
Question #6: Why do bad things happen to good people? That makes no sense. You have created an exotic excuse on God's behalf to rationalize it.
Question #7: Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles in the Bible leave behind any evidence? It's very strange, isn't it? You have created an excuse to rationalize it.
Question #8: How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to you? Jesus is all-powerful and timeless, but if you pray for Jesus to appear, nothing happens. You have to create a weird rationalization to deal with this discrepancy.
Question #9 – Why would Jesus want you to eat his body and drink his blood? It sounds totally grotesque, doesn't it? Why would al all-powerful God want you to do something that, in any other context, sounds like a disgusting, cannibalistic, satanic ritual?
And finally, Question #10 – Why do Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians? Christians get married in front of God and their Christian friends, all of whom are praying to God for the marriage to succeed. And then they say, "What God has put together, let no man put asunder." God is all-powerful, so if God has put two people together that should seal the deal, right? Yet Christians get divorced at the same rate as everyone else. To explain this, you have to create some convoluted rationalization.
So, we have looked at 10 fascinating questions. In order to believe in God, you have had to create all sorts of strange rationalizations and excuses. If you are an intelligent, college-educated person, all of these excuses and rationalizations probably make you uncomfortable. If you think about it honestly, using the critical thinking skills that you learned in college, you have to admit that your answers to these questions make no sense at all.
Now, let me show you something remarkable. What if you instead assume that God is imaginary? A funny thing happens: the answers to every one of these questions make complete sense. Just look at all ten questions as an intelligent person:
1) Why won't God heal amputees? Because God is imaginary, and he doesn't answer any prayers. Every "answered prayer" is actually a coincidence. All scientific evidence supports this conclusion.
2) Why are there so many starving people in our world? Because God is imaginary, and he is therefore unable to answer their prayers.
3) Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible? Because God is imaginary, and the Bible was written by ridiculous, ruthless men rather than any sort of loving being.
4) Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? Ditto. Primitive men wrote the bible, not an all-knowing being.
5) Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery? Ditto.
6) Why do bad things happen to good people? Because God is imaginary and bad things happen at the same statistical rates to everyone.
7) Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles in the Bible leave behind any evidence? Because God is imaginary, and Jesus' miracles are myths.
8) How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to you? Because God is imaginary.
9) Why would Jesus want you to eat his body and drink his blood? Because God is imaginary, and this bizarre ritual came from a pagan religion.
10) Why do Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians? Because God is imaginary.
Do you see what has happened here? When we assume that God exists, the answers to these ten questions make absolutely no sense. But if we assume that God is imaginary, our world makes complete sense.
It's interesting, isn't it? Actually, it's more than interesting – it is incredibly important.
Our world only makes sense when we understand that God is imaginary.
This is how intelligent, rational people know that God is imaginary.
When you use your brain, and when you think logically about your religious faith, you can reach only one possible conclusion: the "god" that you have heard about since you were an infant is completely imaginary. You have to willfully discard rationality, and accept hundreds of bizarre rationalizations to believe in your "god."
Now, let me ask you one last question: why should you care? What difference does it make if people want to believe in a "god", even if he is imaginary?
It matters because people who believe in imaginary beings are delusional.
It matters because people who talk to imaginary beings are delusional.
It matters because people who believe in imaginary superstitions like prayer are delusional.
It's that simple, and that obvious. Your religious beliefs hurt you personally and hurt us as a species because they are delusional. The belief in any "god" is complete nonsense.
You are a smart person. It is time for you to use your intelligence to free yourself from these delusions. It is time for you to begin thinking like a rational human being, rather than clinging to imaginary friends and childhood fantasies.

[Oren]

there's no way to address God's existence rationally.
that's y we have faith

[ndigila]

1) Why won't God heal amputees? Because God is imaginary, and he doesn't answer any prayers. Every "answered prayer" is actually a coincidence. All scientific evidence supports this conclusion.

To ask why God doesn't heal amputees is to say that amputation is a bad thing. However, amputation is done as a last resort to save a human life, which is a good thing.

2) Why are there so many starving people in our world? Because God is imaginary, and he is therefore unable to answer their prayers.

Your answer doesn't make sense. God being imaginary has no bearing whatsoever on the starving people.

IMO these are the 3 main factors why there are starving people:
Unfavorable wealth distribution: clearly a man-made scenario.
Unfavorable climate caused by poor land management by humans; things like deforestation and stuff (I didn't do too well in Geog in high school ).
Wars
I can't think of any other although i'm sure there's more. Anyway, man has exploited the earth's resources over the years and its really unfair to blame God. Its like blaming God for not stopping global warming. Remember God gave man dominion over the earth.

3) Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible? Because God is imaginary, and the Bible was written by ridiculous, ruthless men rather than any sort of loving being.

God dealt harshly with the Israelites in those days because it was through them that the Messiah would come. Besides, its unfair to criticize God based on modern-day classifications. In the past, homosexuals and fornicators were not exactly what you'd call 'innocent.'

4) Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? Ditto. Primitive men wrote the bible, not an all-knowing being.

Maybe its because the Bible is not a scientific book. (That's the best I could come up with).

5) Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery? Ditto.

Will get back to you soon on this one. Although I'd say in those verses you provided, God wasn't a huge proponent, he just permitted it just like the way he allows other things to exist that he doesn't approve of.

6) Why do bad things happen to good people? Because God is imaginary and bad things happen at the same statistical rates to everyone.

The answer is simple, because there's bad people in the world. And God being imaginary has no bearing on the answer to the question.

7) Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles in the Bible leave behind any evidence? Because God is imaginary, and Jesus' miracles are myths.

Depends on what kind of evidence your looking for and the miracle.

8) How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to you? Because God is imaginary.

How do you know he hasn't? And who says he has to?

9) Why would Jesus want you to eat his body and drink his blood? Because God is imaginary, and this bizarre ritual came from a pagan religion.

Which pagan religion? Anyway, I believe its symbolic, otherwise he'd have cut off his flesh and poured his blood into cups during the last supper when saying 'do this in remembrance of me.'

10) Why do Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians? Because God is imaginary.

Jesus allowed for divorce in the case of infidelity, one of the leading causes of divorce. Also because many people claim to be Christian when in reality they're not. I've met dozens of people who claim to be Christian because their parents were or because they went to a Christian school.

Do you see what has happened here? When we assume that God exists, the answers to these ten questions make absolutely no sense. But if we assume that God is imaginary, our world makes complete sense.

The questions were specifically designed to discredit Christianity and not to make more sense of our world. Someone can put up a list of ten questions specifically designed to attack atheism and would not make sense using the "because God is imaginary" approach.

Our world only makes sense when we understand that God is imaginary.
This is how intelligent, rational people know that God is imaginary.

Then how do you explain intelligent rational Christians. Or are all Christians or theists for that matter unintelligent and irrational?

[milanya]

I haven't read all of your questions (the format inauma macho but I will tell you to read Lee Strobel's the Case for Christ. There is a wonderful chapter in there on that topic.

[wam7]

tHE ONLY reason you would ask the questions you asked is because, you have not been educated on God's ways nor do you have any biblical understanding, due to lack of bible studies... definately not born again, therefore "lacking the enabling power of the Holy Spirit who instructs, n teaches us n enables us to have a "spiritual sight" n deep knowledge of our Father.... one thing... about God not healiing amputees.... let me tell you sdomething.... you may not know... God is still in the business of healing everybody... from, aids, cancer, strokes, all manner of diseases.... maybe the amputees you have "seen" may not have prayed for a miracle healing" just cos you see disabled people out there, they may be disabled physically, but who knows.... maybe they have been healed spiritually....
another thing is, GOD IS NOT A GAS STATION, WHERE YOU JUST GO for a refill when u run out..... people treat God, with an attititude .... "SINCE GOD FORGIVES, I CAN SIN ANYWEAY, SINCE GOD IS LOVE, I CAN DO WHAT I WANT N EXPECT ALL I NEED.... People forget that as much as God is love, He is a just God who has ZERO TOLERANCE FOR SIN, N MUST PUNISH SIN....We must have a close n personal relationship with Him... we tend to just go on existing, without recognizing the fact that if it was not for the grace of God, wee would not have the good health, we have, the education we have the jobs we have.. just coz we hold degrees PHD'S we become priddeful n think we are smarter that God.... treating Him like He does not exist... looking down on those who love God "Christians"
God is not the masterplanner of adversity.. sometimes, He allows suffering, so we may become humbled, have TOTAL DEPEDENCY on Him..... Its interesting how much power people think they have when everything in their lives are going well.... its not when they are totally helpless they cry out to God..... its easy to understand why God allows adversity... sometimes we can ignore Him so much, that He will allow adversity..... n get rid of our idols...our Gods... anythingthing that comes between us n God....it couyld be out job that wee idolize, until wee forget God exiasts....people blame God afor the "bad things" we tend to forget that SATAN is the main instigator, the adverserer..... not God.... but if God sees a need to allow whatever satan plans.. He will....for example.... if God knows, that a CERTAIN ADVERSITY will take me to the feet of Jesus, God will allow it no matteer how painful it is.... as long as we get to whwere God created us to end up... a destint in His holy presence...Satan always loses.. AFOOL is one who suffers n suffers, but is TOO PROUD, to surrender to God... He would rather suffer, n try to solve His own problems, within His limited Human capacity, than FACE GOD.....

[Mulosh]

Now that you want to sound very rational and intelligent, probably more than the One who made you, answer these three since you seem to have or believe you can arrive at anwers purely through reason.

Since I am a scientist, who believes in God, my answers will be scientifically skewed, but never mind.

1. Wajibu can you with certainty prove and confirm that the world was NOT created in 6 days as the Bible says? or you just believe because scientists taking a leap of faith say so? You can't prove or even show that the earth is billions of years old can you?

My response:
In the philosophy of Biology, there is something called a paradigm. A paradigm is a widely accepted (most plausible?)theory which all other concepts takes as teh reference point. Simply put, science has developed all the methods they suggest date the earth millions of years on the basis of the paradigm that it is older than 6,000 years. Notice that if science held that the earth is 6,000 years old, all the tools for dating would date within the range of 6000 years. I can assure you with confidence that if someone else many years comes up with a better idea than Darwin's evolution, this paradigm will shift and all biological explanation will be skewed to fit... your response?

2. Why do people die and where do they go after they die? Science will tell you death is the stop of the heartbeat and all physical metabolic processes that maintain life. afterwards? nothing. Can they stop death? of course no. can you give this forum a rational explanation of what death is?

My answer?

Read the Bible.

3. Who and what is responsbile for the order wonderful order of seasons, weather, gravity, temperatures, etc that we enjoy in our world today? Science and rational thought will invaraiably explain that our world is very suitable for inhabitation, but will they tell us just how it is that under the influence of a random process as they call it such order can be derived? Scientists will tell you that the tilting of this earth by just 1 more degree would lead to its destruction, that the distance of our earth from teh sun is just right for our earth, closer would have meant death from heat and further would have meant freezing. I could go on and on...any rational explanation without chance (chance is not rational it is an excuse)...funny how people would rather say chance than God...your answer?

The fact Wajibu is that we think and try we are very smart, that becuse we have gone to school we are sharp and self-sufficient, but truth be told, even those who believe in God feel some need for a higher force in their lives, a famous philosopher (the German Nietzsche, I believe) once said about God, "Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you" isn't this a fact?

[miStar]

So here is question #1: Why won't God heal amputees?
How do you deal with this discrepancy? As an intelligent person, you have to deal with it, because it makes no sense. In order to handle it, notice that you have to create some kind of rationalization. You have to invent an excuse on God's behalf to explain this strange fact of life. You might say, "well, God must have some kind of special plan for amputees." So you invent your excuse, whatever it is, and then you stop thinking about it because it is uncomfortable.

While you keep repeating Gods non-existance over and over, you still have some very strong opinions about what he should be like, or what he should be doing. Do you think your human mind (or science) can fully grasp the concept of God? Do you realise just how big the world is? And this big vast world of ours, is its like a drop of water in the vastness that is the solar system. And by the way, take that drop of water under a microscope and you'll quickly realise that it too is a microuniverse within, with electrons rotating around millions of atoms like planets around the sun, Does science tell us where the universe ends, or what the planets rotating around a distant star are like? If it cant even explain that, how do you expect science to explain to you the inteligent being thats behind the creation of it all? And if we are thinking rationally and logically, since when was it a rule that when we cant understand something, it does not exist? Wheres the logic in that?

Why isn't every strand of grass exactly 3cm tall? Why doesn't the sun go down at exactly 6.30 every day? Why did the lion eat the zebra? Why are some people short and others tall? Why are there amputees? Just because there is a God, that doesn't mean life on earth has to be heaven, the time for that will come, and his main priority is getting you a place there (with your permission, ofcourse). Stop looking at death and suffering through human eyes, imagine if from the begining of time, you saw every living thing born and die, every single day.... would death mean the same to you?

So the second question is: Why are there so many starving people in our world? Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible?

Like i've just pointed out, death is a big deal to you because you are human, and you are only seeing it from one dimension ie physical death. Ever heard of the term spiritual death? If john is a guy and he has a nice, funny personality, then he gets a stroke, goes into a coma, and due to the wonders of science, he is kept alive as a 'vegetable' for years and years, is John dead? All we see is someone lying on a bed day in day out (no more nice, funny personality), so johns body is there, where is the rest? where is john?

THE POINT BEING: There is mind, body and SPIRIT(which is the part in Gods image, science cant explain this, as we've already seen it cant grasp God either.). All three parts can die (the body and mind definately will) and without God (its essence), so will the spirit, and thats his top priority. Not whether someone has two legs or not since the whole body will die in the end anyways.

Question #4: Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? You have a college degree, so you know what I'm talking about. You know how science works. You happily use the products of science every day: your car, your cell phone, your microwave oven, your TV, your computer. These are all products of the scientific process. You know that science is incredibly important to our economy and to our lives.

You speak of science almost as if it were a separate entity with an existance of its own....almost as if science was....God. Get this: science is nothing but a set of laws that govern the behavior of objects in the universe, and the scientific process is nothing but human discovery and application of this laws, all of which (the universe,laws, processes) were created by God. If you create a masterpiece painting, as good as it looks, that painting is not going to wake up one morning and say "i was created by so and so and i know him very well".


- God did not create the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago like the Bible says.

6 days. Whats your definition of a day? 24 hours? One full rotation of the earth along its axis? What about if we lived mars then, which doesn't rotate at the same speed, would a day still be 24 hours? Infact, would 24 hours still be 24 hours? Pause, think about it and hold that thought.... now lets go back 6 billion years (or whatever scientists say is the age of the world) Could we assume that the earth was rotating at the exactly the same speed 6 billion years ago?? Thats a very big assumption, which flies in the face of all the changes that were supposed to have been taking place since then. Infact, can we even assume that it was rotating? How long (using modern time) would a day be, if the earth took 1 billion years to rate once, or never rotated at all? Just how long would six days be like? I am not saying that thats exactly what happened, i'm just trying to open up your mind to the possibilities and stop taking the bible (and science) so literally, like everything is cast in stone and always was and has been. The only thing that always was and has been is... (i'll let you guess that one )

- There was never a worldwide flood that covered Mt. Everest like the Bible says.
Did you know that if you could take all the continents, and pull them together, their shapes would perfectly fit together? The point being, that the world as it is today, is not necessarily the way it always was? That a volcanic eruption today is a mountain tommorow? Your assumption that mt.everest was in existance during Noahs age is just that....an assumption.


- Jonah did not live inside a fish's stomach for three days like the Bible says.

He did not?! Says who? You? Have you talked to Jonah about this then? Were you there? Did a scientist follow Jonah all his life with a video camera, which could prove that it did not happen? Or did scientists analyse the bones of the said whale and come to the conclusion that there is no evidence of human contact? Basically, what it comes down to here, is your word against that of the bible (or the bible's writer, as you put it), and you just know whose side i'll take.

- God did not create Adam from a handful of dust like the Bible says.

He did not?! Says who? You?.....here we go again., and you know the drill...

These stories are all nonsense. Why would an all-knowing God write nonsense? It makes no sense, does it? So you create some type of very strange excuse to try to explain why the Bible contains total nonsense


If you only believe in what you can see, only trust what can be 'proven' through a set of laboratory experiments and approved by the brightest scientists, then i'll have to say yes, its a load of crap. But if like me, you believe that human beings with all their intelligence and inventions are themselves just another invention of a very powerful and intelligent being, whose ways and essence cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind (but can be felt by the human spirit), then you'll have to say no, its not nonsense.

[Songa Songa]

Human beings are said to have 5 senses. Actually this is wrong. There is the sixth sence, and that is faith. Atheist lack faith because it is a gift from God that they have rejected. So all that is left for an atheist is a lot of endless questions without any answers. This is why the bible makes absolutely no sense to them.

[mariana]

Its very interesting how people are working hard at proving God is not there.
If you really believeGod is not there why debate about it. Why are you looking for people to follow your way of thinking?
Why do you have to quote the Bible to nullify the existence of God?
I beleive God is there and He is my Father. Nothing can change that.
God does not need you anyway but you need Him.
Its interesting How evrybody is trying to find fault in Bible and Christianity but no christian is working day and night to prove science, or any other religion as fake...Why? because we have it all.
God created you and he loves. God only Talks of Love I wonder why people he created hates Him so Much. You woke up today because he had mercy on you...He waiting for you to chnage your attitude and turn to Him