Stump the Pastor

Topic Notes

• “Stump The Pastor!” 40 Maddening Questions on God

Regarding World Religion:
• If a hundred different religions have to be wrong for yours to be right, does this show that people from all over the world like to invent gods that don’t exist?
• If your parents had belonged to a different religion, do you think you would belong to that religion too?
• If people from the five major religions are told conflicting information by their respective gods, should any of them be believed?

Regarding Communication with God:
• How can you tell the voice of God from a voice in your head?
• How can you tell the voice of God from the voice of the Devil?
• Would you find it easier to kill someone if you believed God supported you in the act?
• If God told you to kill an atheist, would you?

Regarding Morality:
• When an atheist is kind and charitable out of the kindness of his heart, is his behavior more or less commendable than a religious man who does it because God instructed him to?
• If you are against the Crusades and the Inquisition, would you have been burned alive as a heretic during those events?
• If your interpretation of a holy book causes you to condemn your ancestors for having a different interpretation, will your descendants condemn you in the same way?
• Rape wasn’t always a crime in the Middle East two thousand years ago. Is that why `do not rape’ is not part of the Ten Commandments?
• Do animals need `god-given’ morality to understand how to care for their young, co-operate within a pack, or feel anguish at the loss of a companion? Why do we?
• If an organized religion requires a civilization in which to spread, how could this civilization exist without first having a moral code to make it civil?

Regarding the Characteristics of God:
• An all-knowing God can read your mind, so why does he require you to demonstrate your faith by worshiping him?
• If God is all-knowing, why do holy books describe him as surprised or angered by the actions of humans? He should have known what was going to happen, right?
• An all-knowing God knows who will ultimately reject him. Why does God create people who he knows will end up in hell?
• If God is all-knowing, then why did he make humans, knowing that he’d eventually have to send Jesus to his death?
• Why did a supposedly omnipotent God take six days to create the universe, and why did he require rest on the seventh day?
• Is omnipotence necessary to create our universe when a larger, denser universe would have required more power?

Regarding the Bible:
• Why are Churches filled with riches when Jesus asked his followers to give their wealth away?
• While in the desert, Jesus rejected the temptations of the Devil. He didn’t censor or kill the Devil, so why are Christians so in favor of censoring or condemning many eaerthy temptations?

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