I’m an anonymous 40+ year old homosapien residing in Northern California. I have a Christian wife, two wonderful children, and a dog.
By day, I’m a mild mannered former Christian (I was Pentecostal for roughly 30 years), and by night I’m a veracious skeptic looking down every corner and back alley for solid evidence to support my failing faith in God and Christianity.
My Blog
Admittedly, I’m playing devil’s advocate with these questions; my objective is to challenge the God hypothesis with a multitude of random skeptical questions to see if it holds up in comparison to natural explanations.
In most cases, I try to answer the same question using both Christian and natural explanations. There are often wide chasms between these two world views, but I believe the bulk of the evidence must ultimately point more in one direction than the other.
Why You Should Listen to Me
You shouldn’t! Hell, I’m just some random bloke on the internet, and I might be totally wrong! You should think for yourself, try to understand both sides of the debate, and be wary of anyone who tells you how you should think.
Also, I’ll admit I’m not an expert in many of the areas I discuss, but if one must be an expert in everything before they can find God, then we’re all in trouble. Hopefully, an honest assessment of the evidence (offered by each side) will lead us to the truth. If it doesn’t, then God has designed a very misleading universe.
Personally, I find these questions fascinating, which is why I spend a fair amount of time carefully researching and pondering each one. I try to make each answer honest, sincere, concise, factual, entertaining, and educational. However, if you can’t handle religion being discussed with some occasional humor and irreverence, you’re going to have a bad time.
My Philosophy
If I only have one life to live, I want to spend it laughing and enjoying it as much as possible, but I also want to try and gain an accurate understanding of reality… whenever I’m not too busy.
Enjoy!
500 Questions about God & Christianity 
Hi, I found your interesting blog today searching online for things. This is my answer to why the Bible is imperfect: God wants it to be imperfect. Why? One, so believers in the Bible will not be tempted to worship the Bible. And two, so when a person rejects the Bible they can more easily be forgiven by God. When God gives a revelation to a prophet, that revelation is infallible and inerrant. But when the prophet, a man in the flesh with blood in his veins like the rest of us, is inspired by the Holy Ghost to make a record of the revelation he received– then what he writes is NOT infallible and inerrant, because humans, even inspired humans, simply never do anything in a perfect way. The Bible is a record of revelations not the revelations themselves, and also obviously a record of history and other things prophets were inspired to write. Written by inspired men in the flesh, one can still, easily find many problems in it. So do not worship the Bible. Number three is this: God has many more things to say unto us. An imperfect Bible will lead a sincere person to come to God and ask for more of His word. Rev 22:18-19 forbids MEN (or women of course) from adding or taking from the Bible, but it sets no conditions on God at all. It simply repeats what Deut 4:2 says: a copyright notice by God. John 16:12-13 promises more will will be taught to us when we are ready. I have faith that the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price (the further Mormon scriptures) did indeed come in fulfillment of the promise in John 16:12-13. And much more is still to come when we are ready. God will eventually resolve all the confusion found in the Bible and answer every question about it perfectly.
LOL
Yes I’m laughing at that statement.
Well off to church cuz my wife thinks like you do and she’ll leave me and take the kids if i voice my opinion..kinda like all religious leaders taking their influence, political power and money away…sigh..
Oh I sure understand what you be saying….I got one like that too….but
we don’t go anymore (Thank me)
You Heber, like everyone else,are entitled to your opinion and like everyone else, it is only YOUR opinion.
Opinions can be right or wrong.
Your is wrong.
It is obvious that you are a member of LDS’s church. That in itself will put you offside to most, if not all of the other Christian faiths.
If the LDSs say that the bible is imperfect, then as a Christian faith they are the only ones that do.
In my research, every other faith believes that the bible is the inerrant, infallible word of god and it was god alone that inspired all those different authors to write the books of the bible, inerrant and infallibly.
I feel quite sure that if there was indeed a god who gave instructions to Moses to do a certain thing, Moses did indeed do what god told him to do AND write.
The reason for you to say that the bible is imperfect because it was written by men, is because you know that it is full of obvious (to us) mistakes and if god were real, (as you believe) then a god would not make mistakes.
Unfortunately for you and every other believer, god DOES and did make many mistakes and that alone proves there is no god.
In the bible it says how god made mistakes.
In the creation story it states clearly that god was pleased with what he created and that it was perfect, even man. So, everything god did and made was perfect.
Unfortunately his ‘man’ creation was only like an afterthought. What he made was only to be a gardener, someone to look after the garden of Eden he had created.
God even created man differently the two times he created him. Genesis 1: 26 to 27, (man & woman created after the animals). AND Genesis 2: 7, where god created man alone , THEN the garden, THEN all the plants and animals males and females BUT, when he brought all the animals before his man, god found that none suited man as an ‘help meet”?? Of course THAT means that man didn’t like the sex he had with all the animals so THEN god made a woman for him!!!
So in the creation of man, there were already more than two mistakes.
Then we get to Noah and apart from him, god regrets everything else he created,(6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.) deciding to kill everything EXCEPT Noah, his family and all the animals taken on board.
ANOTHER mistake.
But it was BIG mistake because god was SO pissed off that he decided to kill every little baby and unborn babies along with all the animals that had absolutely NOTHING to do with god’s regrets.
So god not only makes mistakes, he is also a very vicious angry god who likes to take his anger out on anything that can’t speak for or defend themselves.
Sounds more like men to me.
“You Heber, like everyone else, are entitled to your opinion and like everyone else, it is only YOUR opinion.
Opinions can be right or wrong.
Your is wrong.”
You Kenneth Lyneham, like everyone else, are entitled to your opinion and like everyone else, it is only YOUR opinion. Who are you to say Heber is right or wrong? That’s only YOUR opinion, by golly.
LOL. Opinons can’t be right or wrong. They are opinions. Definition: a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. Or. a statement of advice by an expert on a professional matter. Anyone is allowed to have an opinion, others can either accept it or not.
Oh, one more thing…. 🙂
Do you have LITERALLY 500 questions RIGHT NOW?
And, would you rename the blog’s main title if, one day, suddenly you get a question inspired after you post the 500th question?
(Sorry for my grammar/diction error, if any….)
Yes. Actually, I have well in excess of 500 (that’s how I came up with the name), and I’m continually adding more. I will probably cut those that I’ve addressed elsewhere. I’ll worry about what to do with the 501st question when I cross that bridge (if it ever comes).
Ironically, a TV Show called “500 Questions” arose a few years after I created the site. Maybe I’ll change the name to “666 Questions” to avoid any confusion, lol.
500Q
It is obvious that you are a member of LDS’s church. That in itself will put you offside to most, if not all of the other Christian faiths.
Me? No. Or were you referring to someone else?
Yes you,
As I stated above, I was Pentecostal for roughly 30 years. Most of us viewed the LDS church as a cult.
This is how I look at things. KJV Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Question 67?
“67. Why doesn’t the Bible acknowledge microorganisms?” Should be out soon. 🙂
Your blog poses many interesting questions. Personally I don’t label myself….merely one who believes in, trusts in and loves Christ Jesus. I also believe that heaven exists and hell too. I’m not a ‘bible thumper’, just a simple homosapiens. God will always have the LAST WORD.
Blessings to you & yours.
You are me in ways you can’t even imagine! Thank you for this!
Welcome. 🙂
A great place to search is where other skeptics have trod. The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell is a fabulous resource. A non-skeptic source that also gives pause for indepth thought is Lee Stroebel’s “Case for Christ,” and Case for a Creator,” or Ravi Zacharias’ “Jesus Among Other Gods.” I think you would enjoy these.
I haven’t read the last two books you mentioned, but I have managed to gag through the first four chapter of “The Case for Christ.” All I can say is that Stroebel has never met a logical fallacy he didn’t like.
Hi 500, I found your blog while reading about yolk pseudogenes in human genome, which took me to Q.55. I am a scientist, a biologist, I enjoyed reading Q.55 very much. Just wanted to say, I grew up believing in God, as everyone else in my home country (Italy), then let go of God when I reached the age of reason. I have led a much happier life ever since and I’ve never looked back. If I had the time, and the skills, I’d be writing a pretty similar blog. Keep up the good work, it’s much needed.
Glad to here you enjoyed it. Thanks for letting me know!
500Q
Hi mr. anonymous, I am intrigued by your introduction that states :
By day, I’m a mild mannered former Christian (I was Pentecostal for roughly 30 years), and by night I’m a veracious skeptic looking down every corner and back alley for solid evidence to support my failing faith in God and Christianity.
sorry but seeking your kind friendship, I want to put these questions to you:
1.were you a christian earlier and left Christianity for some reason?
2. did your child died that you are trying to find reason?
3. Are you experiencing faithlessness due to some problem or?
Am a christian and have lost my first boy child who survived only 30 minutes after c section and is leaving me empty and faithless and i kind find reason on God for all these happening in my life. Am I in a similar situation with you? can you offer more help.thank you.
Hello,
1) Yes.
2) No.
3) No problem, really. I enjoyed Christians and Christianity, but finding truth was always more important.
That said, I’m sorry for your loss. In this life, there is not much worse than losing a child.
But honestly, evaluating ones faith is probably something that’s best done objectively and free from emotion. The truth isn’t always comforting (which is probably why we have religion). Still, these are the kind of events that can trigger a cognitive dissonance in people’s thinking, and you will find many comments from people in your situation under question 17. You’re certainlty not alone.
My new worldview, if it helps you to make sense of things, is that your child did not die as part of some convoluted cosmic plan invented by a loving Creator, nor because of some curse from a nafarious demon. Rather, it’s because nature makes mistakes, pure and simple.
Trial and error is actually what helped to build all the life around us, and trial and error can build great things, but it is not without a tremendous amount of failings. I don’t know if that’s of any consolation, I imagine not, but perhaps there is some comfort in understanding what is really going on. Nature made a mistake somewhere along the line (assuming it wasn’t human error) and you and your son must suffer the consequences.
Our cells and genes are not very intelligent. They know how to do one thing very well, and often do not respond well to challenges. Sometimes they make mistakes that lead to death very early on (as was our case when we lost a child after just a few weeks), sometimes these mistakes result in grotesque malformations, or permanent damage, and sometimes they result in death during or soon after birth. It is not a perfect system. But if we desire to have children, these are the risks we must accept, though no one adequately warns you about them. If pregnancy where a drug, it would come with a long list of side effects and warnings. Life is never without risk.
What has happened is very unfortunate. The same thing happened to our close friends, but they did go on to have a happy life with two other children that came soon after. But you always miss the ones you lost, natually.
Here for you if you have any questions,
500Q
…….evolution is the big lie , look up the statistical chances , Gen. 1;1 is really what happened…..
And what are the statistical chances of creating a god?
We might say, “God just always existed,” but this isn’t really an answer or explanation, it’s just an excuse that gets us out of ever having to explain.
Evolution actually explains a lot. Like why all living things share DNA, and why we don’t find reptiles or mammals anywhere in Cambrian deposits (they didn’t exist yet). It also explains how trial and error can shape more and more complex living things.
What Genesis gives us is mythological-sounding explanations involving things like talking snakes, or arks filled with animals. It’s difficult to take seriously. You won’t find a scientist outside of Christianity who believes the entire earth was once covered by flood waters.
500Q
Hi,
Does the lovely picture of Tyre on
belong to anyone? Is it owned and copyrighted?
Because I’d really like to use it as an illustration in a book I’m writing.
Thanks,
John
Hi John,
Not entirely sure about that particular image, but it wasn’t one of my own.
500Q
Hello,
Just a few topic ideas, (im sure you have loads!)
Nephilm…i mean whats up with giants, how could they possibly procreat with human wonen, what “heroes of old” were their offspring?
And elisha and the bears…a prophet of the lord summoned 2 bears that mauled, and presumably killed, 42 children for calling him “bald”
Thanks,
If I could get bears to maul people who insulted me, thousands would already be dead, lol.
500Q
I will pray for you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Hey, hello ive been following your blog for several years but recently uve stop posting for about 8 months. Just wanna know if your still in motivation of posting all those 500 questions.. Thanks.. ^^
Hi Schwaltreignheim,
Thanks for reading and letting me know, I appreciate it.
I have indeed been working on another post (and responding to comments), I’ve just been busy with other projects lately.
And to be honest, I’ve also found that debating Christianity is often a thankless and tiring job, so I’ve tried to strike a little balance in my life with other, more life-affirming activities. But the subject still interests me and I don’t plan on quitting any time soon. :0)
500Q
Well that’s a relief. I’m sure I can speak on behalf of many readers when I express a desire to read more of your work but a fear of pressuring you into having to produce posts out of a sense of duty. It’s a bit like waiting for George RR Martin to write another book – you don’t want to apply pressure, lest his works suffers as a result, but you can’t wait for the next instalment.
Be encouraged 500.
Well, thank you for your flattering and encouraging remarks, I hope I don’t disappoint you. 😉
500Q
Do you have a Facebook page?
Hi Fredrick,
No, I do not.
500Q
why dont’ you try the church of jesus christ of later day saints?
Hey 500. Ive been reading your blog since you first question. Im just wondering why you stop
Its almost a year now. Or did you move your blog somewhere else. Facebook? Pls lemme know.
Hi Schwaltreignheim,
Still around. 🙂
I am working on the next question, just haven’t had as much free time. Also working on lots of other projects. But I do enjoy it, and will return to it.
Thanks for noticing! 🙂
500Q
Hey 500q,
Thank you for continuing with this project of yours! There is so much out there in Christian apologetics and the like, it’s a rarity to see the reverse, done with an equal amount of thought, research and eloquence. I think it’s fair to say that you’ve helped many people put voice to their own questions and thoughts. Please know you are very much appreciated!
Hi Alpha! Thanks, it’s been a while, but I’m still around and working on the next post. 🙂
I am a skeptic as well, but I do a lot of study and discovered that the Bible is not written in English. It’s amazing what this book says in its original form. I am very sympathetic to your confusion, but I have been able to navigate past the general consensus theology and make sense of the contradictions. This is how I understand the contradictions you have listed. God has established authority for the world to operate government from “power over” or via the sword. These authorities are not hand-picked by God therefore they can be good rulers or evil rulers. God is only providing general authority to maintain peace so far as it depends upon men. Romans 12 and 13 (excerpts below) support this view. I know there is theology out there that claims that God placed Hitler, Stalin and the like in their positions of authority, but I don’t believe that to be true. There are tons of verses that seem to indicate that God actually hand picks rulers both good and evil and I would like to address the verses you listed with my own I commentary in blue (if the blue appears after I send the document.
Jesus answered [speaking to Pilate], “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” General authority—God has established the means by which authority exists
— John 19:11
By me kings reign… General authority–
— Proverbs 8:15
…he removes kings, and sets up kings… This only occurs within Israel His covenant nation.
— Daniel 2:21
Then God removed Saul and made David their king… This only occurs within Israel His covenant nation.
— Acts 13:22
No one … can exalt themselves. It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another. Consequential—Men do all kinds of things which contradict good judgment and yield consequences
— Psalms 75:6-7
…the Most High has power over human kingdoms. He gives them to whomever he wishes. Again this is only referring to general authority
— Daniel 4:17
The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the LORD; he guides it wherever he please. — Proverbs 21:1 This is one of the earlier proverbs when Solomon was obedient to God. This could simply be a reference to the ease with which God can communicate with a king whose heart is devoted. The only way this verse, in and of itself, becomes dogma about God appointing good and evil rulers is if we have a predisposition that God is in total control. I reject the concept that God is in total control because that would obfuscate the whole of free will. Man has free will as a result of being made in the image and likeness of God with the capacity to love. Love requires choice and that means man has free will. That also means that God cannot force, coerce or manipulate (via Pavlov’s dog) man. Man can choose against God’s will. The garden makes this obvious and why would Jesus say, pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven if He is in total control.
But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron… God in His mercy gave Pharaoh a command to which He knew Pharaoh would never submit so that He could demonstrate His might, the only thing to which an Egyptian Pharaoh (god) would respond. By His mercy, I believe that Egypt as spared greater natural consequences than what befell them and I believe Pharaoh came to know that God is God. Total speculation on my part, but it fits with my understanding of the character of God. Jesus is the full embodiment of the Father. When I read scripture passages that do not reflect Jesus character, then I search the original text to find that the English versions do not capture the actual context.
— Exodus 9:12
Romans 13:1-5 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
Romans 12:17-18 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 1 “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
How is it possible that God gives us commands about the manner in which we should live only to totally contradict Himself by doing the opposite Himself? It makes no sense and renders God schizophrenic. I do not believe that God is schizophrenic. I believe English translators, who are not inspired, but try their best, allow their bias to influence their translations. If a translator believes that God is in total control (most do) then it will affect the nature of the translation.
Hope this helps. I can recommend three great books to read on this subject. Cross Vision, Myth of a Christian Nation, and Repenting of Religion, all by Greg Boyd. Disclaimer: I am not an open theologian. I have my own view, but I still like Greg Boyd’s scholarship regarding these three books.
Hi there! Really enjoying your blog, and anxiously awaiting the next question. One I would love to see you cover is – how could Adam and Eve know it was wrong to disobey God and eat from the forbidden tree if they didn’t yet have knowledge of good and evil?
Thanks. Great question.