Most people who consider themselves faithful have questions that will forever remain unanswered. Some of these are questions our very membership in a faith community make unaskable, like "Does God REALLY exist?" Many of them, though, are questions that test the very premises of a religion, and these questions OUGHT to be asked.
I am the product of a Christian upbringing, so most of my questions revolve around the Judeo-Christian faith tradition. Here they are, in no particular order:
If God is everywhere, doesn't that mean that God is EVERYWHERE? Listening to your every thought? Knowing your every secret ("from You no secrets are hid")?
If God is EVERYWHERE, why did God need to become incarnate? God is inside every atom of your body. Couldn't God experience what it's like to be human by looking out your eyes, listening to your thoughts, and feeling you smile and hiccup and sneeze and grieve? If God can do it today, doesn't that mean God could have done it 2,000 years ago?
If "God is love" (1 John 4:8), how could Hell possibly exist? What does Love have to do with eternal torment? If God is EVERYWHERE, wouldn't that include Hell too? If anyone is suffering in Hell, wouldn't God suffer just as much, being inside the sufferer? How could ANYONE be happy in Heaven, knowing that someone they loved was suffering in agony for all eternity? Especially for "crimes" like eating a beef jerky on Friday, October 12, 1962 (the day before Vatican II started)?
If Islam is a religion of peace, why are there no Amish terrorists, or Buddhist terrorists, or Confucian terrorists, or Quaker terrorists? If Christians worship the "Prince of Peace," who went to his death rather than cause suffering to any of his enemies (the ultimate "turn the other cheek"!), why are there so many Christians who believe in war, killing, and vengeance in the name of the Prince of Peace?
If Roman Catholic priests are meant to be vicarious images of Christ, why are so many of them pedophiles or rapists? Why are ANY of them pedophiles or rapists? Why does the Magisterium protect criminal priests? Why doesn't it address and fix the root cause(s) of the problem?
Pope Benedict XVI recently dis-excommunicated a priest who denies the Holocaust ever happened and who says 9/11 was a plot of the Bush administration so the U.S. would go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is Pope Benedict XVI really "the Stand-In (Vicar) of Christ"? (Does anyone REALLY think George W. Bush was smart enough to be the mastermind behind 9/11 and not even be suspected?)
If Jesus told his followers to love God, love God's creation, and give away all their wealth, why does anyone believe in the preposterous "prosperity gospel," which teaches that God wants you to ignore suffering and injustice and amass wealth?
Unlike Judaism, Christianity interprets Genesis 2:1-3:24 to mean that all sin, evil, and death are exclusively the fault of humanity. Christianity teaches that the disobedience of the first man and the first woman in eating the forbidden fruit so enraged God that God condemned the ENTIRE UNIVERSE to sin, evil, and death. Is God so stupid that God didn't understand the meaning of the legal term "attractive nuisance"? What law said that God HAD to put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place? What laws does God HAVE to obey, if any? How do you know?
There is an old folk tale about a mother who had to go to work and leave her children alone at home. Right before she left the house, she told her children, "Be careful, and above all, don't put any beans up your noses." The children would never have thought of putting beans up their noses, but naturally they had to try it out. The mother came home to a houseful of crying children who had NOT run with scissors, played in the street, or trusted strangers with candy. Without suffering permanent harm, the children learned that you should trust and obey the adults who love you even if you don't understand why. Doesn't this strike you as a much better reason for God to have forbidden the two infants God had just created to eat from the TKGE?
According to Genesis, the first woman was also the first theologian. The first man was standing RIGHT NEXT TO HER while she and an ancient symbol of wisdom talked about God, nourishment, beauty, and wisdom . . . and he said nothing, not even, "Hey, God said not to!" So why did God punish the woman with labor pains, and reward the man with getting to lie on top in the missionary position? ("He shall be eager above you," Gen. 3:17, Rosenberg translation.) Why do so many people interpret this story to mean that God gave Man dominion over Woman? Doesn't the standard Christian interpretation of this story mean that Woman must always be punished for USING the brain and imagination that God gave her?
Christianity teaches that the only way for God's righteous anger with humanity to be appeased was for God to take human form, so that God could be killed horribly in literally excruciating agony. Doesn't this strike anyone as more than a little masochistic, not to mention far-fetched?
Jesus of Nazareth strictly forbade his followers to treat him as anybody special. "Why do you call me 'good'?" he asked. "No one is good but God alone." (Mark 10:18) Why should anyone burn in Hell for all eternity for doing as Jesus commanded and NOT thinking of him as "God in a man-suit"? Why should a five-year-old Afghani child who lived her entire life without ever once hearing the word "Jesus" burn in Hell for all eternity? Because "God is love"?
God has no physical body, being everywhere. The Bible says very clearly, in at least two different places, that God created women in God's image. (Genesis 1:27, 5:1-2) And yet virtually all religions refer to God as exclusively male, and conservative religions see nothing wrong in treating women as less than fully human, since women are not physically equipped to be fathers, sons, lords, kings, or princes. Where exactly are God's organs of sexual reproduction? Can anyone show them to me? Whom could God have sex with, that God would NEED to be exclusively male? If God is NOT exclusively male, why is it so wrong to address prayers to the Mother, the Daughter, and the Lady, the giver of life?
If God created women in God's image, why will there never be a female Pope? If Allah created women in Allah's image, why does the Qur'an refer to males as "you" and females as "them"? If Islam is a religion of peace, why does Sura 4:34 say that it's perfectly all right for a husband to berate, imprison, and "scourge" his wife (darraba, to strike repeatedly and violently) if the husband thinks his wife MIGHT be disobedient? If God created women in God's image, doesn't this mean that the husband is berating, imprisoning, and scourging an image of God? If God created women in God's image, why isn't it all right for women to berate, imprison, and scourge men?
If Islam is a religion of peace and justice, why are so many women and girls executed for the "crime" of being victims of rape? Why do Muslims NOT object in horror when Muslim men throw acid in the faces of Muslim women for the "crimes" of wanting to go to school or make their own life decisions? Why do Muslims practice female genital mutilation but not male genital mutilation?
When Islamist terrorists hide their arsenals in places like elementary schools and hospitals, why do ordinary Muslims blame Israel for the consequences?
If every Islamist in the world laid down his weapons, tomorrow there would be peace throughout the world. If every Israeli in the world laid down his weapons, tomorrow there would be no Israel. They'd all be dead. Where are the presumed moderate Muslims who object to Islamist extremism?
If God predestined certain things to happen, wouldn't that mean that EVERYTHING is predestined? Why should humanity be punished for doing what God predestined?
Why are guilt and repentance the primary approach to religion in Judaism and Christianity? If you're supposed to feel guilty and suffer to get right with God, why do most branches of Christianity preach God's love and forgiveness? If a child stole a cookie and Mom forgave him, should the child continue to feel guilty and repent? If you try the best you can to be a good person, why should you be told to feel guilty and repent every time you go to a worship service? If you've been forgiven, why should you continue to feel guilty and repent?
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