Religious folk - What are the most common leading questions you get from non-believers?

Why do you believe in God when you know He’s not real?

If there was a God, why does He allow so many bad thing’s to happen to innocents, like children?

“Why is there suffering?” is such a stupid question, along with “who created God?” and “could God create a stone so heavy that he himself could not lift it?” Please. I’m not a “believer”, but those are not the questions I’d be wasting people’s time with. I am curious how people get around the “incest paradox” that arises with any creation story, though.

@DominicX Incest has always been a taboo subject that everyone knows has happened, is happening and will always happen in closed communities. It’s kind of a big deal in the Amish and many other cultures, keeping pure bloodlines.

My favorite of late is the assumption that I expect God to act like a vending machine. Prayers in wishes out.

@rojo It’s not always just the questions, it’s arguing false points and continual generalizations, to me at least.

All Christians hate gays.
All Christians deny science.
All Christians believe prayer in school is what is needed in all American public schools.

You can only say “not me” so many times before you’re done.

Additionally, I also sometimes feel emotionally manipulated by one person writing a book based on some of our replies.

My religion means a lot to me, and in some Q’s you’ll see the theist’s just give up and allow the non-theists to go on their God-bashing trips unhindered and frankly, it hurts. I will never forget some of the thing’s I’ve read here. I just hope they realize that when I meet another atheist or agnostic, my open-mindedness has turned to wary mistrust at this point.

What’s the meaning of life?... and please don’t tell me it’s 42…

I’ve actually heard the question “Can God create a stone so heavy even He can’t lift it” ?

And it’s such a great question to be asked for a Christian, because you get to point out the fallacy that lies at the root of an unbeliever’s thinking process.

The answer to that question is this: “That question is technically not fitting of the answer, because God doesn’t “lift” stones. He speaks, and they move. ”

This is just a hallmark example because unbelievers think in terms of our tiny, isolated human existence. Things like ‘strength’ and power and gravity and weight are so restrictive and trivial compared to the unfathomable dimension of God’s existence.

As a non-believer I think the questions I ask my religious friends the most is, “Hey! Will you grab me another beer while you’re up?”, and, “Where the fuck did I put the remote?”

The leading questions, straw men, and all of that other bullshit don’t actually take place all that much in real life unless there are cameras present, it’s an Internet forum, or there is a demonstration of some sort happening (with cameras present). I hang out with all kinds of religious folks and we do just that, hang out.

Religion rarely gets brought up and if it does? Usually one of us will pop off with, “Shut the fuck up and deal the cards.”, or, “If you’re gonna pray you better pray for a field goal.”, or, “Does your wife know how drunk you are right now?”.

Now, where are @JLeslie and @janbb at so I can ask them what it feels like to be Jewish?

I also wanted to chime in regarding the details of the question from the OP.

Both of those questions (the ‘why is there suffering’ and the ‘cain’s wife’ problem) are very simply answered by pointing out the nature of one thing – Sin.

Cain married his sister.There was nothing wrong with that before the Fall. Before sin entered the world, everything was perfect and humankind sought only to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. No taboos, no mutations, no consequences of any kind, none of that was present.

Now when you bring sin into the world, there is suffering. Every human bears the burden of sin, and we suffer for it. God allows bad things to happen and it’s much like what happened to Job. This is hard to explain to an atheist of course. This is true also with almost everything because Christianity is based on the Bible and atheists don’t believe in that.

By the way, there is a saying that ‘pain is necessary, suffering is optional’. And it really is true. Just look at the apostle Paul.

[Mod says] This question is posted in the General section. Rseponses must be on-topic and helpful or they will be removed.

I actually get asked numerous questions. They usually are similar to these:

“Why hasn’t God shown himself?”

“Why cant I hear, see or feel, God the way you think you do?”

“You do know there are other religions other than Christianity, so how can you be so sure that your is the right one?”

I am not tired of answering questions. Everything always leads in the end to people wondering if this logical or illogical blah blah blah.

So I was an atheist once and then, I was thinking about being a catholic I also was also into cultish things and also tried Buddhism.

Honestly IMHO to be an atheist is illogical just like to be a Buddhist is illogical or to be a catholic illogical, I can present my arguments, I can also go on and on with why I think Christianity is the most logical and sound idea at this moment but I will just give a few arguments right now and shut up for awhile :P.

Let’s take for instance atheists claim God does not exist, well in order for that to be true theists can present a very simply argument and that argument can and I’ve said this all along that something exists and you do not get something from nothing, I’ve had debates about it out here, and I’ve found this to be true that it is distorted what people believe about something from nothing.

So logically when I was an atheist I just could not deny that something exists because it would be self defeating.

Next is Buddhism. In Buddhism I would first have to of had the desire to rid myself of all desires because that is the end goal of the religion. I found myself thinking that was contradictory and illogical.

I can go on with others but I won’t. I can just say that I found myself where I am today and it makes the most logical sense to me. It does get tiring trying to keep the arguments sane and logical, and to put it simply, everyone wants to go a little crazy sometimes, for me fighting with bipolar maybe it is a little more often..lol, but I also want to treat everyone equally because in the end it is not my decision what life choice anyone makes and if that will impact you or not.

All the questions honestly have great answers in the Christian in the bible. I will be back later. Chow for now. :)

I’m not sure if your query is aimed at real- life questions or Internet ones.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never had a question asked of me in real life that led to any arguments at all and I’m being totally frank about that. Far ranging discussions, Yes. plenty and usually enjoyable for all involved. Arguments, No, never. No simmering resentment, no bitterness, no acrimony, no name calling.

In other words, real life situations being the complete opposite of most of the exchanges here on Fluther. Not all, but definitely most. I still haven’t quite figured out just why this is so, but that has been my personal experience.

In real life I have plenty of atheist/agnostic friends and acquaintances. And as @Blondesjon has pointed out, all the straw men BS just doesn’t come up in real life situations. People have better things to do with their time.

That doesn’t mean that we’ve never had some really good discussions around religion, politics etc. but they haven’t been filled with rancor, mistrust, and hateful negative assumptions. Before assuming another person may or may not have a particular belief or not, we generally ask in order to clarify. We don’t speak in generalities like “well, I know that Christians (or Atheists) believe such and such….therefore….”

But most if the questions that I get personally are not at all like the typical ones you’ve cited.

The whole OT Cain and Abel and their descendants are pretty much a moot point since I’m not a Bible Literalist (or more precisely, a KJV Literalist)

I believe that evolution, by and large, makes the most logical sense and I don’t see any conflict with anything Jesus said and taught. To me it makes sense that God put in place a system like evolution as the natural order of how things develop. I don’t see a big conflict there.

I also don’t believe that a loving God would create something as cruel as an eternal fire of hell. That’s ridiculous and its an egregious mistranslation.

So, most of my Atheist/agnostic friends are aware that I am, to put it mildly, a highly untypical Theist to begin with.

So, the types of Qs I get the most are about which parts of typical dogma I disagree with and why, or what led me to a particular conclusion.

But the one I hear the most is along the lines of why I believe in God at all since I have a more logical and reasonable approach to issues and clearly don’t follow in lock-step with the doctrinal positions of most other Christians.

To them it seems more logical for me to just toss out the whole package, God included. They seem genuinely puzzled by that.

But I don’t think its necessary to throw the baby out with the bath water (to borrow a phrase).

And at the end of the day, ALL of the Atheists/agnostics with whom I’ve ever had a conversation in real life have been intellectually honest enough to admit that they can no more disprove the existence of God than I can prove it. But since I’m not interested in arm-twisting them to believe in something for which I have no concrete proof, we are fine with each other.

They have no urgent (or hostile) need to talk me out of my beliefs. And if they are happy with their conclusion of only believing what is scientifically provable and that works for them, why should I try to persuade them otherwise?

That’s called mutual respect and in real life it works just fine. Why it doesn’t seem to work out that way on Fluther, for the most part, is still something I ponder.

If the hostile non believers of Fluther could follow the example of folks like JLeslie, Rarebear, Dominic and others, then Fluther would more resemble my real life encounters.

I haven’t had any problems with Atheists/agnostics in real life nor they with me and I honestly haven’t encountered the baiting-type questions to which you refer.

I don’t know whether my response is helpful to you or not since the Qs I’ve encountered are far more diverse and (evidently) atypical. But that’s what I’ve encountered in reality.

The types of questions to which you refer, which tend to provoke arguments, I’ve found primarily on the Internet. And it’s also why I seldom participate much in religious Qs on Fluther. Most of them are baiting and its just a waste of time and energy.

I do believe that your Q is sincere and not like that but I chose to only answer the Qs I’ve encountered in real life. The Fluther and other Internet Qs are just a huge waste and accomplish nothing useful.

@Buttonstc to answer your initial question, I was after real life questions but the impetus was a radio show interview with an evangelist preacher who wrote a book about answering the questions of atheists and these were the two question he indicated were number one and two of the questions he asked. Actually, I am interested to see if I can find a copy of the book just to find out what the other questions were. And, I thank you for your input and clarification of discussions in person vs those on the internet. I wonder if face to face discussions lead to a more rational, more accepting encounter because you are dealing with real people and not character generators?

NOTE TO MODS: Thank you for your keeping this on topic.

@rojo

From the few answers of this preacher which you did include, I’m going to take an educated guess and assume that he’s a YEC (a Young Earth Creationist) and therefore pretty much a Bible (and probably KJV Literalist) so that’s the type of believer whom Atheists/agnostics view as the perfect target for baiting questions. A YEC, by definition, is quite firmly against evolutionary theory and also most likely a Fundamentalist. Fertile ground for straw men of all types all the way around.

There may be a few of YECs amongst Fluther Theists but they are clearly in the minority.

But non believers get so enraged by YECs both online and RL and Fluther is one of the few places where they can vent their spleen pretty much with impunity, so that’s what makes it nigh impossible to have a respectful exchange of ideas. It does happen occasionally but damn seldom.

The last one I recall was three years ago. The question was regarding transitional fossils initially asked by JLeslie. That degenerated into a rant against gay people for some reason having nothing to do with JL.

So, Rarebear asked it again and made it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for off topic nonsense and it was a pretty interesting discussion all round.

Even tho he has previously described himself as a “hard Atheist” he managed to be both fair and rigorous in his questioning without having to resort to demeaning ANYBODY.

So, even tho I keep reading all the atheists whining about how Theists always cop out on their questions bla bla bla, somehow the simple fact that it is possible to treat people with respect even tho their beliefs are the polar opposite of yours has somehow eluded them.

They keep insisting that a Theist is being “willfully ignorant” so any attempt at civil discourse is hopeless. After all, how can one reason with those whose beliefs are akin to believing in Leprechauns and the Easter Bunny bla bla bla.

Well, SOME Fluther members have managed to have civil and fruitful exchanges without the acrimony. ANYONE could take a page from their book. It’s not that hard. It’s not something magical. But they choose not to. Therefore most Theists don’t bother dealing with them. The results are so predictable and who needs all that acrimony to ruin their day.

Some find it hurtful. I don’t particularly personalize it that way. But I just find it such a waste of time and energy. So I guess my attitude is pretty lackadaisical as I have no problem skipping them altogether.

I suppose it helps somewhat that I know there is no mythical hell for them to roast in for eternity. Therefore, I have no overwhelming imperative to change their minds. And I certainly don’t feel that an almighty being needs puny little me to defend him. That’s kinda ridiculous.

Therefore, I ignore the baiting Qs and occasionally participate in the thoughtful ones like this if I feel I can contribute anything meaningful.

But, as I’ve previously said on here, I think that its really a shame that all the hostility and spleen venting cuts off most meaningful discourse on spiritual topics. And I purposely said spiritual rather than religious, for I have little use for the vast majority of religion with its obligatory dogma.

But for some strange reason most questions seem to revolve around religion or religionists (whatever the heck a religionist is anyway—never heard that word actually used prior to Fluther.)

But, I most likely don’t need to read the book to which you refer since I left behind that guys viewpoint a LONG LONG time ago when I realized how untenable it was.

But you did ask a very interesting question.

@Buttonstc “The types of questions to which you refer, which tend to provoke arguments, I’ve found primarily on the Internet. And it’s also why I seldom participate much in religious Qs on Fluther.”

That is an excellent point, and one I did not even consider until recently. Also in my RL I don’t even have conversations about religion and/or God with any of my non religious friends. The questions I stated above are actually questions that were asked to me here on fluther by non believers, so my above answer is in reference to that.

This most reasonable question that I as an atheist keep asking without answer is:
What do you do differently because of your religious beliefs?

It seems that the vast majority of Flutherites who are not atheists are secular Christians whose religious beliefs have no major impact on their life, in which case, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to talk about.

@LostInParadise I’m a secular Christian but my beliefs have a pretty major impact on my life, even my daily life. Perhaps I’m a little reluctant to delve too much into some things with some people here because of a lack of kindness and understanding from non-theists when I do open my heart.

I can understand your reluctance. There is a brand of dogmatic atheism, as exemplified by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, which I strongly disapprove of.

I think your question is a really good one and must admit to being a little surprised that no one you’ve met in real life has given you a significant answer. But, to clarify, are you referring to people in RL or on the Internet or both?

When you ask “what do you do differently” could you clarify more precisely? Do you mean different from before you were a believer? Or do you mean different from others who are non- believers or who believe differently (eg: Buddhists, Muslims, etc. etc.).

You also said that:
“It seems that the vast majority of Flutherites who are not atheists are secular Christians whose religious beliefs have no major impact on their life.. ”

Well that’s certainly an interesting statement. But I’m curious about a few things and in order to discuss it sensibly, I think a more precise definition would help to clarify.

Firstly, I’d be interested in your understanding of precisely what the term “secular Christian” means. I have a hunch that we have differing understandings of the implications of that term so its best we try to get on the same page before discussing further.

I wouldn’t define myself as a secular Christian as I see those two words as opposites. So I’m curious how you came to that term and what your understanding is regarding those two words.

Once I have a better understanding of how you define those two words, I’m certainly not adverse to tackling your question as I think its a very thoughtful one and interesting to discuss.

The other thing I’d appreciate clarification on would be how you come to the conclusion that the beliefs of the Flutherites who identify as Christian have no major impact on their lives. Without knowing them in RL, how could you possibly make such a determination? Upon what is that based?

I know we aren’t supposed to be naming other people in threads, so perhaps I should do this part in PMs. But I’ll just state generally that there are several long term members that we both know who have non-obnoxiously stated their spiritual and/or Christian beliefs and I find it difficult to imagine that it has no major impact upon their lives. For me that just doesn’t compute (at least not from how I interpret what they have written).

If someone’s/anyone’s religious beliefs (not just specifically Flutherites) have essentially no major impact upon the rest of their life, doesn’t that indicate hypocrisy?

Perhaps that was not the intent of your statement, but I just find it difficult to read it any other way so hopefully you’ll clarify.

As I said before, I think your Q is a really interesting one and worthy of some discussion. I don’t recall seeing you having asked it on Fluther before (but then I’ve certainly not read EVERY single Q or thread on Fluther) so I could be totally off base there :)

So hopefully you’ll clarify further…

I wouldn’t call myself religious, nor do I identify with any religions that I know of, but I am a theist who believes in a higher purpose, individual free will and an afterlife so I’ll take a stab here. I also get hammered from some religious folks too, but I’ll stick to the question.

My biggest complaints concerning nontheists and sceptics are namely three things. The first one is the strawman god that they claim I likely believe in. My second complaint is that I arrived to my belief in a higher power due to religious influence or wishful thinking.

My third complaint is similar to one that was asked in the OP: Why would a loving god allow bad things to happen to good people, and vice versa. My answer to the latter is that I don’t believe we’re alive on Earth to have a dream run, but that we’re here for spiritual advancement, and a necessary part of this evolution unfortunately requires us to experience negative situations too. I could also answer this by alleging that we’re a part of god itself, experiencing her own fantasies in a virtual reality.

@Buttonstc , By major impact, I mean things that a religious person does or does not do, that are different from what that person would do or not do if the person did not have any religious belief. To be more specific, suppose the person was being studied by an anthropologist. What behavior would that anthropologist observe that would distinguish religious people from non-religious people, outside of talk and ritual?

A fundamentalist may be seen to align his beliefs with biblical text. He might, for example, discriminate against homosexuals strictly because of what is written in the Bible. A devout Jew or Muslim might change eating patterns based on biblical dietary laws. I think that the vast majority of religious people do not do anything outside of talk and ritual that an anthropologist would be able to notice as being different from what non-religious people do.

@LostInParadise “It seems that the vast majority of Flutherites who are not atheists are secular Christians whose religious beliefs have no major impact on their life, in which case, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to talk about”

If that’s what you believe, you haven’t been listening. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true. I am one of the very few long term Christians here. I am not shy about speaking up, but I often don’t post in threads that invite flaming (that gets old super fast) and there are a lot of questions that are little more than an invitation to bash Christians. I have put some of my beliefs here on my profile for anyone to see. My beliefs DO have a major impact in my life. It’s one reason I still hang around here, and I haven’t made THAT a secret either for I have mentioned it on several questions.

@rojo Generally the athiests I know in real life don’t ask me these things (and they are decent enough they NEVER call me names like I get called here) LOL. They know what I’m up to, and occasionally I mention something religious, but it rarely turns into a discussion. The last time I did was with my granddaughter. We were discussing evolution, and she asked no questions. Rather she was telling me what she believed and I told her what I believed.

I stay with my anthropologist test. The person you spoke of demonstrated his belief with his actions. What he said makes no difference. If deep down in his heart he did not believe then he would not go through such contortions to keep the dietary laws.

I agree with you about being spiritual beings, yet I am an atheist. Without love and compassion, nothing makes sense. As the Beatles said, “Love is all there is.”

You know that Santa Claus isn’t real, why should God be real?

How can you support science and also be religious?

Your views sound like those of most atheists, why do you think of yourself as a Christian?

(by the way, Santa Claus was real)

@gambitking the story of Job is one of the most disgusting fables in the bible. The idea that god and the devil would gamble about killing a guy’s family and making the guy suffer simply to win a bet is the problem with the idea of god in the desert religion’s belief system.

I have said this before. If there is a god, the best thing to do is maintain a low profile. Don’t be too bad or too god because if you are good, you’ll be tested, if you’re bad, you’ll be punished. Scoot under god’s radar so that if you name is mentioned at a meeting, god says “who?”

My internet was down for 4 days :(

I had a discussion with someone near and dear to me this weekend that ended in an argument.

First question posed to me, “if this supposed God person actually exists, then what I want to know is how we all these different races came to be, since you can’t make them from two of the same race which is what is basically stated in the bible because Adam and Eve were both white, so I think this whole thing is a hoax!” waa waa waaaaaa. lol.

So the argument starts.

First, I had to stand up for Him when my beloved family member thinks they are the authority on God and the bible and basically they have had like one look at the book. I mean come on, to my knowledge we weren’t there at that time so the book is all we have to go by.
Well that and our faith in Him if we have it and it seems less and less nowadays that we even have that.

Anyway the argument continued for hours and I know I made it more logical sounding to my irrational family member who now believes after I explained that we had to start from “something”, that “God” is an alien. o_O that was the end of the argument I decided I was not going to explain it any further. I will just pray A LOT.

It does IMHO kind of bother me when people ^^ say a book in the bible is a “disgusting fable”. :(

Here are some true facts and fables about the bible that Christian people should inform themselves of if they haven’t already.

I appreciate all those who have given their input so far and would like to thank everyone for not letting denigrate into a pissing match.

I was really interested in what kind of questions were asked.

With that in mind, are there any others that would like to give us your experiences with awkward or leading questions they have fielded in the past?

I guess the most leading question, (and I am answering the OP), that I get, or remember, is “How can God hate gays if He made them gay?” They ask the question but do not want to accept the answer; in fact, they get hopping mad over the answer.