Questions I Can't Answer

If I were a believer, I could not answer these questions:

Does God love me?  How would I know?  Doesn’t John 3:16 really say God is willing to kill his son?  If so, what is he willing to let me endure?  Aren’t I a child of God?

If God is so omnipotent why doesn’t he just defeat the devil?  If he allows the devil to exist as a source of temptation to us how does that help us?  If we suffer for succumbing to temptation why did God give us the appetites to be tempted?  How is this not torture?

Does God have a secret plan for everyone?  If so, do we have free will?  Why would he keep the plan a secret?  Why would we use God’s secret plan as an excuse for God not acting when we pray?

Why pray?  If God has a plan and we do not know what it is then isn’t prayer a waste of time?  Is he going to let stuff happen one way or another based on his secret plan?

Does God monitor everything I think, do, or say?  If so, how can I be free?  How can it be that he is benevolent when he is keeping a list of all my sins and acts as the worst kind of thought police?

Where is heaven?  Is it in another dimension?  Is it in another galaxy?  Does heaven have a GPS location?  How about hell?  The same must be true.  If there is a place for eternity how have we not found it yet?  These places would be full of the billions of folks who have died.  If souls or spirits have no shape or form or substance how can they exist? 

Why did God set up the Garden of Eden so that everything was good to do except pursue knowledge?  What is the message?  Are we not to pursue knowledge and apply that knowledge?  How could we have dominion over the life forms on the planet and the natural world if we did not use science?  Why is God still punishing us for decisions made by Adam and Eve?  That is the grudge that will not go away.  How does that exemplify God’s love for us?

Does God intervene to alter the physical laws of the universe?  The Bible says he does.  Bushes burn but not, seas part, water becomes wine, blindness is healed, stars hover over cities, millions of life forms are enclosed in an ark, etc.  So, why doesn’t he intervene when we ask him to?  Can we continue to say that is part of his secret plan for us?  A plan that hurts us or hurts our loved ones?  Why doesn’t God intervene when a plane load of innocent people all pray fervently prior to the crash? Or a boatload before it sinks?  What kind of plan is that?

If God is so smart, why couldn’t he figure out another way to save us from our sins other than kill his own son?  I can think of a few.  Why is our remembrance of this event so ghastly?  A cross?  Might as well be a hangman’s noose, a guillotine, an AK-47, an electric chair.  Why do we symbolize cannibalism when we remember this sacrifice?  This is my body, this is my blood.  Yuck!

Why didn’t Jesus while he was here preaching take the opportunity to make statements about the equality of women and races and sexual preference and abortion and slavery and all the other issues we face.  Did he not know these issues were coming?  In fact, Jesus seems more willing to support the status quo of the day.  How can that be if we are to be changed, love our neighbors as ourselves, be a Good Samaritan, etc.?

If have a soul that is eternal, then why can’t I remember anything prior to my birth, or prior to about age 3?  How can something eternal have a start date?  Why would we expect to continue to have awareness after we die?  Do other living things have such awareness, or is this just our egotistical folly?

If I read the Bible and just discount the passages I know are false, (the earth is not flat, the earth is not the center of our solar system or the universe, the earth is much more than 10,000 years old, we should not stone people to death for adultery or pre-marital sex, etc.) then what is to keep me from simply saying other passages are as discounted as these?  Rising from the dead?  Ascending into heaven?  Water into wine? Etc.  But if we take the entire Bible literally we know it to be false in so many ways. 

How can I be a Christian and support bigotry, fear, discrimination of any sort, promotion of wealth, and fear of other humans?  How can I be a Christian and explain the horrible deeds done to others in the name of the Christian God?  Lynchings, slavery, the Inquisition, the Crusades, ban on Muslim immigration or Mexican immigration?  How is that aligned with the commandments of Jesus?

How can it be that there is no record other than the records of Christians that Jesus actually existed?  How can it be that Herod actually died 6 years before Jesus birth?  How can it be that the Romans did not order a census in the year of Jesus birth?  How can it be that Horus, an Egyptian god, was born of a virgin, performed miracles, died and rose from the dead 3 days later and his followers preceded Jesus?  How can Mary be a virgin and Jesus have an older brother?  How can it be that it took 400 years after Jesus for humans to canonize the Bible?  Did God dictate the Bible to men, or did men write what they wanted?

Did God create us in his image, or did we create God in ours?