Questions for Christians

I confirm the terms my opponent has laid out for me. Now, on to the questions. 1) Is Anne Frank in hell? It is not the place or job of Christians (or anybody for that matter) to judge if a person deserves to go to Heaven or Hell. I am not Anne Frank, I do not know where her heart was or what the Lord had in store for her life. I will say, though, that in the Bible it says "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23) John 14 verse 6 also says "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 2) How about other kids? If a Muslim boy dies at age 3, does he go to hell? Does the Bible teach that babies go to hell when they die? In order to answer this question, we must find a biblical example in which an infant died, and in which his or her eternal destination is recorded. To do such is not difficult. In 2 Samuel 12, King David"s newborn son fell terminally ill. After seven days, the child died. In verses 22 and 23, the Bible records that David said: "While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, "Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." It is clear that David"s dead infant son would never return to this Earth, but David also said that one day, he would go to be with his son. Through inspiration, David documented that his own eternal destination was going to be "in the house of the Lord" (Psalm 23:6). Therefore, we can conclude that "the house of the Lord" would be the eternal destination of his infant son to whom David would one day go. King David was looking forward to the day when he would be able to meet his son in heaven. Absolutely nothing in this context gives any hint that the dead infant son"s soul would go to hell. Furthermore, Jesus said in Matthew 18:3-5: "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me." And in Luke 18:16-17, Jesus remarked: "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." Based on this biblical evidence, we can conclude that infants and small children that die are in a safe state, and will live eternally in heaven. 3) According to Christianity, hell is for non-Christians, and is supposed to be a very evil place, to make people suffer. It doesn't matter what they did. It doesn't matter what they believed, it doesn't matter who they really were. It's just like Hitler's death and concentration camps. Do you think it's moral to believe in a Nazi God ? First off, the analogy in this question equating hell to Nazi death camps is ridiculous, and then asking if it is moral to believe in a Nazi God is equating him to Adolf Hitler. There are many verses in the bible that discuss Hell, and they all show that it DOES matter what they did, it DOES matter what they believed, and it DOES matter who they really were. Hitler forced the Jews into death camps without consideration of these questions, it really did not matter to him. Hitler did not love the Jews, in fact, he hated them. This is where you find a difference. If you accept and realize the Christ died for YOU on the cross and loves you more than the human mind can possibly fathom, then you will receive his gift of eternal salvation. But you can not force a gift upon someone. God gave humans free will to choose, so those who hear the gospel and reject it, made the choice to reject that gift. It is their own individual choices that made them deserving of separation from God, nothing like the Nazis who forced innocent people into torture. 4) Do you have non-Christian friends or loved ones? If no, why? If yes, how can you believe in a religion that tells you these are evil people who will be going to hell? Yes, I do have non-Christian friends and loved ones. And I can believe in a religion that tells me those who do not accept Christ are going to hell because it is MY job as an evangelist for Christ to speak into the lives of those friends and loved ones. It becomes my responsibility to minister into their lives with love. And, as said in the above question, if they hear this gospel and still do not accept Christ, then they made the decision to disown him, and he will therefore disown them. 5) Are earthquakes, tornadoes, accidents etc. are caused by God? And if yes, why are there earthquakes, tornadoes and accidents? Yes, God does cause these natural disasters. And I am going to assume that by the question of why he allows them, you mean why does he allow the suffering that follows. Since God is wholly good, he would not allow suffering, right? Well, this is not necessarily true. Suffering now in the short term may lead to happiness in the long term, and happiness now in the short term may lead to suffering later on. As humans, we are not omnipotent and omniscient, we cannot know what the outcome of every single little thing that happens will be. Much like the butterfly effect, we cannot predict that. Perhaps through the tragic death of someone who died slowly trapped under rubble in an earthquake, God knew that authorities would be shocked into requiring new construction standards for earthquake-proof buildings, thereby saving many future lives. Maybe he permitted it so that some other person, facing death or illness in a hospital and seeing the reports on television, would be inspired by the persons courage to face their own challenge with faith and bravery. In summary, the problem of suffering just cannot be put through successfully. It requires probability judgements way beyond our ability, it fails to take into account the full scope of the evidence, and it is diminished in force when it comes to the Christian God. The intellectual problem of suffering fails to disprove God. 6) If God has a master plan, why bother praying? Why have a conversation with someone you have a relationship with? God created us out of love and a desire to have a relationship with us and wants to hear from us. Prayer isn't so we can change Gods plan. There are many instances in the Bible where praying to God will change someone spiritually. It may not change Gods plan, but it will change the person, which may have been part of Gods plan. 7) If god told you to kill your son/daughter/mother, would you do it? This is a popular argument used to try and disprove that God is wholly good or wholly powerful. Another popular version is "Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift?" Its a paradoxical situation. Surely this means God cannot be all powerful or all good, right? Wrong. In order for someone to conclude that there is some state of affairs God can or cannot bring about, the objector must establish that the state of affairs is a genuine, bona fide possibility. It is no imperfection of anyone to be unable to make the concept of happiness square dance with the color red. The concept of happiness and the color red are not the sorts of things that can dance. Does this mean "logic" is greater than God? No, "Logic" is not the name of some concrete or abstract thing that can carry out tasks. When you cannot do something contradictory, it is not as though there is some invisible force called logic restraining you. Logic is not a law, however, like the laws of nature. Rather, it is a set of necessary conditions of there being anything at all and for there being thought/language about anything at all. 8) If god told you to kill me, would you do it? Same as above. 9) If someone would have hurt you, would you hurt him or his newborn child? Because God, according to the bible, punished David's newborn son, because David slept with his mother while married to another man. (some claim he even raped her). I used this story as an example for an above question. God did not punish Davids newborn son, God took David's child of adultery to Heaven to punish David. The child was spared the trouble that came on David's household as the result of his sin. David said that he would go to the child, meaning after he died. 2 Samuel 12:22 He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.' 23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." 10) What is your #1 reason you believe in the Christian God? Evidence, really. If you look into all the arguments for God's existence, it really is amazing. The evidence for design in the Kalam Cosmological Argument is a favorite of mine, proving that it would be impossible for us to be here without a God (something cannot come from nothing.) There is also the evidence of the Absolute Moral Law, because since there are Absolute Morals there must be a giver of those morals. Also, do some research into how fine tuned this universe is for us. The number of seconds in the entire history of the universe is around 10^17, (ten followed by 17 zeroes.) 100,000,000,000,000,000. The number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe is around 10^80. The so-called weak force, which operates inside the nucleus of an atom, is so finely tuned that an alteration in its value by even one part out of 10^100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe! This is only one of hundreds of finely tuned aspects of the universe, many of which are much worse odds. And that is not considering the odds of all those odds falling in place. Thank you for your questions.