Dear Refiner's Fire...

(For the sake of space and time, and to keep from being redundant, we have compiled a list of questions that several atheists have posed, and answered them below.)

Our Response....

1. Do you people even know what an atheist is? An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God, simple as that!
   
   Our response: Most atheists are people who not only don't believe in God; they are people who don't like being told what to do, period. They view God as someone who is trying to infringe on their "right" to do whatever they wish - and they figure that, if they dimply "don't believe" that makes their belief true.
   
   
2. Explain how your god can be both just and merciful, when these terms apparently contradict each other?
   
   Our response: Pretend you have a small child who is about to step onto a freeway full of oncoming traffic. When you realize your kid is going to die in a few seconds, the first thing you do is to yell, "Johnny, STOP!" and then jerk him up by the scruff of his neck and set him back onto the sidewalk for a good scolding or even a slap on the rear end in order to make the seriousness of this situation "sink in". Then you hug him because you want him to know you love him....
   
   God continuously tried to warn Man about the dangers of "good and evil" - yet man insisted on exploring his options.....
   
   
3. Explain why original sin exists. Why should I be eternally tortured for something that a pair of naked fruit-munching simpletons did in a garden over six thousand years ago?
   
   Our response: When it comes right down to it, we're ALL a bunch of "simpletons" because, without Torah to guide us, we would have no blueprint for moral living. (Torah consists of the first five books of the Bible wherein God laid down some rules - without which we would all perish. The state of the world today amply evidences what happens when MAN runs amok....) So, what has changed since the Garden of Eden? Has Man gotten any wiser yet? If so, how come he's STILL disobeying God and killing his fellow Man, and raping, murdering, slandering, etc?
   
   
4. If you believe that children are born stained because they were conceived sexually, explain why I would be punished for something my parents did by your merciful and just god. If this does not apply to your sect, explain why?
   
   Our response: Where did you get the idea that children are stained because they were born sexually? That notion is certainly NOT in the Bible....God gave us sex for marriage, pleasure, intimacy and procreation (Genesis 2:24) - and along with that He also gave us some restrictions because he knew Man would end up defiling sex:
   
   Hebrews 13: 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous".
   
   For your information, the Hebraic Faith is not a "sect" - it is living according to God's commands.
   
   
5. If your god did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, why did he put the tree in the garden of Eden (and at the center, no less)? Was it for shade? If so, why use something so dangerous as a shade tree? If the purpose of the tree was to tempt Adam and Eve, explain why it's OK for your god to engage in a practice that our modern-day courts of law refer to as "entrapment"?
   
   Our response: You'll have to ask God why He put the Tree in the center of the Garden. He's God; He can do whatever He wants. Can you answer why George Washington chopped down the cherry tree? Or why Hitler hated Jews? Or why the Mayan civilization simply disappeared off the face of the earth? Unless you were there to actually ask questions and to see with your own eyes, you can't answer "yes" to any of those questions. And no one can answer for God....The thing is, He said "don't do", and the proper response would have been to refrain from doing whatever He said. HE is, after all, the One who created us; not the other way around.
   
   As far as your "entrapment" theory, that's a little far-fetched. If you read the warning, or are told not to climb the fence around an electrical sub-station because, once inside, you'll run the risk of being electrocuted, do you consider that "entrapment"? Or will you use your God-given brain to stay away? If you're warned and you choose to ignore that warning and you end up dying, that's plain stupidity on your part; not "entrapment". Adam and Eve were stupid for disobeying something their Creator - one who even "walked with them in the cool of the Garden" - warned them against.
   
   
6. If you are a Protestant or a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, explain why you are still using the Catholic Bible, which was formalized by a vote among (supposedly divinely inspired) cardinals and bishops in the fourth century CE, when you disagree with the idea that the Pope, who is higher in the Catholic hierarchy, is divinely inspired; if a Catholic, explain why your church accepts the canonical Bible while rejecting the Apocrypha (do not use the "divinely inspired" argument: Because I am not religious, I will not be able to accept it)?
   
   Our response: If you read any part of our website, you'd know we are Messianic, not Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox, nor even Protestant. Therefore, your question is rendered moot....As do most atheists who write to The Refiner's Fire, you've obviously copied and pasted questions someone else has written. This proves you haven't exercised your "atheistic" right to THINK for yourself; much less, READ the Bible so you can come up with your OWN logical conclusions....
   
   
7. If your god wants us to worship him through our own free will, why does he threaten us with Hell? If you have someone threatening you with a punishment, it isn't free will.
   
   Our response: God doesn't send anyone to hell; we send ourselves to hell. God has given us every chance to accept Him, and He has given us WRITTEN information as to what happens after we die. It's OUR choice!
   
   Yahweh has done everything possible to give us chance after chance after chance, yet we ALWAYS managed to blow it. The FINAL chance He gave us was when He sent us an aspect of Himself who taught us how to worship Him properly, how to treat each other in a civilized manner, and then to offer HIMSELF as the Final Sin Sacrifice. This aspect of God was called Yeshua (Hebrew = "Salvation"). He was foreshadowed throughout the entire "Old Testament" and He did exactly what He came to do. Yet people are too blind, too proud, too stubborn and too dense to even bother to investigate what He was all about. It's much easier to ignore, or make fun of Him and of those who believe in Him.....
   
   God has always had only our best interests at heart - like ANY decent parent. Parents have to have rules for their kids, or else their kids will end up destroying themselves and others. Do we not teach our toddlers that stoves are hot? That streets are dangerous? That eating dirt will make them sick? Any parent who loves their kid will teach that child what's good and what's bad. Why should God be any different? Without His teachings, we wouldn't even know good from bad! And you want to condemn Him for this?
   
   
8. If Jesus did had to die, why did someone (specifically, Judas) have to be damned in order accomplish the death and resurrection of Jesus? Jesus was at least a volunteer for the cross; I doubt that your god asked Judas if he was willing to go to Hell so that the resurrection could be accomplished?
   
   Our response: Judas didn't have to be dammed; he damned himself by being greedy and turning his Teacher over to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver. God uses our "carnal natures" (our inner drives and desires that we choose to cater to) for His own glory. He used Hitler's Holocaust to bring about two major end times prophecies: Israel became a nation again in 1948 in one day, exactly as foretold. (Also see Israel and Jerusalem: The Road to Armageddon)
   
   Ezekiel 37: 21 "Thus says the Lord God: ' Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land."
   
   
9. If Judas was willing to go to Hell for humanity, didn't he make more of a sacrifice than Jesus, who spent only three hours in pain? Shouldn't we then be worshipping Judas??
   
   Our response: Yeshua spent a whole lot more than three hours in pain! He was whipped, flogged, spat upon, and beaten within an inch of His life for hours on end, before He ever went to the cross - where He spent another SIX HOURS in agony! (Your moronic comment shows you haven't actually read the Bible - and we suggest you read the Gospels for yourself instead of getting your ideas from someone who knows no more than you do!) And then read the "Old Testament" - specifically the Book of Leviticus - which shows how God always required blood sacrifices to atone for sin. That blood had to come from a completely perfect, unblemished animal. Yeshua was that perfect, unblemished FINAL Sin Sacrifice. He was, as the Bible clearly tells us, God Incarnate; whereas Judas was a mere, sinful, conniving man.
   
   
10. According to the Gospels, from the Christian standpoint, Jesus was the most important person to ever live. From the Roman standpoint, Jesus was a huge pain because of his political activities. Explain why nothing was written about his life for over thirty years after his death, and nothing except the Gospels was written until the third century CE?
    
    Our response: It never ceases to amaze us how atheists who haven't got a clue about God or the Bible think they have believers over a barrel! The answer to your supposedly "unanswerable question" is: In Biblical times when only the elite could read or write, most historical facts were passed down orally - and you can bet that His story was passed down orally before being put to writing!
    
    According to Got Questions.Org: Even if the Gospels were not written until 30 years after Christ’s death, that would still place the writing of them prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. This presents no major problem with their authority or accuracy. Passing on oral traditions and teachings was common place in the Jewish culture of that day, and memorization was highly cultivated and practiced. Also, the fact that even at that time there would have been a considerable number of eyewitnesses around to dispute and discredit any false claims, and the fact that none of the “hard sayings” of Jesus were taken from the gospel accounts, further supports the accuracy of them. Had the Gospels been edited before being written down, as some liberal scholars contend, then it was a very poor job. The writers left far too many “hard sayings,” and culturally unacceptable / politically incorrect accounts that would need explaining. An example of this is that the first witnesses of the resurrection were women, whose testimony held no value as a witness in the culture of that day.
    
    The bottom line for Christians is this - whether the Gospels were written soon after the death of Christ, or not until thirty years after his death, this does not really matter, because their accuracy and authority does not rest on when they were written but rests on what they are: the divinely inspired Word of God. We should also remember that one of the promises that Jesus gave His disciples was that He would send them “another helper” the Holy Spirit who would teach them all things and ‘bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:26). So, whether it was few years or many after Jesus' death that the apostles first wrote the Gospel accounts, we can have total confidence in faith in their completeness and accuracy knowing that they were written by “men moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21), who accurately recorded the very Words of God.
    
    
11. Why is it that the life of Jesus was so similar to the lives of pagan Christ’s, particularly Herakles, Dionysius, and Asklepios, whose stories are much older than that of your saviour's?
    
    Our response: Satan has always and is stillis busy sending forth deceit. The difference between the above-mentioned pagans and Yeshua is that Yahweh's SON was sent for a reason, and He impacted the world to the point where he is STILL the most influential entity who ever lived. Yeshua's impact resonates into eternity, whereas hardly anyone recognizes the names of "Herakles, Dionysius, and Asklepios"....
    
    
12. Explain why your "just and merciful" god sent bears to kill forty-two children who called his prophet Elisha "baldhead." (See 2 Kings 2:23-24).
    
    Our response: First of all, if you KNEW your Bible, you could see they were not young children; they were a gang of snotty youths (teenagers) who were jeering the Prophet Elisha. Kids have always been cruel and today's youths are still as evil as they always were - and getting worse (as the Bible has ALSO prophesied...). There are documented incidences where some kids have killed their parents because they refused to take "no" for an answer. In Biblical times BEFORE Yeshua came to die as our Final Sin Sacrifice, God ordered belligerent youths to be stoned! That is how serious He is about training children up properly....
    
    Secondly, have you ever read ALL of 2 Kings 2? If not, then we suggest you educate yourself before spouting off something you know nothing about. If you had read from the beginning of this chapter, you would see that earlier that day, Elisha lost his master, Elijah, when God took him to heaven (he was the second person we know of to be "raptured"! See also Genesis 5:24.) Bottom line: Elisha had a really bad day and when those snotty youths jeered him, he lashed out. Did GOD kill the kids? No - Elisha called the curse down on them IN THE NAME OF THE LORD...The spoken word can be a very dangerous thing - and in those days prophets were able to accomplish many things with just a spoken word!