Ten questions the culture presses hardest — each one steelmanned, then
answered from Scripture and the sources themselves. 54 questions across 10 examinations. Cycle through, then read the whole thing.
The Cultural Questions — Examination 1 of 10
The Problem of Evil
If God is good and able, why is there evil and suffering? The logical and evidential arguments, where evil comes from, and where God is in our pain — answered from Scripture and the philosophers themselves.
8
Questions
1779
Hume frames the riddle
1982
Mackie concedes
The questions inside
If God is good and all-powerful, why is there evil at all?
Even if God could exist, isn’t there simply too much pointless suffering?
Did God create evil, then?
What about earthquakes, cancer, disasters — evil no human chose?
Doesn’t the sheer cruelty of the world disprove a good God?
Even granting an answer, God seems distant — untouched by our pain.
The day’s loudest flashpoint, weighed in truth and grace — the key texts, Jesus on marriage, body and gender, and the pastoral questions, with the strongest revisionist case stated fairly first.
6
Questions
Gen 1:27
Male & female
Matt 19
Jesus on marriage
The questions inside
Do the Bible's few verses really condemn loving same-sex relationships?
Jesus never said a word about it — doesn't his silence speak?
What does the Bible actually define marriage as?
Isn't gender a social construct — and what about transgender identity?
Isn't the traditional view just bigotry — the wrong side of history?
Do all paths lead to God? Is it arrogant to claim one way? The pluralist case weighed fairly — then the harder question it skips: not who is exclusive (all are), but who is true.
5
Questions
John 14:6
“I am the way”
Newbigin
The elephant
The questions inside
Don't all religions ultimately lead to the same God?
Isn't it arrogant to claim Jesus is the only way?
What about those who never hear of Jesus?
Aren't all religions basically the same underneath?
Isn't a humble, tolerant pluralism more loving than 'one true faith'?
Slavery, the Canaanite conquest, the treatment of women — the hardest texts faced honestly, not flinched from, and the sharp question back: by whose standard do we judge?
5
Questions
Ex 21:16
Man-stealing: death
Holland
Morals “Christian”
The questions inside
Doesn't the Bible endorse slavery?
Doesn't God command genocide — the slaughter of the Canaanites?
Isn't the Bible deeply sexist toward women?
By what standard do we call the Bible “immoral”?
Don't Christians just ignore the Old Testament rules they dislike?
How can a God of love allow hell? Hell as a refusal honored at terrible cost — the questions of proportion and universalism — answered from Scripture, with Lewis and Keller.
5
Questions
Lewis
Locked inside
2 Pet 3:9
“none should perish”
The questions inside
How can a loving God send people to hell?
Isn't eternal punishment wildly out of proportion to finite sins?
What is hell, really — literal fire and torture?
Wouldn't a truly loving God just save everyone?
Why would God create people he knew would reject him?
Horus, Mithras, dying-and-rising gods, Zeitgeist — the copycat claims weighed against the actual ancient sources, where even secular scholars reject them, and what the echoes really mean.
5
Questions
J.Z. Smith
“A misnomer”
Lewis
True myth
The questions inside
Isn't Jesus just another dying-and-rising god — Osiris, Dionysus, Baal?
What about Horus and Mithras — virgin birth, December 25, crucified, raised in three days?
Even Genesis was copied from Babylon — Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish.
If it echoes the old myths, doesn't that prove it's just another myth?
Even if the parallels were real, wouldn't that sink Christianity?
The conflict myth, the Big Bang and Genesis, evolution and the range Christians hold, fine-tuning, and miracles — answered from Scripture and from non-Christian scientists themselves.
5
Questions
Jastrow
The theologians
Hoyle
“Monkeyed with physics”
The questions inside
Hasn't science disproved God and made faith obsolete?
Doesn't the Big Bang — an ancient, expanding universe — contradict “In the beginning”?
Doesn't evolution disprove the Bible and make God unnecessary?
Isn't the universe's “fine-tuning” just luck, or the multiverse?
“It’s been copied and changed too many times to know what it said.” The telephone-game objection, the manuscript evidence, the Dead Sea Scrolls, contradictions and translations — faced head-on.
5
Questions
5,800
Greek manuscripts
Ehrman
Concedes the point
The questions inside
Hasn't the Bible been copied so many times it's like a game of telephone?
How can we trust copies when we don't even have the originals?
Maybe the New Testament — but the Old Testament is ancient. Surely it has drifted.
What about all the contradictions?
Translations differ so much — which Bible is even right?
“Constantine picked the books; the church buried the gospels it didn’t like.” The Da Vinci Code story meets the real history of the canon — Nicaea, the Muratorian Fragment, Athanasius, and the Gnostic “lost gospels.”
5
Questions
325
Nicaea: not the canon
367
Athanasius lists all 27
The questions inside
Didn't Constantine and the Council of Nicaea decide which books are in the Bible?
What about the “lost gospels” — Thomas, Judas, Mary — that the church suppressed?
Then how were the books actually chosen?
Doesn't the fact that some books were disputed prove it's all arbitrary?
Didn't the church just keep the books that propped up its power?
“I’m deconstructing my faith.” The difference between refining and dismantling, what the Bible really does with doubt, the real wounds of church hurt, deconversion — and whether there’s a cornerstone left to rebuild on.
5
Questions
Doubt
Honored, not shamed
1 Cor 3:11
The one foundation
The questions inside
Isn't deconstruction just asking honest questions about my faith?
Doesn't the Bible treat doubt as a sin to be ashamed of?
What if I'm leaving because the church hurt me — the hypocrisy, the abuse, the politics?
Most people who really study their faith end up losing it. Isn't deconversion where honesty leads?
If I tear it all down, is there anything left to rebuild on?