Straightforward, hard-to-answer-questions about the Bible/Christianity

Ok, so I was reading the thread about question times in churches and during sermons and it got me thinking of makingthis thread.It's pretty simple. My church is having an apologetics course this semester starting on the 3rd of march. We already had one the previous semester which was more on a theoretical approach to apologetics, but now they wanna do a practical approach.How it will work is that we will ask each others objections to christianity and answer them in small groups. (or something like that) Anyways, I just wanted to get a list from here of the hardest questions you can find about it all.A single condition would be that the questions don't require tons of outside research to answer. More stuff that is directly linked to Bible references and stuff like that.An easy example would be about God killing Babies in the Old testament. I'm sure the bunch of atheists on here can easily give the number1 reason they don't believe in the christian God.(I'll be trying to come back and give the answers the people gve to the questions.)Dunno where to put this. Coffee house maybe ? Faith and belief ?

Wow I didn't think it would bring so much attention.Thanks for all the answers, I'll clarify some points about the thread as to keep it going.To ICANT: The goal is not to answer the questions that are given. I'm just accumulating them to bring them to my apologetics course and ask them, then come back here hopefully with some answers.To Percy: Yeah I specified atheist but of course anyone can join in the fun (ex: Catholic scientist asked a very good question).I think the reason I said atheists in particular is that they tend to be much more virulent and straightforward in their objections to christianity. While agnostics tend to be more belief-friendly. And I want to have the most virulent and straightforward questions in my class to see how those other questions will respond.To all the others: Thanks for the questions, one thing would be to present the objections in a simple and clear question form, and put it n bold in your text. Also, if it is a question that is related to specific events in the Bible please put the verses as reference so I don't have to look into each question to find exactly what part you are talking about.

Hi Hyroglyphx,The question is interesting. But you'll have to define perfection before it can have any value. If truely you think perfection is totally subjective, then any question involving 'perfection' is irrelevant.

Hi Everybody,I see that my thread has derailed quite a bit. But do not worry! It doesn't really matter. Afterall my apologetics course wasn't really what I imagined it to be, so the questions proposed to me haven't had the chance to get asked. Although it was very interactive, so do not worry I had plenty of occasions to correct glaring misconceptions of evolution, atheism, etc. (playing devil's advocate)But of course. This thread isn't about that anymore. I see many new subjects could be opened. Dr.Sing would probably fare better by starting a new thread and expose in a concise way what he (she?) is trying to convey.Same for Flyer75 who has already said he would start a thread and present some of Mcdowell's best arguments.So if these get to be started, I see this thread dying off quietly.Thanks everyone once again

The course was more intended on different presentations from different people from within the church, in order to give a practice ground for our 'apologetics' skills. I myself gave a presentation on Logic when after a couple of classes are became aware of the very little level of logic that was exhibited. (Let's not forget that the level we have here at EvC is very much higher then 'out there')Altough I may well just give my 2 cents on the various questions asked in the beginning of the thread. Depends really if I find the time.

Nope, but it's interesting. Was it directed at me ? Do you place me in the low percentiles with an inflated perception or maybe a bit higher but able to recognize the limitations of his abilities ? Or maybe it was concerning the people in my course ?Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Unless you think it is too hard for me to do a presentation on syllogism, inductive and deductive reasoning, and common fallacies, all things we learn in the education system here in Quebec before arriving at university; I don't see how you can really think it hasn't brought any sort of improvement to an adult crowd.Oh and btw, I don't see how you linking me giving the correct definition of what a contradiction is in formal logic shows in any way that I am incompetent in this area. Now you may have disagreed with me invoquing this definition at the time, preferring that we accept ''less stringent criteria'', but this isn't really in the area of logic as much as the area of how to analyse historical documents and what can be accepted as sufficient to affirm contradiction even when it does not fit perfectly with the formal definition.