1. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, why did God lie about what the outcome would be (Genesis 2:17),Some modern translations soften Yahweh's statement that Adam would die "in that day," and so disguise the problem. while the serpent told the truth (Genesis 3:5,22)?
2. Why are women treated as chattel and inferior to men throughout the Bible? The evidence is too overwhelming to cite even a representative portion of the relevant scriptures, but a few of the more explicit examples are 1 Corinthians 11:3,9; 1 Timothy 2:12-14. A good source of additional information on this topic is the Freedom From Religion Foundation, PO Box 750, Madison, Wisconsin 53701.
3. Why is the Old Testament and most of the New Testament addressed only to free men, and not to women or slaves?
Does God deal only with free males? The fact that God dealt with Israel during their slavery does not weaken the force of this question. Israel's slavery was a temporary condition designed to underline Israel's dependence on Yahweh. Yahweh began to deal with Israel when he was a free man.
4. Why does the Bible condone slavery? See, for example, Exodus 21:20-21, Deuteronomy 15:17, Leviticus 25:44-46, Ephesians 6:5-7, 1 Timothy 6:1, Colossians 3:22, Titus 2:9, 1 Peter 2:18,21.
5. Why does Yahweh command genocide, Number 21:34-35, Joshua 10:40, 1 Samuel 15:3,18, Jeremiah 50:21 for example, including the killing of infants?
Why does he command that all women who have "known a man" be slaughtered, but the soldiers are to keep the young virgins for their own use (Numbers 31:14-18)?
Why does the Bible portray Yahweh as worse than Hitler (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)? Isn't it blasphemous to call the Bible "God's Word," when it libels him so?
6. Why doesn't the Bible condemn polygamy?
Is it not really a sin?
In fact, the Bible seems to condone polygamy through examples of God blessing polygamists and by its explicit statements regarding David.
7. Why wasn't Lot condemned for giving his daughters to be abused by the men of Sodom (Genesis 19:8)?
The Bible actually calls him righteous (2 Peter 2:7)!
8. How can Christians say that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion is based on Judeo-Christian ethics when Deuteronomy 13:6-10 and 17:2-7 flatly contradict this?
9. How can being mauled by a bear possibly be a just punishment for name-calling (2 Kings 2:23-24)?
Doesn't this contradict God's own edict of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?"
10. Why is faith - believing something for which there is no evidence - a virtue?
11. Why is rational skepticism a vice?
If Christianity is true, won't the truth hold up under scrutiny? Shouldn't the church welcome and promote rational skepticism as a way of confirming and spreading the faith when people see that it fails to undermine Christianity?
Why isn't skeptical literature studied and refuted in Sunday School classes?