A Success Story Already?!

I've only had my 30 Questions Project website up since Monday, but just three days later I got an email from the site's contact form. I was half-expecting someone to have written in berating me for criticizing their religion. Here's what I got instead, from a woman I'll call K.W.:

Hello Tim,

While I don't know if you'll even read this, I feel the need to tell you that your 30 questions really helped me. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home and though I've been questioning religion since I was 10, I never had the courage to really call myself an atheist. After reading your list of questions, I can't justify trying to cling to the remnants of the faith I was indoctrinated to have since childhood.

I just wanted to say thank you.

Here's my response back to her:

K.W.,

I'm so glad I could help! I've only had the site up for a few days now, and I wasn't expecting to get such positive feedback so quickly. It's really gratifying to know that this project has made a real difference to at least one person.

By the way, if you want to find people to talk with about this, chances are there's an atheist/skeptic organization in your area (Meetup is a good place to look). Either way, thanks so much for taking the time to write.

—Tim

And her response:

Thank you so much for that. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

My intention with this project wasn't necessarily for it to have an effect on people right on the spot. Often times the tough questions will percolate in believers' minds for quite a while before they're willing to deal with them. To have gotten someone to question their faith, and made such an impact that they felt the need to tell me about it—all within just a few days of the project's launch—is more than I ever could have hoped for. Even if I don't help a single other person from here on out, I feel my efforts have been worth it just for this.

Introducing: The 30 Questions Project Website

A few weeks ago I announced a project I've been working on: a concise, diverse, potent, accessible list of questions meant to challenge the beliefs of fundamentalist Christians. It started out with 40 questions, but after some feedback suggesting that this would be too daunting a trial for many Christians to undertake, I shortened it to 30 by taking out some questions and merging others together. It was a difficult, sometimes painful task, but I think the end result is stronger for it. So without further ado, here's the official 30 Questions Project website:

http://30questionsproject.weebly.com

I used a neat little website-creator called Weebly to make it, and while the result is a little generic-looking, it's hopefully polished-looking enough to give it an air of professionalism. I would've liked to get a unique URL, but I didn't want to pony up $30–40 a year for a resource that may or may not get long-term usage.

The layout is pretty simple: homepage, questions list, general objections answered, online and book resources, FAQ and an about/contact page. But while the framework is done and a fairly solid draft of the questions are in place, I'm still hungry for feedback of any and all kinds. Specifically:

• Any typos, unclear wording, etc.?
• Any place where the tone is wrong—too aggressive, etc.?
• Any design/aesthetic criticism of the site?
• Any questions that seem weak or redundant?
• Any important topics or powerful questions I've missed?
• Any important atheism/Christianity resources I should add?
• Any other major objections that should be answered?
• Any other questions that should be in the FAQ?

I'm pretty satisfied with how things have gone thus far, but one of the best ways to improve is by gaining outside perspectives. If you have anything to say on the above subjects—or any sort of feedback at all, positive or negative—I want your input!

Tackling the Big Objections

I'll be posting the second draft of my questions list within the next couple of days, but right now I'm working on an appendix responding to the most common objections I expect. Here are the two major responses I'm anticipating from Christians, along with my answers:

"My God can't be proved or disproved with evidence, but I have faith that he exists and I have faith in my religion."

Imagine that thousands of people are standing in a row several miles long, each belonging to a different religion. Each one has been given a list of questions that point strongly to the conclusion that their religion is false. They shout the sentence above in unison, each of them with a deep inner feeling that they must be right. They are using exactly the same reasoning you are—and yet, not only are they wrong, but according to your beliefs they are all destined for eternal punishment.

Perhaps you feel you can apply faith to faith itself. You cry, "I have faith that my faith alone is justified!"—and the entire row of people cries out along with you. Could it be any more apparent that "I have faith" is useless as a response to evidence?

"We mustn't question the morality of God. His ways are beyond our understanding."

We have no choice but to make judgments about God's morality: If we don't, then we're forced to accept a line of reasoning that can justify literally any moral state of affairs, no matter how despicable. If God was depicted in the Bible raping and torturing infants for his own enjoyment, one could still answer with "his ways are beyond our understanding." Even if Satan, posing as God, commanded the most evil acts imaginable, obedience could still be justified in exactly the same way.

Even if God's ways are beyond our understanding, all that can be reasonably expected of us is that we do the best we can with the limited knowledge and reasoning abilities we have—and based on what we have, the only acceptable response to the biblical God's sanctioning of slavery, misogyny and genocide is unabashed condemnation. It would be patently ridiculous for God to blame us for questioning his morality, if he was the one who gave us the capacity to reason while at the same time offering no explanation of his atrocities.

Do these responses seem reasonably effective? Is there some way I could improve upon them? Are there other common answers you would expect Christians to give? Let me know. I'm also thinking about adding answers to "Evidence against God is a test of faith" and "God giving us proof would remove our ability to freely choose him", so if you have any suggestions regarding those, I'm all ears.

40 Questions for Fundamentalist Christians

Whew! The first draft in my 40 Questions Project is finally finished, and I must say I'm quite happy with it. Since it's fairly long, I've made it a publicly accessible Google doc rather than posting it here directly, but below is a "table of contents" of sorts:

Introspection
1. Demand for evidence
2. Comparison to other religions
3. Cultural and parental religious dependence
4. Investigation into other religions
5. Unreliability of faith
6. Unreliability of religious experiences
7. Falsifiability of Christianity
8. Falsifiability of God's intervention in the world
9. Lack of modern miracles
10. Falsifiability of God's positive perception
11. Falsifiability of prayer
Doctrine
12. Injustice of the atonement
13. Illogic of the atonement
14. Inefficiency of the atonement
15. Fate of the unborn
17. Incoherence of the trinity
18. God as tribal invention
19. Signs of Christianity
19. Pointlessness of prayer
20. Incoherence of the soul
21. Argument from scale
22. Argument from divine hiddenness
Errancy
23. Evolution
24. Age of the earth
25. Israel's exodus and conquest
26. Census of Quirinius
27. Destruction of Tyre
28. Jesus' delayed return
Morality
29. Euthyphro dilemma
30. Problem of human evil
31. Problem of natural evil
32. Problem of animal suffering
33. Problem of hell
34. Problem of divine miscommunication
35. God's sanctioning of slavery
36. God's sanctioning of misogyny
37. God's homophobia
38. God's killings
39. God forces the killing of unbelieving loved ones
40. Comparison to other religious morality

I certainly didn't have a problem coming up with forty—on the contrary, the most difficult task was deciding what to leave out. I also spent a lot of time carefully wording the questions so that they were fairly short and understandable while still posing a serious challenge. Some of these questions have very common responses, so I'll also be working on an appendix responding to "Frequent Answers."

Please leave feedback in the comments! Did any questions seem weak or redundant? Is there some great question I missed? Could anything have been worded better? Any other concerns? Let me know so I can revise.

The 40 Questions Project

Over the past few weeks I've had a couple of friendly debates with my dad about the existence of God. My responses have been purely in terms of objections to arguments in favor of God's existence—not once have I gone on the offensive. My intention is not to beat them over the head with my unbelief, but since they're challenging my views, it only makes sense to challenge theirs as well. I'd like to make them think, to inform them of some of the more unsavory parts of their religion. It may seem strange to believers that atheists might want to change their views, but when beliefs have negative consequences, it's only natural to challenge them.

A while back I came up with a list of 10 questions for Christians. I've been thinking about expanding on them, so I've embarked on the 40 Questions Project to come up the best thought-provoking challenges to fundamentalist Christianity. The questions that I'm using will:

• Address the beliefs of fundamentalist evangelical Christians
• Be succinct, with no more than a couple of sentences of setup
• Avoid provoking a flippant response (e.g. "But evolution is wrong.")
• Give specific examples when necessary (e.g. for Bible contradictions)
• Mix subtle self-reflection with direct challenges to belief
• Be comprehensive, ranging from general problems with theism to issues with specific fundamentalist doctrines

I don't think I'll be breaking any new ground with this list of questions. My goal is just to combine the most difficult issues within Christianity into one concise, accessible package. It will bring together everything from the problem of evil to historical errors in the Bible. Here's one example of a question I'll be including in some form:

"If God asked you to kill your child in the same way he did with Abraham, would you?"

I realize that what I find challenging and thought-provoking, others may find trivial, so I plan to go through a couple of drafts after getting feedback from those around me. Depending on how the project turns out and how discussions are going with my parents, I may or may not present it to them directly. Either way, I hope this can serve as a resource both for myself and for my fellow nonbelievers.

If any of my readers have suggestions for questions that might be suitable for this project—ones that will really challenge Christians and make them think—I'd love to hear from you in the comments.