What do believers say when you ask or tell them..

[Ryft]

Judging by the answers given thus far, it seems I get to treat you with answers that are unique.

1. What happens if the religion you're believing in is wrong? Since there are more than the one God you're believing in. Don't you think it's a waste of time praying when you have no idea what might be the truth?

I'm going to resist the bait (your claim that multiple deities exist) and answer the question you're really asking. Christianity is the only religion in the entire world whose afterlife is based on grace; i.e., every single other religion on the planet teaches an afterlife that is reached by some kind of balance of good works. Christianity is singularly unique in that salvation (afterlife) is NOT based on any human good works at all, period. It is based on the good works of Jesus Christ, in whom alone the believer is saved. This is because "a balance of good works" is precisely that, a balance, meaning that in addition there are bad works, violations of God's law. In human courts, a person found guilty of breaking several criminal laws is never told by the judge, "Well, aside from these laws you have broken you're an otherwise pretty decent fellow. You may go. No sentence for you." It would be unjust to not punish criminal acts. He may be a decent fellow, but he is nevertheless guilty of having broken several criminal laws, and justice demands that crime is punished. On what grounds, then, would a person think God would leave sins unpunished? That would be unjust.

So I am confronted with two scenarios:

(1) If my religion is wrong, then it does not matter because I'll be okay on a balance of good works in whatever other religion turns out to be true. Buddhism. Wicca. Islam. Hinduism. Judaism. My life will not have been a waste, because of that balance of good works. My beliefs may have been wrong all along but (i) they were the guiding principle that led to those good works and (ii) in the afterlife it won't ultimately matter anyway. Whether it's reincarnation, attaining enlightenment, the judgment seat of Allah, etc., it all comes down to an overall balance of good works in the end.

(2) If my religion is right, then I'll be saved by God's grace in Christ's righteousness irrespective of my works, for salvation is by his merits alone who took upon himself the punishment my sins were due. And anyone who was banking on a balance of good works will have to confront the punishment their law-breaking is due, which no amount of good works can hide. As our own justice systems recognize, to not punish law-breaking is unjust. And the God they'll face is perfectly just.

Consequently: it wouldn't matter if my religion is wrong, but it sure matters if it's right. As C.S. Lewis said, it is of no importance if Christianity turns out to be false, but of infinite importance if it turns out to be true.

2. Don't you think heaven would be extremely boring after 5 billion years of being there, and still having forever left? It may be paradise but everything gets boring in the long run.

First of all, five billion years of being in heaven will not have even begun to scratch the surface of my praising and enjoying my Savior. Secondly, I have no reason to think that we'll even register the passage of time in heaven, given the descriptions of it we do have; i.e., "five billion years" will be a meaningless expression. Either way, eternity could never exhaust my love for Jesus Christ.

3. Who created God?

That is called the Complex Question fallacy. "Who created the Creator?" is a complex of two separate questions: (1) "Is the Creator himself created?" (2) "If so, who created him?" Asking who created the Creator presupposes that he was created at all, in the same way that "Have you stopped beating your spouse?" presupposes you were beating her at all. And it is a fallacy because it requires the Christian to implicitly concede that God even had a creator, which begs that first question. So, "Is the Creator himself created?" No, because he is eternal. To ask about the origin of something that has no origin is a meaningless question; and if not created, then to ask who created him is twice meaningless.

And if you want to suggest that the universe had no beginning, I would direct your attention to the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, which vindicated the Hawking-Penrose theorems by proving that any universe which on average is in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. "With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe," writes Alex Vilenkin. "There is no escape; they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning" (Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes, Hill & Wang, 2006). As their work shows, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem holds regardless of the physical description of the universe prior to Planck time (such as the Gott-Li model and its "adapted Rindler vacuum").

4. Why does God let bad things happen to good people?

He doesn't. Ever.

5. The reason you don't commit horrible crimes, is it because you're afraid to be smited by God or because you think it's morally wrong?

Because I love God, and because I think it is morally wrong.

6. If no one created God, why can't we say no one created the world?

You can, if you want. But I think that would qualify as a delusion, a view contradicted by an extraordinary degree of evidence to the contrary.

I think that people will, in the not so far distant future, start realizing that religion is wrong and will sit at the dinner table laughing over how silly people were when we believed in the religions we have today.

Are you aware of how many times that very prediction has been made?

It really really boggles my mind how people can believe in such absolute crap (in my opinion, I don't want to offend anyone).

It sure beats the brainless twaddle you subscribe to. Err, in my opinion. Don't want to offend you. (Did you catch the hint being made there?)

---

Since when have I had sex with men? Odd. I rather think I would have remembered it.

Bad sex usually isn't terribly memorable.