Last weekend, I was at a Christian conference called Jubilee to participate in a panel discussion (not debate) on religion.
Interestingly enough, the (Christian) moderator Steve Lutz put together a list of the questions he wanted to ask us (and did), the audience-submitted questions he did ask us, and the audience-submitted questions he decided were better left unasked…
That last set of questions is the one I’m most curious about 🙂 I had fun with such a list a year ago.
What could Christians possibly want to ask that would be filtered out?
Here’s a sampling from that list:
- Is it dangerous for uneducated Christians to engage in debate with atheists?
- Why does an atheist get offended when a Christian is humbly offering eternal happiness?
- Do you ever feel like you’re missing anything in your life? Or maybe that there is something more…even if it’s not God for you?
- It seems like atheists in general at one time believed in God, but then turned away because of some type of hurt, lost a loved one, etc. They are angry at God, it seems. Why are you an atheist?
What scares me is that whoever asked those questions were probably serious… Despite the sample, there were a few questions I really liked that weren’t among those asked.
Take a crack at these:
- How much literature, research, or experience do you think is necessary for a person to have before they establish their beliefs?
- Can parents and pastors really compete with the amount of influence a secular school system (7-8 hours per day) and a media-saturated culture has upon young minds? Honestly, compared to churches which one has more power to indoctrinate minds, the school system or churches?
- What do we [Christians] do that offends atheists most?
For what it’s worth, I had a great time at the panel. I love that hundreds of Christians were willing to listen to such a dialogue and I really enjoyed talking to some of them afterwards.
When you get so deeply involved within the atheist community, it’s very hard to find people to have serious (and fun) conversations with who also strongly disagree with you. This was one of those opportunities and I hope it happens again soon.