Twelve Questions Students Get From Secular Friends

I was in high school in the early 2000's.  Back then it was still common for a Catholic to get questions about Catholic/Protestant issues.  What is Purgatory?  What's the deal with Mary?  So on, so forth.

Now all that stuff seems like a memory.  Today Christians are getting along much better and secularism is the new cultural norm.  Thus, our highschoolers are faced with an entirely different set of questions - ones which come from the standpoint of unbelief.

Here are the 12 most common questions which our highschoolers receive from their irreligious secular peers.

[Feel free to leave you own if you think I missed something.]





(1) Does Christian doctrine demand hatred and discrimination toward people with a homosexual attractions?


(2) Does Christian doctrine teach that women are of lower status and dignity than men?


(3) Does adherence to the Christian religion demand ignoring what is known through natural science?


(4) How can Christianity claim to be true among so many other contenders?  How is it not arbitrary?


(5) How can a merciful God send someone to hell? (Particularly those folks who are in the other religions through no fault of their own )


(6) Doesn't the whole project of religion and religious doctrine inevitably lead to war and strife?


(7) Why isn't it sufficient to be a good person without religion?


(8) Why does a good God allow so much evil in the world? 


(9) Why is there so much communal and doctrinal disunity among Christians if it is supposed to be the one true faith?


(10) Why does it seem like Christians just pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to believe?


(11) Why does the Bible seem to contradict itself both factually and morally? (Particularly when God commands violence in the Old Testament)


(12) Why don't Christians live up to their own moral standards?  (Particularly in the realm of political policy)