A Guide for Writers of Responses
to The Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire

Notice

I am completely uninterested in receiving responses to this Guide for Writers (although thoughtful feedback is welcome). Please direct your efforts to answering the Questionnaire itself. This document is unfinished and likely to remain so for some time. Feel free to check back as you compose your response.

Introduction

I wrote the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire in 1997 to get annoying proselytes to fuck off when nothing else would convince them to do so. Since that time, it's traveled around the world on the Internet, and I've received a number of (solicited and unsolicited) responses to it. (You can read more about the history of the document here.)

Most of these responses have been, intellectually speaking, of very low quality. I knew before I sat down to write the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire (HPQ) that Christianity often consists of theological backflips, wishful thinking, and the active pursuit of the destruction of whatever slight faculties for critical thought might be inborn in Christians. Still, I was appalled at the complete lack of intelligence displayed by most answers to the HPQ.

So I wrote this guide, because, although my primary motivation in writing the HPQ was to get proselytes to fuck off, I also hoped that, in rare cases, it might open a productive dialogue with Christians. That hasn't really happened yet, and I'm hoping that by writing a guide to the questions that the occasional Christian will manage to write a cogent and interesting response. I recommend that you read this guide, in combination with the shorter guides Before You Write to Me About the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire and Frequently Asked Questions About the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire, as you prepare your responses.

General Considerations

You should keep the following things in mind as you prepare your response:

You are (or should be) writing in order to persuade me to reconsider my unbelief in Christianity. For this reason, you should generally be polite, articulate, and considerate. Nothing is less persuasive than a long response to the HPQ that descends into inchotate name-calling halfway through the document (or starts off at that position from the beginning).
Your response needs to form a logically coherent edifice. (Don't assert in one place that your bible is infallibly true, then insist later that contradictions in it don't matter, unless you also demonstrate somehow that these positions are mutually compatible.)
Your response needs to deal directly with the issues at hand, not with tangential issues or with what you think is really behind what I'm asking. I assure you that the real reasons that I'm no longer a Christian are substantially discussed in the HPQ itself, and that your efforts to convert me are best served by responding to those questions and not by talking around them.
Your responses should show that Christianity is a coherent doctrine. (I believe that this is nearly impossible to show, if not actually impossible—in large part for the reasons outlined in the HPQ—but am willing to consider the possibility that I might be wrong. Part of your job, if you are writing a response, is to demonstrate that I am in fact wrong about this.) This does not mean that the HPQ itself presents a structurally sound theoretical edifice: It doesn't. It consists of attacks on Christianity on a variety of levels. Many of these attacks can be understood to have an implied introductory clause of the form Even if all of the preceding and following assertions are resolved to my satisfaction, one could plausibly fault Christianity because … . This does not mean that I am admitting that none of the other attacks are interesting or useful; it simply means that each question should, to the largest extent possible, be evaluated individually. Christianity is supposed to be a complete world-view; the HPQ consists of attacks on that world-view without constituting, in itself, a Weltanschauung. You need to demonstrate that your flavor of Christianity is immune to all of these attacks on all of these various levels.

Many people have, historically, taken the above paragraph to mean that I myself do not have a structurally coherent doctrine. This is not true, and the simplest way to explain what I make that statement is to point out that the HPQ is not a complete statement of my beliefs; it is an explanation for why I disagree with yours. As a Christian, you've been raised to believe that everything that ever has or ever will exist rotates around Jeeziz, but I assure you that my thoughts do not rotate around your nihilistic, idiotic, puerile little rabbi. If you're writing a response, you probably have a hard time understanding how anyone can look at the world around him without ultimately referring every tiny little event (the postman being late, the outcome of a presidential election, the opening of a flower, the below-average rainfall for the year, acne on your back) to the mysterious plan of a man-god nailed to a tree in a backward province of a long-dead empire two thousand years ago, so you may need some practice. I suggest that you meditate on the implications of this statement carefully before beginning your response.
You should avoid logical fallacies and, more generally, poor rhetorical/argumentative techniques. (The tu quoque variety of the ad hominem fallacy is particularly popular.) You need to show me why my interpretation of your religion (including, often, its sacred scriptures) is mistaken or misinformed. Pointing out that [Position X, which you attribute to me] is also mistaken or misinformed does nothing to advance your argument that Christianity is the Flawless Revealed Truth That Perfectly Describes the Universe.

If you don't know anything about logical fallacies, you shouldn't be writing a response. You should go back to high school or get an equivalent education, and should read the reference on Logic & Fallacies at the Atheism Web and/or refer to Stephen Downes's reference to logical fallacies. Once you've done this, you should take a college-level course on formal logic.
You should be aware that the Christian position has a burden of explanation not shared by non-theistic positions, simply because the Christian position makes so many more assertions about the world than non-theistic positions do. (For instance, Christianity usually asserts that God is all-powerful, -good, and -loving; this makes the problem of evil—so-called—a genuine problem. It is true that, as many respondents have pointed out, the adoption of atheism by an individual fails to stop senseless deaths of children, but atheists have never claimed that the senseless deaths of children make sense on some level—for instance, that they are part of God's Larger Plan. If Christians assert this, they have a burden of explanation that non-theists don't.)

Methodological Notes on Your Biblical Interpretation

You should be painstakingly familiar with the entire bible to answer these questions well. Quite frequently, I know about biblical verses on a topic discussed in the Questionnaire but don't reference them anywhere in the document. You need to deal with these verses, either implicitly or explicitly. Remember, you're the one who thinks that the bible is the Revealed Word of God. I just think that it's a musty tome with a few good stories and a lot of begats. Since you think it's more important than I do, I expect you to know it better than I do. You lose points in my estimation big time if I catch you failing to deal with biblical claims that I know about that reflect on a given question.
On a related note, you should always take the time to look up every biblical reference that I make, especially when I paraphrase a passage. Frequently, my paraphrases introduce new elements into the passage, remove or modify relevant elements of a passage, or add or modify the context of a set of verses. Sometimes, dealing with what the bible actually says is more difficult than dealing with my paraphrase of a section. Part of the reason why I do this is to achieve various rhetorical effects, but it's also a test: I'm expecting you to call me on it. Remember, you're the one who thinks the bible is incredibly important. I expect you to demonstrate that you're more familiar with it than I am.
Moreover, dealing with what the bible actually says involves more than simply dealing with each individual passage or group of passages on a topic: You need to deal with (a) the total effect of all of the biblical passages on a topic; and (b) the total effect of those biblical passages most commonly cited on a topic. Frequently, individual passages express a mild position with a greater or lesser degree of consistency; this is often taken by theologians as support for a more extreme claim than any passage makes individually. You need to deal with this problem.
Finally, you probably need to address, in some manner, the problem of biblical form as it relates to the intelligibility of your god's message. For instance, if god is all-good and loves all of us and wants us all to get to Heaven, why does he not explain clearly what is necessary to do so? Why would he give us a mess of confused (and often contradictory) statements, then let us sort it out for ourselves, instead of just having someone write, In order to achieve salvation, a person must: 1. [insert requirement] …? To put it in a rather more literary manner, why does the bible not act to shape its own interpretation in a way that assists the faithful in their efforts to obtain salvation? (Questions of this type will likely be written into future versions of the HPQ.)

Things That Will Almost Certainly Fail to Impress Me

Pointing out that you don't know or understand, either. Great, congratulations on being brave enough to admit your ignorance—but you just failed to resolve an issue that prevents me from being a member of your religion. You're writing because you think that you can resolve all of the issues raised here to my satisfaction, aren't you? Why would you think that I would be convinced by your ignorant babbling if if you don't understand the issues in this document? You're obviously just writing to play to an audience. This includes pointing out that you're just an ignorant, untutored believer—generally a rhetorical maneuver intended to play to a Christian audience, reassure yourself, and/or impress me with your humility. Neither of the first two goals impresses me, and humility, though important, is overrated.
As I have pointed out, the intent of this questionnaire is, in large part, to list the problems that I have with Christianity that need to be resolved before I would consider returning to the Christian religion or some splinter group thereof. For this reason, you should really only be writing if you think that you can resolve all of the problems that I have with Christianity. Otherwise, you're wasting my time and yours in composing a response.

As I have also pointed out over and over and over, the point of this questionnaire is not to confront Christians, though most respondents seem to take it that way. If you're just going about your little Christian life without bothering people or trying to convert me, then I think that's splendid. Really. Good for you. As far as I'm concerned, you can believe in any religion you want, even if I think it's silly. The point of the Questionnaire is not to challenge your belief or get you to stop being a Christian, so please stop acting as if this is my motivation for writing it. (This is the primary motivation for those who point out that they're ignorant. It's called the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire for a reason. If you're not proselytizing to me, why are you sending me your answers?)
Pointing out that you disagree with your god's actions or the structure of salvation. If you think what he does is ethically wrong, it's slavish to continue to give him your support.
Saying that you wish things were different, but [ X ]. This is almost always a weak rhetorical attempt to make me identify with you emotionally. (Yeah, dude, I see where you're coming from.) It doesn't work because it's condescending. Answer the question without trying to jerk my emotions around. If you really have to jerk my emotions around, at least do it with finesse.
Pointing out that different Christian sects have different opinions on the question at hand. I already know that; that's part of the reason why I find your religion so ridiculous.
Explaining that you, somehow, just know that something is true, that you have faith that it is true, etc. Quite frankly, I'm not impressed, as I have major theoretical problems with this faith of yours, anyway. It seems more like a way of dressing up your, like, personal opinion, man, in a uniform to which people are supposed to kowtow—to me, faith has always seemed like something of an ex post facto rationalization for something that you're too weak or vapid to support in an intellectually respectable way.
Another way to look at it is to ask why I should trust your conclusions. Are you intelligent? Are you qualified to draw the conclusions that you draw (or, at least, better qualified than I am)? Are you evaluating all of the information available on the topic, fairly and impartially, and drawing reasonable conclusions from the evidence?

I do not claim that it is impossible that this faith you Christians are constantly yapping about might happen to describe things accurately, but merely that I fail to see a good reason to believe that it does so. After all, as you people are constantly pointing out, faith is a gift from your god, is it not? If he wants me to have it, he can give it to me. (I deduce from your other assertions about him that he knows where I live.) In the meanwhile, please stop barking about it. I really do think that I've heard all of your bizarre justifications for it before.

Finally, you people are constantly explaining that faith is a gift from your god. If your god wants me to have it, then he can give it to me. If he hasn't given it to me yet, then why does he—and why do you—blame me for lacking it?

Discussion of the Questions

The questions are here discussed individually and in small groups. You should refer to this section frequently as you write your response.

If necessary, use this space to explain any unique or unusual beliefs your sect has about the nature of your god, heaven, hell, the Bible, the Holy Spirit/Ghost, Satan, or other theological matters.
Intent of the question: To give me some background information so that I can put your later answers in context. Provided that you answer the question, there is nothing you can type here that would be considered doctrinally wrong. This is very nearly a freebie. I just want context for your later responses.

Answers to avoid: Under almost all circumstances, you should avoid pointing out that you don't belong to a sect or denomination. If you're a nondenominational Protestant fundamentalist, say so. Everyone knows that nondenominational Protestant fundamentalism is essentially a denomination. I say this because, for one thing, the formal organization of nondenominational Protestant fundamentalist churches is not significantly looser than the organizational forms of certain Protestant fundamentalist denominations, especially Pentecostal denominations.

I also say this because the doctrines espoused by nondenominational Protestant fundamentalist churches display at least as much cohesion as the doctrines espoused by other certain other Protestant denominations, and have a historical development, just like the doctrines of other churches. (Most people who respond to this question by pointing out that they don't belong to a particular sect go on to make implicit or explicit claims that their position is ahistorical.) You may think that your truth is ahistorical. Quite frankly, I doubt it. If you're so certain that your truth is ahistorical, why are you dodging the question of what you believe in the answer you give me? Don't you want me to know what your position is? Or are you afraid that if you provide enough information, I'll actually be able to evaluate your claims?

Really, the only time that you should point out that you don't belong to a sect is when you were raised and suckled in the wilderness by wolves (or other wild creatures) and you taught yourself [insert name of language], your first language, by puzzling out how to read a bible that you found, and now want to share your views with me. If you were raised a Christian, if you were raised in a Christian country, if you have studied the culture or cultural productions of Christian countries, if you've been to a church service—you've been influenced by the historical development of a particular branch of the Christian faith, and, if you want to answer this question honestly, you should give me as much information as possible about which part of the tradition has formed your opinion.

If, despite these warnings, you still want to write about nonsectarianism and interdenominational faith, you should at least give the name of your church (if you're spending your Sundays at Billy Joe Bob's Chicken Shack N' House O' Worship, write that down), the name of your pastor, why it's not affiliated with any other churches, how it's organized, and explain why your pastor is so special that he is able to correctly interpret the Reveal'd Word Of God, while other people have pastors who are Evil Deluded Heathens.

Explain why your god's only son had to die so we can go to magic happy land when we croak.

Intent of the question: You have to explain the substitutionary atonement, the belief that Jesus died for our sins, or else provide an alternate explanation for why Jesus died on the cross. For most Christians, doing this well involves a discussion of original sin, the divinity of Christ, human sacrifice, and God's justice. Under certain circumstances, it may also be profitable or necessary to discuss the Virgin birth, the betrayals of Christ, the humanity of Christ, or other topics.

Be sure that your answer here is consistent with your other answers and with the entire bible, including little-known sections. Past respondents have had real problems with consistency regarding this question.
Did everyone who died before Jesus died go to Hell? Justify your answer.
Intent of the Question: If you believe that a personal acquaitance with Jesus is necessary to salvation and/or the avoidance of eternal torture in Hell, then you need to reconcile this belief with the idea that your god is just. You will probably have to deal with original sin to do so. If you blame original sin for your belief that the normal post-death destination of the unredeemed is Hell, you must explain how it is just to punish people for the actions of remote ancestors.

Answers to avoid: It is facile to string together a variety of biblical quotes to make a tenuous argument that everyone really does have an opportunity to know Jesus (or otherwise gain access to whatever knowledge is necessary for salvation). This is obviously a weak apologetic attempt to find a back door to salvation unless you can ground it in something other than your bible. Of course your bible says everyone has a shot at salvation; this is simply your bible claiming that its requirements are fair. I don't see any good reason outside of a biblical claim, though, that this is true. Any document's testimony about itself is suspect. If this is true, where are the spontaneous mass conversions of heathens who have never heard of Jesus but are suddenly screaming his name when the Holy Spirit descends on them?
If a Catholic, justify the Inquisition and other persecutions of heretics throughout the centuries, concentrating on why the Pelagianists, the Priscillianists, and the Manichaeans were persecuted; if a Protestant, justify the witch trials and the way that Protestants constantly hunted down native Americans until there were so few that the government could simply take their land; if a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, justify the persecutions of the Old Believers after the reforms of the seventeenth century.
Explain why your sect (whether Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox) pursued, tortured, and killed people who were not Christian.
Explain why your sect (whether Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox) pursued, tortured, and killed people who were not members of your particular sect.

Intent of the questions: Many respondents try to make these into simple claims that all members of a group are individually responsible for the actions of each member of that group. I think that such a position would be ridiculous, but in fact, Christian theorists have taken just such a position with regard to Christianity (perhaps the most famous example being Fyodor Dostoevsky's character, Elder Zosima, from The Brothers Karamazov). The point of my questions here, however, is somewhat subtler. The questions are really asking you to comment on a variety of issues. For one thing, why does Christianity so easily lend itself to support for every half-assed conflict that the last twenty centuries have been able to conjure up? (The scriptures of Buddhism, for instance, seem much more resistant to this kind of rhetorical maneuver.) You need to deal with the violence inherent in the bible itself and, as pointed out above, with the totality of suggestions made by the document, not merely with specific verses that you stumble upon. You need to explain how you can belong to an institution that (a) has sanctioned these activities; and (b) claims to be the ultimate arbiter of truth. And you need to be consistent with all of your other answers.

Catholics have a special persuasive burden here because they also have to deal with the issue of the Bishop of Rome's sanction of so many of these activities in light of their claim that the Bishop of Rome is your god's highest representative on earth, and must negotiate among differing claims regarding his special cognitive relationship with your deity.
Explain why I should believe that your god is all-good when the only real information we have about him is the Bible, which clearly describes him as both good and evil. (See Isaiah 30:32, Luke 14:26, Numbers 31:17-18, Matthew 10:34, Amos 3:6, Deuteronomy 18:8, Deuteronomy 20:16, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 32:27, Isaiah 45:7, Psalms 52:5, Luke 22:36, and Jeremiah 18:11 for a small sample of Biblical passages which describe Jehovah as having an evil morality at times).

Intent of the question: These quotes are a mixed bag. In many cases, God performs actions that he condemns when other people perform them. In other cases, God specifically says that he performs evil actions.

In the first of these cases, you need to explain why, despite the fact that you people are constantly claiming that your god is good, he doesn't even live up to the lower ethical standards that he sets for us lowly mortals. In the second case, you need to explain how a good god can perform evil actions. Overall, you need to explain not just the individual quotes, but the effect created by all of the quotes on the topic (that is, you must summarize and evaluate the bible's overall position).

You are also to articulate a theory of morality that makes sense and is acceptable to me. You are to evaluate your god's actions ethically and psychologically and to decide whether you think what he did was right in those cases.
Answers to avoid: You should avoid:
- Claiming that I am arguing that your god does not exist based on my evaluation of his actions. This is both facile and absurd; it also misrepresents my position. As I have pointed out numerous times in the introductory and explanatory documents relating to the Questionnaire—and as should be apparent from the Questionnaire itself—the unstated introductory clause beginning each question should be on the order of Christianity could plausibly be faulted because … . I am not claiming that your god is nonexistent based on his actions, but asking you whether a god who acts this way is worthy of worship, and whether he is really good, as you people constantly claim.
- Claiming that god is really punishing evildoers in these passages. In fact, it is rarely the case that your god is fairly punishing evildoers. Quite frequently, he orders indiscriminate slaughter of good and evil alike, punishes the son for the sins of the father while letting the father go unpunished, or punishes members of other tribes for not worshipping Israel's tribal god. All of these are ridiculous acts for an ethical deity to perform.
- Providing a single justification for only one of these acts. Answering this way leaves the other actions unjustified, and fails to address the underlying problem of your god's egomania.
Explain why, when racism is clearly wrong, Jesus was clearly a racist (see Mark 7:25-29). NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe that racism is morally acceptable.
Explain why, when discrimination against women is clearly wrong, the Bible clearly supports the oppression of women. Answering this question entails refuting 1 Cor 11 and 1 Tim 2:11-15. NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe that discrimination against women solely on the basis of sex is morally acceptable.
Intent of the questions: The real problems with the biblical story in Mark, in my eyes, are:
1. This passage seems to show that Jesus has a strong preference for certain races of people. (This is by definition a form of racism, though not the most extreme form.) Christianity, however, often makes claims that its god judges people based not on what it portrays as accidental characteristics, such as race (or national origin, gender, socioeconomic circumstance, etc.), but rather upon some sort of (spiritual or psychological) internality that it describes as the real worth of a person. People who take this position that the Christian god's judgment is based on internal worth need to explain how this belief is congruent with the preference expressed in this passage.
2. Jesus seems to be saying that his mission is only, or primarily, to the Jews. (In fact, he makes this claim in various—often stronger—forms throughout the gospels.) You need to reconcile this, in a persuasive manner, with Christianity's later message of universalism.
Similar, though simpler, comments could be made about the passages relating to women: You need to explain why your god appears to assign them what is unilaterally a less-important role. Pointing out that your god has done so is irrelevant: I already know that. You must make an ethical judgment about your god's actions and a psychological judgment about his motives.

Oh, and make sure that this answer is consistent with your other answers. Past respondents have had real problems with consistency regarding this question.
Answers to avoid: Past respondents have frequently pointed out that one doesn't have to be a Christian to be a racist or sexist, or (equivalently) pointed to racism and/or sexism in other traditions. This is completely irrelevant: I'm looking for an argument that explains why Christianity is not really racist and sexist. If all you can do is point out that other belief systems are just as bad, I'm unlikely to be impressed with your Transcendent Vision of Ultimate Truth.

You should also avoid pointing out that social mores were different back then, unless you consistently take a relativist position throughout your answers to this document and are able to explain why all the biblical passages that condemn relativist morality don't really mean what they say. You people are constantly asserting that morals are objective and are founded in some way in your religion (in the innate goodness of god, in the Law, in the moral precepts of this Jesus figure of yours, or in some other way). Taking the position that morals change over time in a manner consistent with your other answers and for reasons based in your bible is a very difficult thing for most Christians to do.
Explain why, when slavery is clearly wrong, the Bible clearly supports slavery. Answering this question entails refuting 1 Peter 2:18. NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe that slavery is an acceptable way to structure an economy.
Intent of the question: You should explain why the authors of the New Testament seem to be in favor of slavery. You definitely need to be familiar with biblical references on this topic other than those listed in this question.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid equating the slavery mentioned here with onerous financial obligations, as many respondents have done (Hey, if slavery is wrong, how come you're selling yourself into it by taking educational loans from the government?). The forcible abduction and ownership of people is qualitatively different from credit-card debt.

You should avoid taking a culturally relativist position here unless you do so throughout your responses and are able to explain convincingly that the biblical passages condemning relativism don't really mean what they say.
Explain why children should submit to their parents' decisions even when those decisions are clearly evil. Answering this question entails refuting Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Proverbs 13:24, and Hebrews 12:7-8.

Answers to avoid: Almost everyone who responds to this question expresses the position in their replies that children should obey their parents in what I shall call (for the sake of being concise, and laying to the side any sociological or statistical considerations) call the normal situation (that is to say, the parents have the best interests of the children in mind, are not insane, judge their children fairly, etc.). Most respondents, that is, read this question as if I'm saying that children should not, generally speaking, do what their parents say.

This is ridiculous. It makes it sound as if I'm claiming that all children should be hitting their parents in the head with bricks. This type of response completely ignores the second part of the sentence: even when those decisions are clearly evil. Pointing out that children should usually obey their parents has nothing to do with answering this question; in what I am calling the normal situation, I agree with you. You need to justify the fact that your bible consistently makes a blanket assertion (Children should obey their parents) without leaving room for exceptions (Hey, little Johnny, I don't think you're growing fast enough. You'll have to be punished. C'mere so I can put this cigarette out on your eyeball.).
Explain why, if your god loves us all, more than half of us are going to Hell after we die. Specifically, refute or explain the following words of Christ, as presented in the New Testament: Many are called but few are chosen, and Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto salvation, and few there be that find it. If your god loves all of us, couldn't he find a better way?
Explain what type of offense could possibly justify eternal, unbearable torture in Hell; if your sect does not believe in Hell, then refute every passage in the Old and New Testaments which describes Hell (such as 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 and Revelation 20:15). (Do not exceed 100 words.)

Answers to avoid: You should avoid making claims of the I wish it weren't that way, but I didn't make the rules variety. This gives me no real information about your position. You should (a) explain that you're a pansy who kowtows to the whims of a sadistic tyrant because things would, like, be unpleasant if you didn't, and admit that ethics is situational and dependent upon your doing what's best for you; (b) claim that there's not really any Hell, and explain in a plausible manner why the bible seems to claim that there is; or (c) explain why the position expressed in the passage above makes sense in some plausible way.

You should also avoid pointing out that religions other than Christianity also believe in eternal punishment. For one thing, the views of other religions on the subject of punishment and reward after death do not map onto the Christian version nearly as well as most Christians seem to think they do; for another, even if true, this argument would be completely irrelevant. You claim that your religion is the only true one; you should explain why it's better than others, not why it's not any worse.
Explain how your god can be both just and merciful, when these terms apparently contradict each other.
Intent of the question: These terms, as they are usually understood, are mutually exclusive. On the simplest level, one exercises justice by giving a person exactly what (s)he deserves; one exercises mercy by giving a person better than (s)he deserves. (It appears to be contradictory that a person could be given both exactly what (s)he deserves and better than (s)he deserves.) The most obvious way to answer this question is to point toward a (plausible) meaning of the terms that allows them to coexist as attributes of the same individual.
Explain why possession by demons and/or other evil spirits was common during the time of Jesus, but hardly mentioned at all in the Old Testament, and apparently has been explained completely away today by things such as epilepsy and schizophrenia.
Intent of the question: You have to deal with at least two issues here, either implicitly or explicitly. The first of these is whether or not you believe in demonic possession. If you do, you should explain the relationship between demonic possession and the forms of mental imbalance mentioned in the question; you should also provide a plausible explanation of the phenomenon of the varying incidence of demonic possession throughout time that the question notes. If you do not believe in demonic possession, you should explain why the bible seems to describe it in such unambiguous terms.
Explain why, if the personality resides in the soul, things like drugs and brain damage can affect someone's personality.

Intent of the question: Christians usually assert that the soul is, in some sense, the locus of the real essence of a person. Christians usually assert this despite the fact that they don't really understand what the soul is, or where it resides, or what it means when they say that the soul is, in some sense, the real person. (This is because you people have faith.) The soul is usually understood to be immaterial—that is, it does not occupy space or engage in spatial interactions with objects. Despite this, it somehow animates the body.

This doctrine of the immateriality of the soul becomes problematic under certain circumstances, such as the ones listed in this question. If the soul is immaterial—that is, if it does not interact with the material universe, if this universe is not its home—then how is it that material phenomena can affect the manner in which the soul behaves, as evidenced by the actions and speech of the body? You need to deal with this by explaining the precise nature of the relationship between the soul and the physical world.
If heaven is a place where everyone is perfectly happy, then explain how I could be happy in heaven if I had loved ones in Hell.
Yes, several respondents have pointed out that nowhere is there a direct claim in the bible that says Heaven is a place where everyone is perfectly happy. Good for you if you noticed this. However, your religion probably includes many beliefs that do not result from direct claims in the bible. For instance, you probably believe that Jesus is God, but nowhere in the bible does Jesus say, I am God. If you don't believe that Heaven is a place where people are perfectly happy, then explain this and make sure to continue your explanation into the next few questions. This Questionnaire was not specifically designed for you, and this is something you should know by now if you're writing a response to the HPQ.

Intent of the question: You are to explain what I find to be a doctrinal problem with your religion. There is no trick here; I am simply confused how I can be happy when members of my friends and family are being eternally tortured down below.
What is Heaven like?
What is Hell like?
Intent of the questions: These two may look like freebies, but they aren't. You need to make Heaven look attractive, Hell look unpleasant, and your answers consistent with a wide variety of responses to other questions. Your answers also need to be more than mere speculation on your part: They should be based in something that you elsewhere assert is a solid foundation, such as the bible. Lots of people trip over these.
Explain why original sin exists. Why should I be eternally tortured for something that a pair of naked fruit-munching simpletons did in a garden over six thousand years ago? If you believe that children are born stained because they were conceived sexually, explain why I would be punished for something my parents did by your merciful and just god. If this does not apply to your sect, explain why.
Explain why getting dunked in or sprinkled with water will prevent me from being eternally tortured for the actions of the naked fruit-munching simpletons mentioned in #19.
If your god did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, why did he put the tree in the garden of Eden (and at the center, no less)? Was it for shade? If so, why use something so dangerous as a shade tree? If the purpose of the tree was to tempt Adam and Eve, explain why it's OK for your god to engage in a practice that our modern-day courts of law refer to as entrapment.

Intent of the questions: Original Sin is a more problematic doctrine than you people seem to realize. For one thing, you need to explain why your god would punish children for their ancestors' sins. (This is neither just nor merciful.) For another, you need to explain (implicitly or explicitly) why you agree or disagree with the assertion made by (for instance) John Milton that Original Sin was actually a good thing, because it prepared the ground for Jesus to be born by creating a necessity for redemption. You need to explain how original sin fits into the general schema of sin and salvation, and what baptism has to do with all of it. You should probably deal with the question of how Adam and Eve could have been expected to make moral judgments before they knew anything about the difference between good and evil. You definitely need to deal with the question of what the point of the tree was in the first place, and why your god left it in a garden that he specifically designed to be the home of people who were, morally speaking, very young children.

The third question is essentially identical with one of the problems raised by Douglas Adams in his novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?

Yes of course I do.

Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting 'Gotcha'. It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.

Why not?

Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.

You should also ensure that your answers are consistent with your answers to other questions. These questions cause problems for a lot of respondents. Your answers should be clear and, if you believe that the story of the Fall is more than a myth, should explain why I should believe this as well.

Answers to avoid: Avoid simply asserting that the story is true without backing up your assertion. Each of these three questions is the subject of more assertions without supporting arguments than any question not in this group.

This is also probably the single most popular location for tu quoque attacks. Although the questions seem to me to be written clearly, a respondent can only make a tu quoque attack here if she misunderstands the questions to be claiming either (a) that Christianity is to be faulted for claiming that the world is fucked up, despite the fact that it is not—a ridiculous position—or (b) that I'm claiming that the fact that the world is fucked up is the fault of Christianity.

Position (a), above, is patently ridiculous. Of course I think that the world is fucked up, and of course I'm not complaining that Christianity points this out. My objection is that the state of the world, judged by Christian ethical standards, doesn't jibe too well with the image of a just and merciful and omnipotent god who loves us all. It is difficult to reconcile the image of this god, in turn, with the punishment of individuals for things that their ancestors did. My complaint is that there are puzzle pieces here that don't fit well together, not that the picture depicted on the front of the puzzle is unacceptable.

As for position (b), above: One could plausibly maintain it, at least in a weakened form, but that's a separate issue, and it's not what I'm doing here.
Explain why sex, potentially one of the most wonderful, beautiful things in human nature, is considered bad by your particular sect. If your sect does not consider sex to be bad, then refute Matthew 19:12, 1 Corinthians 7 (particularly verses 1 and 9), Galatians 5:17, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, James 1:14-15, Matthew 24:38, Luke 17:27, and Revelation 14:4.
Intent of the question: You are to provide a theoretical and ethical approach to sexuality that is (a) acceptable to me and (b) consistent with your own doctrine. I freely admit that this is probably one of the most difficult things that you will have to do in your responses to the Questionnaire. This may be one of those areas in which your beliefs and mine are, quite simply, mutually incompatible.

Answers to avoid: Almost everyone who answers this question simply provides facile interpretations of the biblical verses mentioned in the question. In fact, if you actually read the question, you will see that simply providing facile or glib interpretations does not actually address the issue there. You need to provide a theoretico-ethical approach to sexuality in your answer.

Additionally, simply providing glib interpretations of the verses individually does not answer the question because the verses don't exist individually; they are part of an integrated viewpoint in your bible and act together to shape people's opinions about sex, sexuality, marriage, and related topics. You need to imagine how they can be taken as a group—to form syllogisms, for instance. This, at least, is how your theologians have been taking biblical verses for more than one and a half thousand years, so I don't understand why you people can't seem to put two and two together when you see them on a piece of paper or computer screen just because the writing thereon happens to lack the Nihil obstat or the sanction of Pastor Fred at Billy Joe Bob's House O' th' Lord.
Explain why, if Jesus was perfect, he thought that the end of the world was coming soon, when it has clearly not come yet. (See Matthew 16:27-28.)
You should definitely look up the original biblical reference on this one. Your answer must (1) make sense in the context of the specific phrasing of what Jesus said, (2) be plausible, and (3) not depend upon a presupposition that the bible is true.

Answers to avoid: Many people reply to this question by claiming that Jesus must have returned by now, otherwise the bible would be untrue. (This violates principle (3), above.) At least one semi-major denomination has claimed that Jesus has returned, but is invisible. Both of these answers are ridiculous without extremely interesting supporting arguments.
Explain why some people (James, Peter, Paul, Thomas, etc.) should get convincing physical proof of miracles, while the rest of us are supposed to take these happenings on faith.
Intent of the question: Your coreligionists often claim that Christianity is, in some way, radically egalitarian regarding the opportunities that individuals have to access salvation. This is problematic in certain instances. Of course the disciples are believers—they get to see Jesus walking on water, raising the dead, not getting a woody when hookers play with his hair, etc. However, the rest of us are supposed to take the word of a boring, confused, self-contradictory tome. You need to explain how this is egalitarian.

This question is structurally similar to questions about how your god can be fair regarding opportunities for access to salvation among people who do not have the opportunity to have historical knowledge of Jesus—ancient pagans, remote tribes, etc. You should ensure that your answer to this question provides a view compatible with your answers to those questions. People trip over this sometimes.
Why are the stories of the crucifixion and resurrection inconsistent?
Since you're an unusually bright boy or girl, and certainly mentally superior to most of the respondents to the HPQ, you'll definitely note that the key word here is inconsistent, not different.

Answers to avoid: Unless you take a position elsewhere that allows for biblical errancy (in which case, you have substantial other problems), do not point out that the various resurrection accounts were written by different people and should be expected to be different. This is, of course, true; however, it doesn't get at the heart of the question. (I'm not asking why they're different, and it's facile to pretend that I am asking that: I'm asking why they're mutually incompatible.) The problem is that the various accounts seem to describe it with mutually incompatible details. (One story says X about a detail, another story says Y about the same detail, and it is not possible that both X and Y are true.) If both X and Y are described in the bible, and only one is possible, then the bible has an error in it somewhere. If the bible has one error in it, why should I believe that it doesn't have more?

This is another one of those thorny questions that causes many people to have consistency problems. Be careful.
If you are a Protestant or a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, explain why you are still using the Catholic Bible, which was formalized by a vote among (supposedly divinely inspired) cardinals and bishops in the fourth century CE, when you disagree with the idea that the Pope, who is higher in the Catholic hierarchy, is divinely inspired; if a Catholic, explain why your church accepts the canonical Bible while rejecting the Apocrypha. (Do not use the divinely inspired argument: Because I am not religious, I do not give it the credence that you do).
Intent of the question: The issue of which biblical texts are canonical is problematic because nowhere in the bible itself does it say which books are to be in the bible. Deciding that the bible should include the Gospel According to Mark but not the Gospel According to Mary Magdalene (an actual existent text composed at about the same time) requires making an extrascriptural judgment. Answering this question in a non-trivial manner requires you to expose the manner in which you distinguish the sacred from the profane.
If your god is kind and gentle, why do some animals have to eat meat?
If your god is kind and gentle, why did he create parasites?

Answering these questions requires that you expose your beliefs about the fundamental nature of your god and the fundamentals of what constitutes an ethical action. Frequently, respondents disclose a great deal of other information in the process of answering these questions, as well.

You may not think that your god is kind and gentle—and may point out that nowhere in your bible does it say God is kind and gentle—but many of your coreligionists believe so. A simple web search will reveal many assertions that your god is, in fact, kind and gentle, many of which claim to have a biblical basis. You need to deal with this problem of doctrinal/biblical ambiguity, not only in this question, but throughout your response.

Remember that the HPQ is not tailored specifically to your particular beliefs. Remember that it is a generic questionnaire for all sorts of people who describe themselves as Christian. Remember that one of the many things you're trying of which you're trying to convince me is that you are an emotionally mature person.
If your god wants us to worship him through our own free will, why does he threaten us with Hell? (The most common claim that Christians make involving God's motivation for desiring worship is that he desires worship springing from the pure love of the worshipper. Doesn't his threat of Hell mean that a large number of worshippers worship him out of purely selfish motives?)

Intent of the question: Your standard Christian explanation for your god's desire to be worshipped is that it pleases him when, out of pure and unselfish love, people shower him with thanks for the wondrous things he has done. However, the most common reason your proselytes give me as an explanation of why I should worship him is that I'll be eternally tortured if I don't. If true, this provides a strong motivation for me to worship him for reasons contrary to his alleged motivation for wanting to be worshipped in the first place.

Why is this?
Why would your god deliberately cause sinners to sin? (See Romans 9:15-23 and numerous parts of the book of Exodus where Jehovah says, I will harden Pharaoh's heart.) Are these sinners still responsible for the sins which your god forces them, against their will, to commit? Justify your answer.
I love watching the theological backflips on this one.

Intent of the question: Your god often asserts in his silly little ghostwritten book that he wants people to be good, because he wants us all to come to heaven. This is supposed to be true because he loves all of us. If this is true, why does he specifically cause people to do things that will prevent their entry into heaven? This is a theologically difficult position for him to put himself in. Why does he actively prevent people from doing what he claims to want them to do?

Answers to avoid: You should avoid arguing that your god only hardens the hearts of those already sinning or any such hogwash, because (a) elsewhere your god claims that he's happier with the one lost sheep who comes back to the fold than the hundred (or however many it is) who never leave, and (b) you people are constantly claiming that we're all sinners. If (a) is true, why does he specifically prevent the single lost sheep coming back to the fold? Arguing in this vein simply shifts the problem from one form to another, but the underlying question remains the same: Why does your god say one thing and then do another? Why doesn't he walk like he talks? And, if (b) is true, why does he not harden all of our hearts? How is this egalitarian?
If Jesus did have to die, why did someone (specifically, Judas) have to be damned in order accomplish the death and resurrection of Jesus? (Jesus was at least a volunteer for the cross; I doubt that your god asked Judas if he was willing to go to Hell so that the resurrection could be accomplished.)
If Judas was willing to go to Hell for humanity (see #31), didn't he make more of a sacrifice than Jesus, who spent only three hours in pain? Shouldn't we then be worshipping Judas?
Intent of the questions: These two are yet more questions about your just and merciful god. There are a substantial number of biblical passages suggesting that someone had to betray Jesus in order for the mechanism of salvation to take place. Why is this? That is to say, why did your god require that someone be damned in order to accomplish the resurrection? It seems that the whole mechanism of crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation could easily have been accomplished without the necessity of betrayal—e.g. the authorities could simply have found Jesus without help. Some people have actually suggested that Jesus was using his divine powers to hide from the authorities, which, though nowhere indicated in the bible, is certainly consistent with his behavior in Gethsemane, etc. Still, this merely shifts the burden of the question. If Jesus was using his supernatural powers to hide, why was Judas—a natural man—able to pierce through this mystic veil of secrecy? Nor does this really answer the question: Why would Jesus hide in the first place? Didn't he want to save us from our sins? If so, it seems that the only reason he was hiding was to require a betrayal. Again, you have to explain why a betrayal was required.

Answers to avoid: You should probably avoid claiming that Judas is not really in hell. Matthew 26:24 says that the betrayer would have been better off if he had never been born. If you claim that Judas is not in hell, you need to explain what this passage means, and all of the answers I've seen so far are extremely weak. The most common claim on this matter that I've received says that it would have been better for Judas never to have been born because now he's famous for being the betrayer of Jesus, but would it not be better to be hated by men and be in heaven than never to have been born at all? (This is a form of what you people commonly claim about your system of otherworldly ethics in a worldly world, and crops up quite frequently when you talk about the martyrs.)

Moreover, Christianity asserts, in a general way, that acceptance of Jesus and rejection of worldly matters is the path of salvation. Judas performed the ultimate rejection of Jesus—betrayal to authorities who wanted to execute him—for a monetary pittance. This is exactly the opposite of what leads to salvation.

Finally, Judas has been betrayed as residing in Hell for most of the two thousand years of the Christian tradition. To pick just one example, Canto XXXIV of Dante's Inferno places Judas closer to the center of Hell than any other being except for Satan (and, symbolically, deeper in guilt than anyone else). Dante also named the lowest circle of Hell Judecca.
Why should we accept the words of the gospel writers as truth when they are known to be liars? (See Romans 3:7.)
Intent of the question: Paul strongly suggests here that successful propagandizing is substantially more important than honesty. Given the fact that he admits to his shady motives, you need to explain why you think that Paul and the rest of the new testament authors were honest.

Answers to avoid: several respondents have pointed out that Paul did not write any of the gospels. This is true, but dodges the point of the question, and is smarmy to boot. Phrasing the question in this way was a side effect of writing the Questionnaire so quickly—it was an accidental oversight. It has been corrected in later versions of the HPQ.
Do you believe that your god is anti-homosexual? If so, explain why he would create homosexuals in the first place. If not, refute or explain away Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27.
Taking the tack that your god doesn't mind homosexuality is actually probably easier here, believe it or not. If you're going to argue that god dislikes homosexuality, and if you're all right with that, you need to do several different things. One of the things that you need to do is to answer the question. (Very few people actually bother to answer this question; most prefer to change the subject slightly and answer some other question that I haven't asked.) You need to make sure that you answer it in a manner that is consistent with your answers to other questions. You then need to explain why you believe the verses relating to homosexuality are (a) still applicable in modern times and (b) meant to be understood literally. (This may seem to be a straightforward task, but in fact there are innumerable verses all over the bible that fail one or the other test in your interpretation.) If you argue that homosexuality is sinful, you need to explain why it is so. This requires developing a theory of sexuality that is consistent with your answers to other questions. If you argue that, although homosexuality is sinful, everyone is tempted, and this is just the particular form of temptation to which some people are subjected, then you need to state that, were you a homosexual but a Christian, it would be perfectly fine with you if you were never, at any point in your life, sexually satisfied. You need to be convincing when you do this.
Explain why prayer is OK, but spell casting is not, when both amount to the same thing: requesting that a superior supernatural force to intercede in a way that would be impossible according to the normally accepted laws of physics.
Intent of the question: You are to explain why you're allowed to request special favors from your god, while members of other religions are not allowed to request special favors from their gods. Why do you get a privileged status? Alternately, you are to explain why the practice of passively making a request for divine favor is better than doing something that will directly bring about supernatural intervention.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid simply parroting biblical quotes. (I don't believe that the bible is the Inspired Word of the Living God, remember?) Also, you should avoid advancing the argument that adherents of other religions only (or primarily) ask for things out of selfish motives, while Christians ask engage in the practice of prayer in order to commune with their god or out of love for him. This is bullshit: Every time I hear you people talking about praying, you're talking about wanting to have an impulse gratified. Of course, maybe some of you really do pray simply for the sake of communion with your god, but I find it hard to swallow the idea that this is the primary motivation for the majority of Christians the majority of the time when they pray.
According to the Gospels, from the Christian standpoint, Jesus was the most important person to ever live. From the Roman standpoint, Jesus was a huge pain in the ass because of his political activities. Explain why nothing was written about his life for over thirty years after his death, and nothing except the Gospels was written until the third century CE.
Explain why you believe a person whose life is so poorly documented (see #36) was even ever born.

Intent of the questions: A person could plausibly maintain that no such historical personage as your Jesus fellow ever existed. (An extended argument in this vein is part of the document Jesus, by N., which was formerly posted on the Why Christians Suck site, back when there was a Why Christians Suck site.)

Such a position is surprisingly hard to refute. There is very little writing about Jesus within a century of his death, and what writing does exist is either of questionable authenticity (passages allegedly by Josephus, for instance, are often read as having been interpolated by later, more Christian, copyists) or written by people who clearly had something to gain by stretching the truth or fabricating stories completely (this is true of Paul, for instance). There are literally hundreds of people who lived before the supposed lifetime of this Jesus fellow and were of lesser importance, although their lives are better documented. Although some people who call themselves Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is merely a legend that is useful for the teaching of ethical precepts, the vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical personage who was really born of a virgin, really healed the sick, really rose from the dead, really said all those bizarre things, etc. If you're one of the people who really believes that Jesus was a real person who really did all those things that the bible says, you need to explain why you believe such ridiculous things based on such scanty evidence.

Extended discussions on this topic can also be found in The Historicity of Jesus FAQ, by Scott Oser. An (in)famous argument against an important piece of evidence for the historicity of Jesus can be found in Dr. Gordon Stein's essay The Jesus of History: A Reply to Josh McDowell.

Answers to avoid: You should definitely avoid suggesting that there used to be scads of information, but that much of it hasn't survived through the ages. If you do that, all you're really doing is providing a plausible reason why such writing, if it existed, could have been destroyed. You're not providing a reason why I should believe X, but merely a reason that X is not impossible. I'm asking for the first—a reason to believe X—and you're giving me the second. Stop and think very carefully to make sure you understand this important difference before making this argument.

You should also avoid pointing out that you believe that the new testament is true. Of course you do; you're a Christian who feels strongly enough about your new testament to write to write to me about what it says. That doesn't mean that I find it convincing, that its scholarship is credible or respectable, or that contemporaneous historians without the overt motives for gain that the apostles had would find it believable. There are serious scholarly objections to the historicity of the new testament story. If you don't know what they are, then I expect you to find out before you compose your answers to these questions. Just pointing out that you believe that the new testament is historically accurate, however, is facile.
Define the word Christ, including references to the pagan origins and meaning of the word.
Intent of the question: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of non-Christian religions and of the historical development of Christian doctrine. Your answer should include an etymology of the word and an explanation of its meaning and use prior to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Explain why Jesus, who was anti-Gentile (see Mark 7:25-29) and anti-sex (see Luke 14:26 and Matthew 19:12), would want to be anointed with oil in a pagan sexual rite after his death (see your definition for #38).
Intent of the question: You are to explain one of the incongruous bumps where the overlay of paganism fails to lie smoothly on the Jewish base of your religion, and you are to do so in a plausible manner.
In light of Matthew 10:34, explain why Jesus is called the Prince of Peace.
Intent of the question: You need to reconcile a common nickname for Jesus, which is representative of only one side of the figure depicted in the gospels, with the totality of the stories about that figure.

Answers to avoid: Believe it or not, some people answer this question by pointing out that Jesus is not a wimp. I know that; that's why I'm asking the question. You should avoid pointing out that other parts of the new testament paint Jesus in a more favorable light; I know they do, this is part of the problem of establishing what your god's character is really like.
The name Jesus has been anglicized. What was the original (Hebrew) name of Jesus? Where did you get this information? This is a bonus question.
Intent of the question: Again, you are to demonstrate a knowledge of the history of your own religion.
Why is it that the life of Jesus was so similar to the lives of pagan Christs, particularly Herakles, Dionysios, and Asklepios?
Intent of the question: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of comparative mythology by showing me implicitly that you can see the parallels. You are also to explain in a plausible manner, consistent with your other beliefs and the content of your doctrine, why these parallels exist. Doing so requires a knowledge of other religions and of the historical development of many religions (including Christianity and several extinct religions).
If your god requires that people believe in him and follow his orders through their own free will, why do Christians push their views on public policy?
Explain why being a good Christian requires you to push your beliefs on others. If you do not believe that you have to push your views on others (no matter how much this annoys them), explain why you do not believe this despite the fact that the New Testament seems to suggest that you must do this to get to Heaven (for instance, in Matthew 28:19-20).
Intent of the question: You need to deal with your motives for proselytizing to me and your motives for proselytizing in general. Doing this well requires a firm knowledge of what the bible has to say on the subject. It also allows me to get a fairly firm handle on what kind of a person you are. I'll be checking to see if you are empathetic, i.e. if you can imagine yourself in the place of the unbelievers to whom you preach. How would you feel if you were approached by a door-to-door Satanist, pagan, Muslim, Buddhist, or other proselyte? Are your other answers informed by thoughtful consideration of the fact that most non-Christians find proselytizing an incredibly intrusive and offensive activity?
Explain why spreading the truth of Christ requires you to spread lies about other religions, such as the idea that Wiccans (so-called white witches) worship the Christian devil. (Incidentally, they don't, and this rumor has been persistently spread by Christians since the second century CE).

At least one respondent has taken this question as evidence that I am a Wiccan. In fact, I'm not and never have been; I made a specific claim to another position in the introductory paragraphs to this essay (although I no longer describe myself that way).

I take reasoning of this type as more evidence that Christianity often blunts a genuine moral sense: I suspect that J.P. Holding, for instance, assumes that I can't be outraged by offenses committed against Wiccans unless I am one because he doesn't care about people in general, but only those who will agree with him and slap him on the back for having such good taste in religious matters. Of course, the idea that people are not inherently valuable except insofar as they worship a particular tribe's obscure desert god isn't particularly surprising when it comes from a Christian.
At no point in the four Gospels did Jesus claim to be the son of your god. (He said son of man quite frequently, and at one point referred to himself as a son of god, but that was a common Hebrew expression at the time. Someone who was a son of god was a Jew. This reflected the Israelites' belief that they were the chosen people of your god. See also Job 1:6.) Why, then, do you believe that Jesus was divine? If you don't believe that Jesus was divine, then why do you call yourself a Christian?
Intent of the question: If your Jesus really was the son of God, why didn't he come right out and say so? You need to provide a plausible reason why your god, who (according to you) loves all of us and wants us to attain salvation, would withhold a fact so central to the possibility of attaining salvation. If believing that he is god is a necessary condition of salvation, and if he wants everyone to attain salvation, why doesn't he tell anyone that he is god?

Answers to avoid: It is fairly common to respond that Jesus did claim to be god when he appeared to Paul, but this is facile. Why was Paul so privileged? Why is Paul the one person on earth who gets to hear the truth, and why do the rest of us have to take Paul's word for it—especially when there are other, more plausible, explanations for Paul's testimony? (Again, see the essay Jesus, by N.)
Given the fact that Jesus did not say anything original (the Golden Rule and the turn the other cheek idea were plagiarized from Buddhism; and the Beatitudes were common in the Jewish devotional literature at the time), why do you see Jesus as such a great thinker/philosopher/ethicist?
Jesus's ass would have gotten booted out of any decent modern school for all the plagiarism he did. And rightly so, too.

Intent of the question: Jesus's role in bringing your Christian wisdom (so-called) to the world was, at best, the role of a compiler or editor. This seems like a rather petty role for the Undisputed Ruler Of The Entire Universe to send his only son to play. Why didn't he just call out another prophet? (The prophets shine when it's a just a matter of repeating what's already been said.)
When Jesus said, Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also, why do you suppose that most Christians fight for their rights? To put it another way, why don't we, as a country whose population is 85% Christian, let the government abuse us?
Intent of the question: You are to explain why the standard behavior of most Christians seems to be incongruous with the precepts of the figure at the center of your religion.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid pointing out that Jesus's precept is ineffective in the modern world. I know that; that's not what the question is asking. You people are constantly claiming that adherence to your ethical code is more important than worldly success; why don't you pony up on this one?
Why are so many Christian holidays on the same day as Pagan holidays? Couldn't the early Church fathers have converted pagans only by appealing to their reason and/or faith if Christianity really is the true religion?
Intent of the question: You are to provide a plausible explanation for one of the more obvious instances of the absorption of elements of paganism into your religion, and are to do so in a way that is consistent with your other answers and doesn't invalidate your other assertions that Christianity is the One True Faith.
Explain how your god can be just and merciful in light of Exodus 20:5.
Intent of the question: Your god claims, here and elsewhere, that he punishes children for the sins of their parents. This seems to contradict Christianity's assertion that your god judges people solely based on their own merit. You need to resolve this contradiction to my satisfaction.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid pointing out that, in real life, the decisions of parents actually do have an effect on their children. I know this; I realize that sexually transmitted diseases can be passed to children by infected pregnant mothers and that children of alcoholics frequently do not perform well in school. I understand that children who grow up in homes with socially dysfunctional parents have difficulty being socialized. This is, however, qualitatively different from a just and merciful god actively persecuting the children of sinners. Your answer should show that you understand this difference.
Do you believe that the Old Testament should be accepted as part of Christian theology? If so, explain how you can worship such a cruel, sadistic asshole (see Numbers 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 20:16, Proverbs 20:30, Amos 3:6, Deuteronomy 13:8, Psalms 3:7, Psalms 52:5, etc.); if not, explain how you can believe that Jesus is the promised savior sent by your god without the messianic prophecies and the ruling rights of the line of David, both of which are in the Old Testament in books such as Isaiah, Zechariah, Daniel, Psalms, etc. (as opposed to, say, believing that Jesus was an irritating nut wandering around saying things that people didn't like much).

Intent of the question: This is another question about how the incongruities between your Christian religion and the Jewish religion, on which you people constantly claim it is based. You need to explain either (a) why the character of your god changes so much between the so-called old and new testaments, or (b) how Jesus can be who you claim he is without the prophetic mechanisms that you appropriate from Judaism.

Your choice.

Structural note: Ensure that you answer the first question in this item. Most respondents don't, but simply try to justify their god's actions. You should also ensure that your answer is consistent with your other answers; this is another one where people have major consistency problems.
Explain why your just and merciful god sent bears to kill forty-two children who called his prophet Elisha baldhead. (See 2 Kings 2:23-24).
Intent of the question: Once again, you are to explain how the punishment fits the crime. You are to make a moral judgment about whether or not it was fair to slaughter more than forty children due to an insult. Were the children old enough to understand what they were doing (and, hence, be responsible for their actions)? Is death—mass slaughter, in fact—an appropriate penalty for disrespect? Were the children likely to know who they were insulting? Is this congruous? Do you approve of your god's actions?
If prostitution is wrong, why are there so many examples of it in Genesis? (For instance, Gen 19:8, where Lot offers his daughters to a mob so that his guests can avoid gang rape).
Intent of the question: Of course, I'm not simply asking why prostitution appears in Genesis; there are plenty of examples of people committing sins in the bible that are portrayed with disapproval. The question has to do with why prostitution is portrayed without moral condemnation in Genesis (i.e., why doesn't your god punish it? why do people who commit it actually get rewarded later? why is the source of all morality suddenly silent on the subject when something that it so strongly criticizes elsewhere pops up in the course of the narrative?).
What is the sin that people committed that is so incredibly bad that your god had to become flesh and die to correct?

Intent of the question: You are to provide a plausible and convincing answer that is grounded in something more convincing than your personal desire to believe something that is comforting to you. (Most answers here are little more than some form of wishful thinking.)

This question is also, to a large extent, a consistency check. Many people answer this question in a manner that is inconsistent with their answers to other questions.
Are all members of other faiths bad? Are they all damned to Hell? Justify your answer with quotes from the Bible.
Are all atheists/agnostics/humanists/heathens bad? Are they all damned to Hell? Justify your answer with quotes from the Bible.
Intent of the question: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of your own bible and your ability to interpret it. Simple enough, right?
What was your motive in proselytizing to me?
Intent of the question: Exactly what it asks. It's also a consistency check with other questions.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid making broad, facile assertions. If you assert that you love me, you should do so in a way that makes me feel special. (See the Frequently Asked Questions on the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire for more about this. You should have already read this document before beginning to compose your response.)
Where is Heaven?
Where is Hell?
Intent of the question: These two questions may look like freebies, but they're not. You need to come up with plausible answers that have a solid foundation and are consistent with the rest of your answers. The lack of restrictions in the phrasing is not a license to speculate.

Answers to avoid: Many people are snide here. This comes across looking like an attempt to drag a red herring across a track—that is, it looks like you're trying to be funny to distract my attention from the fact that you don't know what to say. I recommend that you simply answer the questions.
Why don't animals go to heaven or hell when they die? What makes us so special?
Intent of the question: You are to explain in a non-trivial manner why people are substantially different from animals in this regard. Your answer should be both convincing and non-facile.
Why does Satan try to get peoples' souls?
Once Satan has someone's soul, what does he do with it?
Intent of the question: The figure of Satan is problematic (though, to most Christians, of secondary importance in the mechanism of sin and salvation). He's always seemed to me more like a plot device than a well-rounded character: For instance, he's ascribed motives in excruciatingly general terms (Rebellion) that doesn't really explain anything about what Satan would want as an individual. He's halfway in between being a literary character and a force of nature, as nearly as I can read the material dealing with this fellow.

These two questions ask you to reveal the motivations of this rather shadowy character who lives, as it were, in between the cracks of your mythological scheme. I want to know what kind of person he is, and in getting to understand someone, it's helpful to know what makes them tick. Why would Satan want souls, anyway? If he's evil and powerful and immortal, doesn't he have anything better to do than try to trick you Christians? (Most of the Christians I know are grubby and ignorant, and like it that way.) You should avoid speculating: Ground your answer in something firm instead.
Is your god perfect? Justify your answer.

Intent of the question: You are to produce an argument about what perfect really means, especially in the context in which it can be used to describe your god. You are then to argue whether or not this word can properly be attributed to your god.

Simple, really.
Where does our soul stay while we are alive?

Answers to avoid: Believe it or not, no one at all has yet managed to actually answer this question (with the single exception of one respondent whose entire response was in your body.). I don't mean that they haven't answered it to my satisfaction; I mean, rather, that what respondents have written so far in response to this question doesn't address the issue in any way. Many people write something along the lines of your soul is you. This is a statement of identification, not a description of location. If you mean that the soul stays with the body, you need to say this explicitly; some religions believe that a person is a soul, but that the soul somehow remains somewhere else. (This belief can be found in many fairy tales in which some evil person enchants someone and steals his/her soul.)

In answering this question, you need to answer it explicitly, probably in a sentence that uses one or more prepositions.
Explain how you can believe in Satan when your faith is directly descended from the Jewish faith, when the Jews did not even believe in Satan until they absorbed the Egyptian god Set while they were captives in Egypt.
Intent of the question: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of the history of your own religion and the development of this rather shadowy character in your answer.
Why do evil people often prosper? Justify your answer.
Why do good people so often fail to prosper? Justify your answer.
Intent of the question: Part of Christianity's claim to radical egalitarianism is that the virtuous are rewarded, while the sinful are punished. Many parts of the bible seem to say that this happens both in this life and the next; however, many people who are regarded as sinners by the standard of (some interpretation of) biblical ethics seem to prosper, while those regarded as virtuous by (some interpretation of) biblical ethics seem to struggle. Why is this? And why does mainstream Christianity try to wriggle out of the problem by removing reward and punishment to some nebulous, after-death Magic Happy Land or Eternal Sad Place?
When the end of the world comes, will your god raise our actual bodies, or just our souls? Explain.
Intent of the question: Again, you are to demonstrate a knowledge of your own sacred scriptures and your ability to interpret them.
Explain why your god lets airplanes with sinless infants on board crash.
Intent of the question: You need to deal with certain philosophical problems in a Christian manner. These problems include the problem of evil, the meaning or meaninglessness of life, and the morality of suffering.
What is sin, exactly?
Intent of the question: You people are always yapping about your disagreements about what constitutes this sin; I find it difficult to follow the debate, as it seems to me unclear which of your definitions is the real one. I want you to clear this problem up for me.
If Jesus is perfect, justify the parable of the fig tree (Matthew 21:17-19, Mark 11:14-20).
Intent of the question: You are to figure out why I think that Jesus is to be faulted for his actions relating to the fig tree, and demonstrate an understanding of my position in your explanation of why I am wrong. (Hint: You should think about how you would characterize Jesus's emotions and motivation in this instance, and decide whether this is acceptable behavior for the son of the god who is the living Word.)
Explain why Christians have harassed Wiccans (white witches) for almost two thousand years now, when the central rule of the Wiccan ethical system is an it harm no one, do what thou wilt.
Answers to avoid: Several respondents have claimed that Wicca is a modern religion and that, for this reason, Christians could not have harassed Wiccans for two thousand years, as Wicca, as defined by the Christian in question, hasn't been around that long. In fact, these are generally the same people who assert that Christianity is two thousand years old, despite the fact that modern Christianity displays about as much similarity to early Christianity, with its love-feasts and self-castrating men and catacombs and executions in arenas, as Wicca does to ancient paganism. These Christians want to claim continuity for themselves, but deny it to other religions—probably as a method of denying them some sort of legitimacy. Well, I don't buy it so far, and won't without a genuinely convincing explanation.
Explain why Christians (yes, that includes all branches of Christianity) have spread the lie that Jews put Jesus to death when, in actuality, it was the Romans who put Jesus to death. (For a good example of New Testament anti-Semitism, see 1 Thessalonians 2:15).
Intent of the question: You should deal not only with the historical reality of the situation mentioned in the passage to which I refer and other, similar, passages throughout the new testament—though this is, of course, very important—but also with the details of the text throughout your the description of your new covenant with your god. You are to display exceptional skills in your close, literary analysis of these texts.
Explain why your god created humans as imperfect, then set his standards so high that no one could possibly live up to them, then punishes us for not living up to his standards. Doesn't this also constitute entrapment?

Answers to avoid: You should avoid claiming that it's Adam and Eve's fault that we're imperfect. This doesn't get your god off the hook: If he really needed to curse them, why does he allow that curse, which prevents people from behaving as he wants them to, to be inherited from generation to generation? If you make this argument, you're merely shifting the burden of explanation.

You should also avoid asserting that there are some who are genuinely virtuous unless you can refute or explain away biblical passages claiming that no one is virtuous.
If we are created in your god's image and likeness (Gen 1:27), how can we also be imperfect?
Answers to avoid: It is facile to claim that it's Adam and Eve's fault that we're imperfect. Adam and Eve were clearly also imperfect; otherwise, how could they have sinned in such a way as to anger your god? The question clearly asks why we were created imperfect, despite the fact that your god created us in his own image and likeness. If you're claiming it's Adam and Eve's fault, you need to explain why your god created Adam and Eve as imperfect in the first place.
Why was it OK for the ancient Israelites to sacrifice animals to their god, while it is wrong for modern religions to sacrifice animals to their gods? Justify your answer.
Intent of the question: You are to explain why your just and merciful god faults people for doing things that they have never been convinced that they shouldn't do. Sure, your god has explained to modern Christians that animal sacrifice is no longer acceptable, but modern Christians are people who already believe in what he says. Why should an island savage conduct his life in accordance with your beliefs any more than you should conduct your life in accordance with hers?
Why would your god confuse people? (See 1 Sam 7:10 and Gen 11:9). Isn't life confusing enough already?
Why would your god cause blindness, deafness, and dumbness? (See Ex 4:11)
Intent of the question: You Christians are constantly claiming that your god is good. However, he constantly behaves like a petulant child. Why is this? You are to make an ethical and a psychological judgment about your god's actions. Is this the sort of fellow who really deserves to be worshipped?

Answers to avoid: You should probably avoid arguing that the people victimized in these passages deserved it. This is problematic for at least two reasons. One is that most people who take this tack simply make a tautological argument (they must have deserved it, since god did what he did.) This is not only childish, but circumvents the point of the question (which is the second reason that the answer is problematic): You are supposed to make a judgment about your god's actions.
Why would your god want to damn people by making them believe false things? (See 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).
This is another one where there are great acts of theological gymnastics.

Intent of the question: Christian doctrine usually argues that your god leaves people free to make decisions, then judges them on the basis of those decisions that they actually make. Here, however, your god is specifically described as forcing people to believe something false, then punishes them for not believing what is true. Is this the sort of behavior that a worship-worthy deity performs? Is this not like a puppeteer complaining about what his puppet does? Explain and justify your god's actions.
Should the book of Revelation be taken literally? If not, how should it be taken? Explain and justify your answer.
Intent of the question: In your answer, you are to provide a plausible argument in response to the question that is grounded in something stronger than what would be convenient and helps to establish your personal beliefs.
Would it be good for men to castrate themselves? Justify your answer, taking Matthew 19:12 into account.

Intent of the question: You are to explain why Jesus speaks favorably of castration, and to be consistent with your other comments about sex and sexuality while doing so. This is difficult for most people to do convincingly.

Your answer should also deal with the fact that many males in the early Christian church actually did castrate themselves in accordance with this edict.

Answers to avoid: Believe it or not, many people claim that Jesus was not really talking about castration in this passage. There are really only two situations in which you can do this. The first is that you can read the original text of Matthew in its original language with a degree of proficiency that, with modern languages, we refer to as fluency and you can make an informed and convincing argument that the word corresponding to the pronoun it does not have a phrase meaning making oneself a eunuch as an antecedent. The other situation is that you are arguing that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. If you take this second route, you must be convincing and demonstrate that you have a good textual reason (i.e., not I want Jesus to be speaking metaphorically) for making this claim, and must be very careful that it is consistent with your other claims about the nature of scriptural interpretation.

Some people actually make a blanket claim that Jesus never told men to castrate themselves. (The woman who refers to her herself as some ol' Christian chick actually writes, To the best of my knowledge, nowhere did Jesus, or any of the Twelve, tell men to lop it off! She says this despite the fact that I have provided a direct scriptural reference. This is a common tactic for you people: You ignore what's inconvenient for you. It's not a convincing tactic, though.)

Interesting note: Some respondents are, apparently, made so uncomfortable by any thoughts of castration that they silently drop this question from their responses. Chan Wei Yee is an example. Apparently, he'd rather drop the question than slice the sausage, like a good Christian man should—and this is one of the reasons I include Freud on my recommended reading list.
What exactly is faith?
Intent of the question: You should explain what faith is and how it is related to and different from other forms of belief, religious and otherwise. Answering this question well and convincingly involves explaining the difference between faith and believing something simply because it comforts you or because you want to believe it.

Answers to avoid: I'm aware of what Hebrews 11:1 says. You should avoid citing it unless you're prepared to expand upon its message by explaining why the existence of certainty in your head establishes the nature of extracerebral reality with complete certainty. (That is, you have to explain why the fact that your certain about your god's existence means that he really does exist, while—for instance—the certainty of the medieval world about the flatness of the earth, or the certainty of an LSD-freak that snakes and bugs are crawling around on her body, are incorrect. Both are simply certainty without proof, are they not? And is not this, more or less, what Hebrews 11:1 says faith is?)
All of the various Christian sects ignore parts of the Bible, usually because those parts of the Bible are inconvenient. Explain which parts of the Bible your sect ignores, and explain why it is OK to ignore those parts of the Bible.

Intent of the question: Almost everyone who's completed a response to the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire has used this question as an excuse to go off on some sort of tangent. Often this is pseudo-political in nature: Some ol' Christian chick somehow manages to take this question as a subversive attempt on my part to advance a feminist agenda (what?); others give me that we're all sinners, we all fall short of god's goodness crap.

This question is not asking about which parts of the bible you fail to live up to because you're a sinner; it's asking about which parts of the bible you actually ignore—i.e. consider to be generally inapplicable to your theology as a whole. This can be because you think that your god doesn't really mean that or because that's old-fashioned or because the death of Jesus freed us from our obligation to observe the letter of the Jewish Law, or whatever other convenient excuse you may find.

Learn the difference and answer the question honestly, for Christ's sake. You people are constantly insisting that your god hates a liar.
Why did your god allow Satan to do evil things to Job (Job 2:7 etc.)? Wouldn't your god better spend his time punishing unbelievers?
Intent of the question: Almost everyone misses the point here. The question deals with whether or not it was ethical for your god to torture a virtuous person in order to win a bet. Your answer has to deal with this. It is facile simply to point to your god's motivation, his desire to know, etc.
If Jesus and his father are one (John 10:30), then why does Jesus have to pray (i.e. Matthew 26:39)?
Intent of the question: You get yet another opportunity to clear up this whole mysterious three in one/I and my father are one claptrap. You should explain this in understandable terms and demonstrate that your belief (a) has a sound foundation, and (b) is something other than an artifact of your (and/or Jesus's) poor understanding of mathematics.
Explain your belief in heaven in light of Job 7:9 and Ecclesiastes 9:5.
Intent of the question: Once again, you are to demonstrate a knowledge of the historical development of your own system of religious belief.
Christ giving himself up on the cross was a great gesture, true, but wouldn't it have been more sensible for him to continue spreading his message until he died a less painful death? Answer this question in light of your answer to question #1.
Intent of the question: As I have already pointed out, your bible is an appalling mishmash of pagan legend, Greek theology, and Jewish history and law. If Jesus was such a wise teacher, why didn't he spend more time trying to straighten out the confusion?
What is your interpretation of the significance of the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:5-8, Luke 4:5-9)?
Answers to avoid: You should avoid simply explaining that Jesus was tempted and that he passed the test. I'm aware that that's what your bible says; I'm looking for an answer that explains why this story made it into your so-called new testament, while other stories about Jesus (such as what he did between the ages of twelve and thirty) did not. Why is this significant? How are we to take it? How does it fit with the rest of your doctrine?
In view of Matthew 6:5-6, shouldn't prayer in public schools be discouraged? Support your answer with scripture quotes.
Intent of the question: You are to apply a theological precept based on a scripture quote to a public policy question. Answering this question well demonstrates that you can read a biblical verse in context and that you understand the underpinnings both of your religion and of constitutional law.
Do you feel that the last words of Christ before his death were significant? If so, why do the four gospels attribute three different sentences to Christ as his last? (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?; Luke 23:46: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; John 19:30: It is finished).
Intent of the question: You are to explain a particular biblical inconsistency.
Matthew and Mark say that the last words of Christ were, in Hebrew, El(o)i, El(o)i, lama sabachthani? This has traditionally been translated as, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? However, a more accurate translation would be, My El, My El, why has thou forsaken me? El is the name of a specific pagan god. Why would Jesus call out to a pagan god at the moment of his death?
Intent of the question: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of other (dead) religions and the historical development of your own religion in your answer to this question.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid claiming that El is merely an archaic name for your god. This is wrong. (There is a much more sophisticated version of this argument that can be made with somewhat more success, however.)

You should avoid pointing to a translation of the word, in your bible or elsewhere, which explains the problem away. Of course it does; it's theologically inconvenient for modern Christians to have Jesus calling out to some pagan god, so they simply translate it as something else. This is hardly convincing, however.
A commonly recited litany in many forms of Christianity is The LORD is my shepherd. (Psalm 23:1.) Given the fact that the only reasons that people raise sheep are to rob them of their clothes and to kill them for meat, and the fact that sheep will often follow the shepherd to their destruction, do you think that this is an appropriate image for your god? Justify your answer.

Intent of the question: You people constantly assert that your bible is not only the bedrock of moral, metaphysical, and epistemological truth in the west, but also one of the best pieces of literature in, like, world history, and stuff, filled with achingly beautiful poetry and insightful metaphors.

If your silly bible is such a great piece of writing, what happened to the poetic symbolism here? Hmmm?
Why is the theory of the big bang any more (or less) likely than the idea that your god created the universe? Justify your answer.
Intent of the question: You are to explain your theory of cosmology and convince me that I should agree with your beliefs.
It is commonly asserted that the Christian god is everywhere at the same time, i.e. omnipresent. If hell is the absence of (or separation from) your god, how is this possible?
Answers to avoid: You should avoid simply asserting that your god is not in the area in which the devil is. If I hadn't already known that, I wouldn't have written this question. If you simply point this out, you are simply asserting that there is a contradiction between the belief in omnipresence and the standard belief about separation from god in hell. Since I already realize this, you are failing to answer a question to my satisfaction.
In the Genesis story, your god tells Adam and Eve that the day they eat from the tree of knowledge they will surely die (Gen 2:17). The devil tells them that they will not die, but that their eyes would be opened and they would know the difference between good and evil (Gen 3:5). Wasn't Satan telling the truth here? Is your god a liar? Justify your answer in light of Jeremiah 20:7 and Ezekiel 14:9.
Intent of the question: This is a question about whether or not your god told the truth, pure and simple. You need to explain why what he threatened did not happen.

Answers to avoid: You need to avoid asserting that the fact that Adam and Eve did eventually die means that your god's promise was fulfilled. This is facile; the Genesis story specifically says that on the day they ate the fruit, they would die.
If Lucifer is not as powerful as your god, then he cannot possibly be omnipresent. How could he possibly get as many followers as you seem to think he has?
Intent of the question: This is a reality check, pure and simple. Oh, and a consistency check, too.
The Bible constantly describes your god as male. In view of the fact that your god supposedly created everything, and creation is very much a female function, isn't this at least a little bit absurd? Justify your answer.
Intent of the question: Again, you are to explain your constant Christian claim that your bible is filled with world-class literature in light of its crappy symbolism.
In light of the Trinity, angels, the Virgin Mary, etc., isn't Christianity polytheistic? If the Trinity is three who are one, why the three names? Justify your answer.

Intent of the question: You need to explain how your various ranks of imaginary metaphysical entities are substantially different from the ranks of metaphysical entities invented by pagans. You should definitely look up the word polytheistic in the dictionary and think carefully about how this might relate to Christianity, even if you think you already know what the word polytheistic means. Many people have been surprisingly ignorant on this score when answering this question.

You are to do this in a way that (a) is consistent with your other answers, (b) argues convincingly that there is a substantial difference, (c) explains how these other entities fit into the divine schema, and (d) clears up this the three are one, but the one is three crap without a facile appeal to mystery.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid drawing spurious distinctions. One respondent claimed that the angels have never been considered part of the trinity. What fucking difference does this make? Aphrodite and Hercules were not part of Zeus. Are you claiming that this means that Hellenistic paganism is not polytheistic?
Have you read the entire Bible? If not, how can you be devoted enough to try and convert me to a religion that you don't know that much about? Isn't knowing as much as possible about something necessary to understanding it? Isn't understanding something necessary to being completely devoted to it?
Intent of the question: You should have read the entire bible before composing a response to these questions. If you haven't read all of it, go back and read it straight through before you begin writing answers to the questions I've asked here. I'm not impressed with your knowledge of comforting things that your preacher reads to you from the pulpit once a week. There's a lot more in there.
Why is 2 Kings 19 exactly identical to Isaiah 37?
If you answer in a way that allows for biblical errancy, make sure that this is (a) consistent with your other answers on this topic, and (b) part of a structurally sound theological edifice. (Don't claim that I should believe that the bible is true, but then claim that it has mistakes. A surprisingly large number of respondents do just this.)
Is Jesus's three days in Hell really an ultimate sacrifice, when more than half of humanity going to spend eternity there? (See #11.)
Intent of the question: You people are constantly running around yapping about what a brave fellow Jesus is for spending three whole days in hell. So fucking what? If this is the bravest thing Jesus did, then he's a wuss compared to most of humanity. It's not dramatic at all: It makes Jesus look like Michael Jackson trying to be manly.

You need to explain why it was such a huge sacrifice for Jesus to do something briefly that most of us are going to be doing forever.
If your sect considers the King James Bible to be the official and/or authoritative translation, justify this in light of the fact that when King James commissioned his translation to be poetic rather than accurate. How can you possibly use an inaccurate translation as your reference for what is/is not the word of your god? If your sect does not use the King James Bible, what translation do they use? Justify the use of that particular translation.
Intent of the question: You are to explain your sect's views on the question of which translation of the bible is the real one. Of course, the bible does not, itself, specify a translation to use; despite this fact, many of you people insist that only one is worthwhile reading. Why is this?
Assume that I do not believe that Jesus died for my sins, or that if he did, that necessarily means I will go to your heaven. Name one thing that Jesus ever did for me.

Intent of the question: Savior-figures in other religions often bring directly tangible benefits to their worshippers in addition to nebulous claims of being, like, special in a spiritual sense. Many of the deified emperors of pagan religions, for instance, accomplished practical projects in addition to being gods. Pagan christs brought an agricultural benefit to the community. Even Gautama Buddha's insights provided a useful psychology to his believers.

This feature seems conspicuously absent from the life of your Jesus person. Sure, he bequeathed you people a misunderstanding of how math works, and managed to steal some pithy sayings from other religious figures, but as far as practical knowledge goes, the anticipatory biography of Jesus that his father ghostwrote doesn't even have enough practical knowledge in it to help his believers pour piss out of a boot.

Why is this?
Before Mary was knocked up by the Holy Spirit/Ghost, she was never asked for her consent. (She was warned; see Luke 1:31). Mary was also asleep when your god knocked her up; this strongly suggests that he didn't want her to protest. Does this mean that Mary was raped by your god? Do you think rape is wrong? Explain.
Intent of the question: You are to make an ethical judgment about your god's actions. Was it right for him to impregnate Mary without consent? Answering this question requires you to reveal your beliefs about whether or not your god is to be judged by his own standards. (You Christians are constantly running around singing that your god is good; however, if this is true only in a tautological sense—i.e. if your god is good by definition—then what's the point of carping on the topic all the time? Most of you are not deliriously happy that grass is green.) If your god is to be judged by his own standards, how does he measure up? If he is not to be judged by his own standards, by what standards is he to be judged? (If, as you people constantly claim, he is perfect, why can't he even live up to the lower standards he establishes for every mortal?)
Answers to avoid:
- Avoid arguing that what your god did is different from real rape because there was no physical pleasure involved. For one thing, a cursory familiarity with psychology suggests that rapists don't commit acts of rape for the purpose of achieving orgasm, but rather for the purpose of exerting control. This seems to me to be exactly what your god is doing with Mary. Furthermore, underlying problems still remain if you take this tack. Rape as a physical act reduces a woman, as a free individual, to a simple set of reproductive organs, a thing meant only to achieve a particular purpose; what your god did reduced Mary, a free individual, to a set of reproductive organs, a thing meant only to achieve a particular purpose.
- Avoid putting forth arguments that claim that your god didn't need permission because it is an honor to give birth to the Christ, because it assured her a place in history, etc. This still reduces Mary to a set of reproductive organs. Additionally, it does not adequately distinguish what your god did from rape; this makes your god no different from any rapist who excuses his actions by claiming that she obviously wanted it.
- Avoid claiming that Mary gave permission for the impregnation unless you can do so in an unusually insightful manner, i.e. draw more out of the text about Mary's motivations than I can. Mary was never asked for permission; she was informed that she was to be impregnated and said, in effect, Um, okay. There are numerous other interpretations of this passage that do not interpret it as a grant of consent. (One of these is that Mary knew that resistance would be futile, as your god is omnipotent and had made up his mind, and she was trying to reconcile herself to the fact and/or to avoid angering him.) If you claim, based on Luke, that Mary gave permission, you need to argue convincingly that that's really what she did. Is it meaningful for a girl who may have been only twleve years old to give consent to the creator of the Universe? Especially given that he's telling her, not asking her, that she's going to be the mother of his child?
According to Luke, Mary knew that she was pregnant with the Messiah. Living in the times she lived in, she must have known the scripture; therefore, she must have known that he would have to suffer horribly during his life. Was it moral for Mary to carry her baby to term, or would it have been more humane for her to have an abortion? Explain.
Intent of the question: Answering this question entails articulating a theory of morality, psychology, and human worth as those relate to suffering.
If it was foretold that Jesus was to be crucified, and if he knew that this had been foretold and that it was necessary to the mechanism of the future redemption of sinners, and if he was the son of/identical with your god (and, therefore, presumably wanted sinners to be redeemed), why did he do everything he could to avoid being crucified? (See, for instance, Matthew 26:39).
Intent of the question: You people are constantly insisting that Jesus died on the cross because this somehow, like, excuses our sins, and that he did this because he, like, loves everybody. If this is true, why did he try to get out of dying on the cross?

Answers to avoid: You should avoid pointing out that Jesus was human and, therefore, afraid. This may very well be true; however, if (as you people constantly insist) Jesus was the best of men, then why did he show so little courage, especially considering that other people who have died for a cause they believed in—people who were not man-gods, but only normal mortal men—showed so much more courage? Isn't Jesus something of a pansy in comparison with all of those other people who have died with more courage?
If the Holy Spirit/Ghost is the father of Jesus (Luke 1:35), then why is the central figure of your trinity called God the Father?
Intent of the question: I have always suspected that part of the reason why your Christian metaphysical and ethical system is such a mishmash of confusing and mutually incompatible elements is that your nomenclature is so inexact. (It's hard to sort out confusion if you don't know have good terms in which you can think about it.) Of course, you people claim that your system of thought is a shining, perfect edifice. If this were really true, you'd have a consistent system of terminology. (If you need me to spell this out for you, what I'm saying is that, if you want me to buy into your ethico-historico-metaphysical system, you need to convince me that your nomenclature is consistent and makes sense. That's what I'm looking for in your answer to this question.)

Answers to avoid: It is disingenuous to point out that none of the figures of your trilogy are central, although a surprising number of respondents do this. It is also silly to argue that your God the Father person is really the father of Jesus because he ordered the Holy Spirit to impregnate Mary. You need a reason that works as a biological metaphor as well, or you need a reason why a biological metaphor doesn't work. (That second one would be hard to do, as your bible uses the word father to describe the parental functions of your god, and thus already contains an embedded metaphor.)
Mary and Jehovah were never joined in wedlock. Does it bother you that Jesus is technically a bastard? How do you feel, in general, about sexual activity outside of marriage?
Intent of the question: You are to evaluate your god's actions in light of the theory of morality that he constantly has his various prophet-types articulate. You are to do so in a manner consistent with your other answers on this topic and on the topic of sexuality.
The original Hebrew word for the Holy Ghost/Spirit grammatically implies that the Holy Spirit/Ghost is female in gender. Isn't this rather silly when you consider the fact that the Holy Ghost/Spirit is actually the father of Jesus (Luke 1:35)?
Intent of the question: This is a question about accuracy, symbolism, and/or the nature of miracle. You should answer it in whatever manner is appropriate (but not in whatever manner is easiest for the simple reason that that manner is easiest).
Matthew 28:11-15 contains an account of a conspiracy between the Jews and the Roman soldiers to spread the story that the disciples stole the body of Christ. How could Matthew have known about this, since no Jews or Romans would have admitted to it? If it was such a transparent conspiracy that an outsider could have seen it, why didn't the other three gospels mention it? Why didn't the Roman soldiers get into trouble?
Intent of the question: It seems that the most plausible explanation for this story is that Matthew is seeking to discredit a rival explanation for the disappearance of Jesus's body. All in all, if one doesn't have the presupposition that the entire bible is in some sense true, it seems much more likely that a bunch of religious nuts stole a dead guy's body when they had something to gain from it than that an epileptic political revolutionary rose from the dead. Still, this seems to be the explanation that most of you prefer. Why is that?
Most Jews seem to believe that people are basically good people and can work to overcome their sinful tendencies. Most Christian sects, following the teaching of Psalms 51:5, 1 Kings 8:46, Ezekiel 18:4, Isaiah 59:2, and Psalm 143:2, believe that people are completely debased and hopelessly lost in sin, and that only your god can lift us out of this state if he decides to bestow his gift of grace on us. Isn't this an incredibly negative view of people? Isn't Judaism a more mature faith just for this reason?
How do you, as an individual, feel about Psalm 51:5 and similar passages?
Answers to avoid: There are two main ways in which people answer these questions:
1. By engaging in more or less frightening forms of Jew-slamming.
2. By insisting, in some way, that it's obviously true that people are naturally sinful.
Option (1), of course, loses you points in almost every instance because the forms of intellectual anti-Semitism displayed always simply reveal the writer's ignorance about Judaism. If you're making an informed evaluation of the Jewish religion, that may be acceptable (although very few respondents ever make arguments of this kind); but nearly every response I've seen to this question that conforms to the pattern of option (1) comes off as a blanket assertion that, for instance, Jews are naïve.

Option (2) is problematic for different reasons. For one thing, simply pointing to the obviousness of something is generally indicative of intellectual laziness; the fact that something is obvious doesn't make it true, as a variety of scientific discoveries (relating to, for instance, the flatness of the earth and the nature of quantum physics) over the centuries has demonstrated. For another thing, the so-called evidence brought forward in these arguments to demonstrate that people are, in fact, naturally sinful fails to support that claim. Frequently, respondents bring forward a non-religious claim from a scientific or philosophical field (psychology, for instance) about something that seems vaguely related to this concept of sin, then claim that the two concepts are identical. In fact, quoting a psychology textbook that says, People are naturally greedy fails to demonstrate that people are naturally sinful, simply because the religious concept of sin is substantially different from the psychological concept of greed. Despite the writer's desire to equate the two, sin is a complex social construction that overlays—and fails (as it seems to me) to adequately explain—several (more analytically useful) concepts from psychology and related fields.

There are, of course, other people who simply interpret the biblical quotes without putting them into a context that relates them. As I've pointed out throughout this writer's guide (and even, I like to believe, in the Questionnaire itself), this is hardly a convincing way to write an answer.
What does your sect teach about Psalm 51:5 (and 1 Kings 8:46, etc.), predestination, and similar matters?
Several respondents have claimed not to know what I mean by predestination. This is odd, as it is a fairly standard word that has been used frequently in many varieties of Protestantism for hundreds of years. It is also in the dictionary. If you really need a specific doctrine to critique, use the definition of predestination as it relates to the famous Five Points of Calvinism. Really, though, I'd rather hear your definition of predestination. I'm questioning you about your beliefs, so if you have a belief on this topic, please explain it.
Don't you think that the idea that, no matter what we do, we can never be good and righteous without help from your god (Isaiah 64:6) fosters an unnatural and unhealthy dependency on him?
Intent of the question: You are to form a psychological evaluation of the kind of person your god wants you to be. Do you approve?

Answers to avoid: This is yet another question where almost everyone makes a bald assertion. You need to avoid doing this. Yes and no are, by themselves, inadequate.
Revelation 22:16 says that Jesus is the offspring of David. Mary was not descended from David, but Joseph was. Doesn't this mean that Jesus wasn't the son of your god at all, but the (mortal and not divine) son of Joseph?
Intent of the question: You need to explain why a New Testament author apparently makes a factually incorrect statement about Jesus.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid asserting that one of the new testament genealogies is actually Mary's. Yes, this would make Mary the descendant of David, but both new testament genealogies explicitly claim to be Joseph's genealogy. (The fact that they are inconsistent is a separate issue.) One respondent claims that Jewish custom at the time made it customary for a woman's genealogy to be given as her husband's. Even if this is true, there is nothing in the new testament to indicate which, if either, should actually be taken to be Mary's. The only reason to believe that one or the other of the new testament genealogies claiming to be Joseph's is actually Mary's would be that you are already a Christian blindly convinced that the bible is entirely true and contradiction-free and that you are looking for any rationale to (a) get rid of a contradiction and (b) explain how Rev 22:16 can be accurate—that you're looking for any port in a storm, in other words. I don't have your presuppositions, so I find this particular act of theological gymnastics unconvincing.

You should also avoid pointing out that Mary could have been the descendent of David. This is true, as her genealogy is not given anywhere in the new testament, but the fact that it may be true is hardly a convincing argument that it is. Moreover, the new testament authors went to such great lengths to record every obscure prophecy that Jesus fulfilled that it's odd in the extreme that they would have failed to support one of the biggies—descent from David—if it were true.
What would the correct thing to do be if your god gave you a command that was harmful and/or destructive to you? (A common argument, which has its source in Paul's writings, states that because clay pots don't complain about what the potter does with them, people shouldn't complain about what their maker—supposedly, your god—does with them, but this completely ignores the vitally important argument that clay pots have no sense of self-awareness and cannot think or feel love, pain, anger, etc. If you want to make this argument, you have to deal with this difference.)
Intent of the question: You are to articulate a theory of human rights and the meaning of human existence as it relates to your god's actions.
What (or who) does your sect believe the number 666 represents? Justify your answer.
Intent of the question: You are to interpret your bible in a plausible manner in light of the historical development of your religion. You are to do so convincingly and in a manner that does not require me to presuppose that your bible is factually true and error-free.
If your god is just and merciful, why would he take Solomon's kingdom away from Solomon's son while not punishing Solomon, when it was Solomon himself who committed the sin of idolatry? What did Solomon's son do to deserve punishment? (See 1 Kings 11:12).
Why is Solomon commonly considered to be the paragon of wisdom by many Christians, when he constantly sinned against your god (1 Kings 11:4-10, etc.)? Personally, if I had a god talking to me, I'd do what he said.
Intent of the questions: The fact that Solomon, a metaphor for wisdom in Western culture, was constantly traipsing off after false deities in order to please whichever woman it was whom he currently wanted to fuck is a real problem for your religion because it doesn't say much about the kind of ethics that your religion inculcates in its believers. You need to explain why the man who is the literal embodiment of wisdom in western metaphor couldn't pull his head out of his pants long enough to do the right thing, despite the fact that you people are constantly claiming that your religion is the best way to teach morality.
Don't you think that an anti-sex position (see #22) is a rather silly position for your sect to take when the biblical book Song of Solomon is a piece of erotic poetry? (For instance, in Song of Solomon 8:2, the bride asks the bridegroom to drink of spiced wine of the juice of the pomegranate. The pomegranate was a symbol of the female genitalia, and the spiced wine represented menstrual blood.)
Intent of the question: This is a question about intrabiblical doctrinal consistency, pure and simple. It also tests your skills at biblical exegesis.
Does it bother you that the cross, supposedly a Christian symbol, was actually stolen from the Egyptians? Why or why not? (The Egyptian cross, the ankh, was a male-female symbol similar in concept to the yin-yang. When the Christians stole the ankh from the Egyptians, they removed the female symbol, or yoni, leaving only the masculine symbol—a subtle way of reinforcing the idea that women are lesser beings).
Intent of the question: You are to do two things in your answer. The first is to demonstrate, in a plausible way, the manner in which the history of your religion intersects the history of other religions. The second is to make a statement about the views of your sect on the role of women, and to do so in a way that is plausible, convincing, and scripturally legitimate.
How do you explain that Christians are twice as likely to have sadomasochistic tendencies as non-Christians?
Nota bene: This question will be removed from future versions of the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire. It will be replaced by another question on a similar topic.

Why would I do such a thing? The simple reason is that I am intellectually honest, and will not display a question embedding a factual assertion in the HPQ that I cannot back up adequately. If you have read this far, than you have certainly read A Brief History of the Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire. Recall from that document that I wrote the HPQ in about four hours, using what reference materials were available to me at the time. As I tried—more than six years later—to recreate that work as I wrote this guide, I discovered that I could no longer locate the original piece or research in which I saw this assertion. I have searched for a quite a long time, but failed to locate it. In large part, this is because I have moved so much during my college years, and large parts of my library are scattered up and down the West Coast, lost through lending, or in storage. I recall believing the research at the time; but my ability to analyze arguments and evaluate research has been vastly improved by my later years in college, and it may be that the research would not strike me as compelling now.

Moreover, unlike the Christian god, I do not expect you to believe this statistic simply because I assert that it is true. For this reason, I am removing the question.

Until the next revision of the HPQ is completed, I ask you instead to consider the following quotations:
- Several studies showed that the strength of religious belief […] was associated with thought-action fusion and severity of [Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder]. (Rassin & Koster, 2003; Steketee, Quay, & White, 1990) -David H. Barlow and v. Mark Durand, Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach, 4th ed., p. 152.
- In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies. -Gregory S. Paul, Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies, orig. pub. in Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 7; available here.
- A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the second most significant clue is whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes. (emphasis in original) -Carolyn Holderread Heggen, Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches
- Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal. Job 5:17, 18
- Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the innermost being. Proverbs 20:30 NIV
- My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Proverbs 3:11, 12 NIV
What is the incredibly important doctrinal difference that requires the fighting between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland?

Intent of the question: Again, you are to explain why your religion, supposedly the living embodiment of the teachings of the so-called prince of peace, lends itself so easily to the waging of merciless war between the Big-endians and the Little-endians, when many other religions who follow false prophets seem not to have the same problem.

Of course, this is also a question about why the bible is so difficult to interpret correctly.
Even if your god did create the universe, why does he want to be worshipped? Is your god an egomaniac?

Intent of the question: Your god's demand that everyone should kowtow to him or be eternally tortured seems rather puerile to me. After all, his requirements of intellectual assent, personal knowledge, etc. as mechanisms of avoiding eternal pain seem to reveal certain fundamental insecurities in his character. Why is this? After all, if he really cares about us, why isn't he happy with us if we live good lives? Why this rather arbitrary demand that we acknowledge him by name?

Let's put it another way for you particularly stupid Christians. I wrote this essay nearly six years ago and didn't claim credit for it by name until fairly recently, despite the fact that it could have brought me a great deal of prestige in the heathen community. This is probably an example of the virtue that you Christians call humility, and you generally assert that the practice of this virtue is a good thing. Why is it that your god, who, you people are constantly claiming, is perfect, is held to a lower ethical standard? Why does your god demand recognition for his work? Is he some whiny little art-bitch strutting around in front of his one painting demanding that it means he's entitled to get laid?

Answers to avoid: You should avoid asserting that it is appropriate for us to worship the creator of the universe. This may very well be true, but is outside the scope of this question. I'm asking about your god's psychological motivations, pure and simple. This should be apparent from the text of the question (why does he want to be worshipped), but Christians apparently have a hard time with close reading.
What are your beliefs concerning Wicca? (Wicca is sometimes referred to as white witchcraft.) How much do you know about Wicca?
What do you think the word Satanist means?
Intent of the questions: For the most part, these are accuracy checks. You are to explain how much you know, what you think, and why you think the way you do. Your answers should more or less correspond to external reality as it can be determined by a consensus of non-crazy persons. You are also to demonstrate that you know something about other religions.
How do you explain the fact that the word blood occurs about 400 times in the Bible, depending upon the translation? Isn't this a rather savage and barbaric way to write a book that is supposed to be at the center of an ethical system?
Intent of the question: Again, I'm calling you on your claim that your bible is full of, like, beautiful symbolism, man.
Throughout the Bible, your god commands his followers to wage merciless war on unbelievers (Luke 22:36, Deuteronomy 13:8, Exodus 20:23-25, Deuteronomy 20:16, Matthew 10:34, Numbers 31:17-18, etc). If you are one of his followers, why are you sitting at your desk writing instead of out waging merciless war on unbelievers?
Intent of the question: You are to explain why you are so incredibly special that you get to pick and choose which parts of the Sacred, Never-Wrong, Unalterable Word of God apply to you.
Numbers 23:21 says that your god has not seen wickedness in Israel. If this is so, explain why your god burned Israelites for complaining (Num 11:1), why he sent a plague against them for eating the meat he had given them (Num 11:33), why he burned people for using incense (Num 16:35), why he sent a plague against the Israelites who accused Moses of wrongdoing (Num 16:44-49), and why he sent fiery snakes among the Israelites (Num 21:5). Is your god a liar, or was it just more convenient for him to lie at that particular place and time, or what?
Intent of the question: This is yet another questions about biblical inconsistencies, pure and simple.
What was it that was so bad about eating an apple that death had to result from that act?
Intent of the question: This is another question about why you think a punishment fits a crime. Is the condemnation of about twelve billion people (up to this point, over the course of human history) to death really an appropriate punishment for the inappropriate and disobedient consumption of fruit? If you assert that disobedience is inherently wrong, you need to explain why this particular act of disobedience was punished in a disproportionately strong manner (compared to other acts of similar type that were punished in different, more lenient, manners). You need to deal with the biblical verses that say that punishment/guilt is not inherited from parent to child, and you need to explain this in a manner consistent with your other answers throughout the document.
What was it about humanity's torturing and killing of your god's only son that made your god so happy that he again promised eternal life to everyone who believed in him?
Intent of the question: This is another question requiring you to make a moral and psychological judgment about your god. Why is it, if this original sin really had to be washed away, that death was necessary for it? There are many different ways in the so-called old testament that expiation for fault is achieved; why did he pick such a brutal method for the redemption of a big sin? Moreover, if he really loves us, why couldn't he simply have forgiven us? Why did he need to condemn his son in order to do so?
How do you explain the fact that Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus?
Intent of the question: This question is primarily intended for biblical inerrantists. You are to explain how two mutually incompatible genealogies can both be advanced as true in a document that is never wrong.

Answers to avoid: Avoid claiming that one of the genealogies is really Mary's unless you consistently take a position allowing for biblical errancy. After all, both Matthew and Luke explicitly say that they are giving Joseph's genealogy. Avoid claiming that it was common in biblical times for a wife to take her husband's genealogy unless you can cite a compelling scholarly and historical (i.e., non-Wishful Thinking) source to back up this assertion.
Matthew says that the prophecy given in Matthew 27:9 was given by Jeremiah. How do you explain that this prophecy was not given by Jeremiah at all, but by Zechariah (in Zech 11:12)?
Intent of the question: Again, this is primarily a question for biblical inerrantists. You are to explain how your bible can be without error when there is obviously an error in Matthew 27:9.
Matthew says (in Matt 2:21) that Jesus dealt in Nazareth so that he could fulfill a prophecy stating that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. Where is this prophecy in the Old Testament?
Answers to avoid: Avoid making that claim that depends on a specific Hebrew pun. This not only undermines Christianity's message of universalism (by restricting an important biblical prophecy to a small group of people, specially trained to be literate in a now-dead foreign language), but also suffers from the problem that textual puns don't sit well with the Revealed Word of the Living God.
Matthew says that on the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus was riding on an ass and a colt (Matt 21:7) How do you explain that the original prophecy (Zech 9:9) stated that Jesus would be riding on only one ass, and the other gospel writers place Jesus only on one ass (Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35, and John 12:15)?
Intent of the question: This is a consistency question, pure and simple.
In Matthew 1:23, Matthew has the angel say that Jesus would be born of a virgin. However, the prophecy that Matthew is referring to, Isaiah 7:14, uses the Hebrew word almah, which simply refers to a young woman. It has nothing to do with sexual experience; the Hebrew word for virgin is bethulah. How do you explain this?
Intent of the question: There seem to be a lot of shoddy, hastily written instances of prophecy fulfillment in Matthew. Unless you've already been blinded by the light of divine illumination, it looks more like Matthew, when writing his gospel, looked hastily through the old testament to find prophecies that he could claim, after the fact, that Jesus had fulfilled. That would explain shoddy mistakes like this one. Your job is to convince me that I'm wrong about this.
Isaiah 7:16 seems to say that before Jesus had reached the age of maturity, both of the Jewish countries would be destroyed. Where is the fulfillment of this prophecy in the New Testament?
Intent of the question: Above, in number 136, I mentioned a prophecy whose fulfillment Matthew seems to have invented. Here, it seems that Jesus failed to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy. If the prophecies are the criteria by which one can know the Messiah, and Jesus failed to fulfill one of them, what does this say about Jesus's claim to be this particular figure in your mythology?
Matthew 1:23 says that Jesus would be called Immanuel, which means God with us. Why does no one (not even Mary and Joseph, who would be expected to be familiar with this prophecy/command) call him Immanuel at any point in the New Testament?
Intent of the question: This is a simple question about the factual accuracy of your scriptures. You should answer the question exactly as it is written.

Answers to avoid: You should avoid asserting that the supposed fact that Jesus was god-with-man or god-with-humanity fulfills this prophecy. This is facile; the prophecy explicitly claims that Jesus would be called by a certain nickname.
How many inconsistencies in the Bible, other than those mentioned in this paper, do you know of? Cite chapter and verse for as many as you have room for.
Answers to avoid: You should avoid asserting that there are no inconsistencies in the bible unless you can make an unusually strong argument that this is true and that does not depend upon the presupposition of total biblical inaccuracy. If you're not familiar with the problem of biblical inconsistencies and contradictions, you should research this problem before you begin writing a response for me.
If even the contemplation of sinning is a sin (i.e. sinning in your heart; see, for example, Matthew 5:28) and if Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:5-8, Luke 4:5-9), how can you say that Jesus was without sin?
Intent of the question: For most people, this is another question asking you why your supposedly perfect god is commonly judged by lower standards than the mortals he created as imperfect. On the other hand, depending on how you answer the question, it can also be a test of your understanding of basic syllogistic logic.
Does your sect believe that the existence of your god can be established through a formal proof? Why or why not?
Intent of the question: This is almost a freebie. I'm looking for a discussion about the relationship between faith and intellectual knowledge. You should make it consistent with your other answers.
Pick a famous argument for the existence of your god, then criticize that argument. (Assume I mean for you to use the academic definition of the word criticize).
Pick an argument against the existence of your god. If it is not a famous argument, copy it down here. Criticize this argument. (Assume I mean for you to use the academic definition of the word criticize).
Intent of the questions: You are to demonstrate a knowledge of manners of thought foreign to your tradition, then explain why the patterns of thought that your tradition offers are superior.

Answers to avoid: More than just about any other questions, these two get snide and facile answers. I intend for you to display a sophisticated appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of your own theoretical position and explain why it is the single best position in the entire world. Don't rush through this one; there may be no inherently wrong answers, but there are many bad modes of argument that get brought out here.
What does your sect think of the government? Read Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 13. Now what do you think of the government? If necessary, reconcile the two views.
Intent of the question: This is simply a question that asks you to apply the religion you won't stop barking about to your day-to-day life.
What is your definition of the word Christian?
Intent of the question: You are to make an intelligent argument about what it means to be a member of your religion. Your definition should clearly delimit the important characteristics from the tangential.
Why do you think it is that the ancient Greeks, who had a very liberal sexual morality, had many fewer sex crimes (compared to the population) than the United States, which is 85% Christian?
Nota bene: As with question 122, and for similar reasons, this question will be removed from future versions of the HPQ.
If someone accepts Jesus, and is saved, but then turns away from Jesus, is that person still saved?
Intent of the question: Answering this question involves distinguishing fine points of theology relating to free will, virtue and sin, the requirements for salvation, and perhaps other topics. It looks easy, but it's hard to answer it well.
Where did your god come from?
Intent of the question: This question is primarily a consistency check with your answers to other questions, but you need to make sure that you answer it in a way that is both persuasive and comprehensible.
What are the requirements for being saved? Some sects say that faith alone is enough; others say that faith without works is dead. The Bible supports both of these viewpoints. What does your sect think?
Intent of the question: This question requires you to make a fairly straightforward interpretive decision about what your religion wants from you.

B. Steven Matthies has written an essay, Christian Salvation?, which explores this issue in more depth. The essay also provides an overview of the steps that various sects believe are necessary to attain salvation. It's worth a look, especially if you think that the biblical requirements for salvation are obvious.
If I decide I like the answers to the above questions, where can I get in touch with you? (Give name, address, phone and email if available).
What is the name of your sect?
How is your sect organized?
How can I get in touch with a priest (minister, etc.) of your sect?
Intent of the questions: These questions are purely informational. I simply want to know how to find out more about your sect if your god suddenly shoves grace down my throat while I'm reading your answers.

The priestly type… of man has a life interest in making mankind sick and in so twisting the concepts of good and evil, true and false, as to imperil life and slander the world.
—Friederich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (trans. W. Kaufmann)

You, bursting with holiness,
And yet you never preach! Astonishing
I call it…
—Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet

There were people out there tonight telling you that [God and] they love you. If they love you so much, where have they been all your lives? Thank you for coming to our church tonight.
—Marilyn Manson, concert in Salem, OR 1/19/97

Eternal damnation. What a cruel hoax your priests have inflicted on your people. Souls change. Only God is eternal- and what kind of God would damn any created thing eternally? What sin could possibly be so great?
—A. A. Attanasio, The Dragon and the Unicorn

I'm going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don't find it strange that all you want to believe in is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice?
—Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

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A Guide for Writers of Responses to The Heirophant's Proselytizer Questionnaire