First off, if you aren't really familiar with Christianity, please refrain from making hasty comments/insults.

I believe that the writings of the Bible are fairly accurate to a certain degree, but I don't like to use the word "inerrant".

However, Christianity today cannot answer some of the tough questions:

What happened to the people that were before Jesus and not of Israel?

Are they condemned to hell for eternity?

What about the people that never had a chance to even hear about Jesus and the truth? What is their fate?

Failure to answer these questions, does not mean that Christianity is false, but it just means that there is a problem with the current state of Christianity and its interpretation of the Scriptures.

Okay.

They lived, they died, and their eternal fate is in God's hands.

Seems unlikely.

See answer above.

Answers have of course been provided to these questions since the inception of Christianity. I think your issue is more that you think the answers that have been given are in some sense either unacceptable or false.

Where do you want this thread to go? I don't see that you are asking any questions... or are you?

what about the countless contradictions between the old testament and new testament?

why is that a problem?

which interpretation do you think would be better and that does provide an answer to these questions that the current christian interpretation does not?

OT makes a certain kind of sense (in terms of consistency, not rationality), since it explicitly states it is all about a chosen people and a chosen nation. When the Christian canon expands this to apply to others people and other nations the whole thing crumbles into absurdity. The two narratives don't match.

There is, however, no shortage of answers to your dilemma. Indeed there is a Pew Forum report that some 40, 000 different Christian denominations exist, and pretty much any Christian denomination represents an implicit (and often explicit) claim of the correct way to obtain salvation.

Take your pick.

For example?

The OP has made the false assumption that The Bible is intended to be a comprehensive guide to how the world works, how God works, and how God interacts with the world.

It's not comprehensive, it was never intended to be comprehensive, and there are plenty of things about God, heaven, hell, etc. that can only be answered honestly by saying, "We don't know, God doesn't tell us."

The Bible is the story of how mankind is supposed to relate to God, how bad mankind is at doing that, and how God sent Jesus to fix it. That's it. It wasn't intended to tell us about germ theory, or how old the Earth is, or how to build rocket ships, or anything like that.

It wasn't even intended to tell us everything about how God operates, which is what the OP seems to be asking/looking for.

The Bible even has a whole book (Job), where the end of the entire story is (spoiler alert),

Job: God, why do bad things happen? Why do you make anything happen, actually?

God: Shut up bitch, I'm God. You're just like, some dude. I don't have to answer to you and I'm not telling you ****.

Job 38-42 is my favourite section of the bible. You really butchered it here. Your God impression needs work, he said it much more poetically in the passage.

I see no such assumption in OP's post. He is not talking about germ theory, rocket ships or the age of the earth and nor does he anywhere in his post write anything about the Bible containing a comprehensive guide to how the world works. Nor does he ask why bad things happen or why (the supposed) God acts the way he does, so the story of Job is irrelevant. In short your interpretation of the OP is completely out of place.

The post is a question on how some people in the history of the world obtain salvation. Are you saying that the Bible does not explain how salvation is obtained?

it's there. "The bible does not answer some of the tough questions"

He lists a few tough questions, but there is absolutely no reason to think that is an exhaustive list of 'the tough questions', just a sample. If those questions were satisfactorily answered, he would just substitute different tough questions.

Your paraphrase is incorrect. The OP states that "Christianity today cannot answer some of the tough questions". He does not mention the bible in this claim. I certainly can't see that OP has anywhere asserted that the Bible is/should/could be "a comprehensive guide to how the the world works".

your quotation is incomplete. The op continues "the current state of Christianity and its interpretation of the Scriptures. "

The jump from the first sentence to the second is a little strange. The first sentence is a narrow claim about "some people" and the question seems to suggest that you must necessarily be able to address how all people can obtain salvation in all times and in all places. Why would it be the case that if the Bible talk about "how some people in the history of the world obtain salvation" that it must explain the details of how all salvation has ever been obtained in the history of humanity?

That's like saying a book of history is somehow defective if it doesn't include everyone's history.

The point being? Your paraphrase is still incorrect.

Context. OP's question was likened to asking for rocket ship schematics, which is trivial to state that the Bible does not contain. When it comes to what the Bible specifically says about salvation, we're far away from trivial territory. Indeed most of this is interpretation, and OP specifically states that it is interpretation he has a problem with.

Now OP might not have thought his questions through. That I do not know. I am merely objecting to jumping to conclusions, misrepresentation and wrongful paraphrasing.

I take that choice to be a rhetorical challenge to the claim of comprehensiveness. The point being made is simply that there are questions that aren't answered.

Does that negate the point that there may be some questions that aren't answered? Specifically, does that negate the point that there may be some questions about salvation that aren't answered?

The observation you're making is akin to a logical fallacy in the context of OP's questions and conclusion. (See below)

The logic of the position is sound. Here were OP's questions and conclusion:

If the information is not there to interpret, then it's not a problem for Christianity, nor is it a problem for its interpretation. Here's your statement:

Your statement and question are here:

In the context of OP, the question sounds as if you're saying that because the Bible explains how some people in the history of the world obtained salvation that it should explain how everyone in all times and in all places obtain (or have obtained) salvation.

That is an interesting interpretation, you should probably think less about this.

It is garbage, as are all religions based on faith (lack of evidence). If all of the world's knowledge was lost tonight, and every person also lost their memory due to amnesia, tomorrow we would start anew, and specific religions would NEVER come back into existence exactly the same again. However, the laws of physics would slowly be learned, and you would eventually get back the current knowledge that we have today.

I know that many of the leading Christians use arguments like: "well, of course, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, then I am wrong". The top defenders, and best debaters most all state this, which really ends the discussion. They know that you can never disprove Christ getting up out of the grave, so they use that as their strongest selling point. Thee has never been a recorded instance of the laws of physics ever being suspended, in all of human history. There are no miracles. Lots of good fortune, and lots of bad beats, but no miracles.

It is garbage. Anyone who teaches similar garbage to children is the worst of the worst on the human scale. The lowest of the low.

Gees i guess ill have to tell my parents they were the lowest of the low on a human scale. That sucks i thought they were pretty good people.



As far as the OP. Different Christians will give different answers as to what happens to those before Christ. Some say they dont know, others say all will be saved, some say no salvation, some say they will be judged on judgment day by the Noahide Laws or the laws written in their heart.

so what?

Lots of things have happened with no lingering physical evidence of their occurence. That we have no after the fact means of discovering them doesn't mean they didn't happen or that they aren't true.

You can't support this claim.

Thanks for the advice. I think you should think more.

It's not his job to support that claim, the same way that if I say world governments are run by invisible, undetectable unicorns, and you say, "No, they're not," I can't say, "well, you can't support that claim."

Well, I could say it, but I'd be an idiot.

If someone claims there are miracles, it's their job to provide evidence if they expect someone else to believe them. It's not the job of the skeptic to provide proof refuting an absurd claim that has no basis in fact.

I disagree with this sentiment heartily. I don't think religion should be taught to children as fact, but people teach their kids bull**** constantly, whether it's religious or not. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny. Almost everyone teaches their kids **** that is just plain wrong because they don't know any better - why the sky is blue, how evolution works, how you catch a cold, whatever. No parent is perfect, and nearly every parent unintentionally fills their kids' heads with bull**** whether they're religious or not.

Not sure I'm willing to put "misinformed my kids because I was also misinformed" below rapists, serial killers, warmongers, and telemarketers on the "how bad are they" scale.

he didn't take the position of a skeptic, he made an assertion of absence, which does require support.

There are miracles - requires support
There are no miracles - requires support

The second claim is not the skeptical position of merely not believing the first. It is a separate assertion that also bears the burden of proof.