Like many believers, I was aware of puzzles in the Christian faith even in my youth. Most of us, whether or not we remain in the fold, have wondered about God's commands to the Israelite soldiers to kill men, women, boys and infants (keeping the virgins for themselves); his endorsement of slavery; the harshness of eternal hell; the apparent discrepancies between parallel passages in the Bible; the hit-and-miss nature of prayer; the mystery of so much human and animal suffering; the silence and hiddenness of God; the kindness and moral uprightness of so many nonbelievers; and the apparent
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