Twenty Questions About Your Religion

1. How would you identify your religion? (i.e. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism etc).

2. Most religions have subdivisions within their religion. How would you identify the particular subdivision of your religion? (i.e. Sunni or Shiite Islam; Reform or Orthodox Judaism).

3. Has your family practiced this religion for many generations, or are you the first member of your family to practice this religion?

4. If you are the first member of your family to practice this religion, briefly describe how you came to be associated with this religion.

5. What does your religion teach about its historical origins? How and when did your religion come into existence and develop to its present state?

6. What are the sacred writings of your religion?

7. What part do the sacred writings of your religion play in the typical practice of your religion? Are they authoritative or advisory or something else.

8. Have you personally read all the sacred writings of your religion, and do your read and study them on a regular basis?

9. What does your religion teach about the nature of God or Ultimate Reality? What is God like? (Is God one or many; changing or unchanging; personal or impersonal, etc?).

10. What does your religion teach about the central figure of Christianity--Jesus Christ?

11. What does your religion teach about the origins of the universe? How did the world come to be what it is?

12. What does your religion teach about the origin of the human race?

13. What does your religion teach about the fundamental problems (if any) of the human race? Is there anything fundamentally flawed about the human race and how did this come to be?

14. What does your religion teach about the remedy for the fundamental problems (if any) of the human race? (i.e., try harder to be morally good, accumulate good karma, etc.)

15. Does your religion have a moral code? If so, on what is the moral code of your religion based? (Sacred writings, other writings, etc.)

16. What are several of the most important obligations and restrictions of the moral code of your religion?

17. What does your religion teach about how to be properly related to God or Ultimate Reality? (If God is personal, what does it take to please God or be rewarded by God? If God is impersonal, what does it take to return to the state of union with the Ultimate Reality, etc?)

18. What does your religion teach about life after death?

19. What do you personally believe are the most important differences between your religion and Christianity? Do these differences really matter? How so?

20. May I briefly explain how Christianity answers some of these questions?