Why is your religon true and not the religion of others?

May I ask how old you were when you decided to become a Christian, and whether the initial decision was based on evidence?

Yet the overwhelming majority of people in the world who are not "raised in a christian family" do not come to the same conclusion when they are 14 - 15, or later in life, do they? Really? Not if you analyse it.

Actually, on Christianity being true, they do. But that wasn't my point. You know as well as I do that people who are raised in Christian families are far more likely to be christians than those who aren't, and that the same applies with all other religions.This should strongly suggest to your analytical mind that childhood upbringing is the major factor in determining religious beliefs, not evidence. Indeed. Don't you agree?

Am I to take this to mean that you agree with me that your upbringing is a far better explanation of your preference for Christianity over other religions than the explanation you gave earlier, which concerned "evidence"?

No. I most certainly accept the fact that your belief is settling how you see evidence.My suggestion is based on observation. The overwhelming majority of the world's religious people do actually follow the beliefs of their recent ancestors, although frequently with slight adjustments.You can look around the world, and identify many countries or regions that have exactly the same majority religion as they did 100 years ago, when a completely different set of individuals made up the population.So, if we ask why the majority of Egyptians are Sunni Muslims, the majority of Iranians are Shia Muslims, the majority of South Americans are Catholic Christians, the majority of North Americans protestant Christians, and the majority of Indians, Hindus, our analytical minds can find an easy answer.Evidence does not seem to play much of a role in their "choices", if any.So, my conclusion as to the most likely central explanation for your religious preference is perfectly reasonable (and not personal, I might add).I know that many evidentialists in all religions genuinely believe that they have chosen their religions based centrally on evidence, but I've never been aware of any evidence to support their many different views.

I missed out the "on", but I equally agree that his belief settles on how he perceives evidence. It works both ways. I'm not doubting that he perceives himself as being Christian based on evidence, as my comment on the beliefs of evidentialists of various religions implies. You seem to be agreeing with me that most people go with the cultural flow. Of course I'm talking about self-identification, and my point is that most people's self-identification is cultural.You and slevesque are self-identified Christians from predominently Christian cultures. That's all I've got to go on. I'm hardly in a position to judge whether or not iano is part of a small minority of genuine Christians, am I?Do you think you are an exception to the rule, and that you would have become a Christian had you been born to Hindu parents somewhere in rural India?Edited by bluegenes, : typo

With the "on", both. And Muslim scholars examine it, and find it a corruption of the truth. Do you think childhood background could be a factor for both Slevesque and the Muslims in their perception of the evidence? I conclude that it's a human work from a specific evolving culture in the middle-east with a strong ethno-centric bias. Pretty much anything "might" be. But I certainly wasn't programmed in childhood with the view that the Bible is an entirely human work. How do you know this? How do you know this? Indeed. Of course, selecting a number of prophets from each inhabited continent and giving them all the gospel was presumably an option rejected by God.So, the gospel isn't actually important to God.Where will the Pope end up, in your opinion? Heaven or hell?

The point being that we can look at evidence which is external to the religious texts themselves, and observe that the overwhelming majority of those with a Muslim childhood will go one way, and the overwhelming majority of those with a Christian background, the other.Many in both groups will perceive themselves as being evidence based believers. What does this tell our analytical minds?Then there's the Hindus, the Jews....... I don't think he's an unquestioning Christian, but religions are cultural phenomena. People do sometimes adopt religions that are exotic to the culture they are from, but the cultures have to be in contact for that to happen. So, you couldn't have found an Irish Hindu 500 years ago, but you'll find a few now.All religions originate in one specific area, and spread via human communication, migration and conquest. If they are to maintain their ground over time, they must be successfully passed down generations. "Inevitable" is your word. Consider. I'd already presented myself as an example of someone whose attitude to the Bible isn't what I was taught as a child, and I think I've used the word "majority" at least once.You would certainly have heard the Bible referred to with reverence frequently in your childhood, and described as a holy book. No. See above. Some people are good at assessing evidence, and can virtually eliminate cultural influence in at least some areas of thought and belief. It is awareness of cultural subjectivity that can lead to increased objectivity, and that point is important in relation to the title of this thread.