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[Iron Maiden]

Since you're a Christian, I will assume that means that there are lots of gods you don't follow. You don't believe that mythic figures such as Zeus, Osiris, Thor, Baal, or Astarte were real entities, nor do you believe in those gods that some are still worshipped today, such as Ganesha, or even "offshoots" of the Abrahamic god such as Allah or the loa of the Vodoun.

Why not?

If my initial assumption is faulty , please correct me, but I have to imagine that your acceptance of Jesus means your rejection of all the other gods and goddesses that some part of humanity have worshipped in the last ten thousand years. Without referring to the things you do believe, will you please tell me why you do not believe in, say, Odin or Aphrodite or The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

[jimwalton]

You are right that there are lots of gods we don't follow. It is impossible to believe in the equality of religions and still be a Christian. All religions can't be equally true. Some beliefs are false, and we know them to be false. If all beliefs are equally true, we have just made a self-contradictory statement: To regard all religions as equally true is sheer nonsense for the simple reason that to deny that statement would also, then, be true. All religions can only be equal if none of them has any meaning—that is, if none of them is true (referring to reality). The very idea of all gods being valid implies that religions are a matter of taste, no different from interior decorating.

There is such a thing as objective truth. In the real world of right and wrong, justice and injustice, life and death, truth matters. All religions are not the same. All religions don't point to God. All religions don't say that all religions are the same. Christianity and other religions contradict each other. We know for a fact that they can't all be true, even though all religions contain some truth. Their contradictions don't tell us which one is true, but we know at the very least they can't all be true. To sound graciously tolerant by saying "I accept all religions" is actually either to violate them all or violate reason, or both. The thinking person must honestly weigh the evidence and come to the right conclusion.

There are three tests for truth: (1) logical consistency, (2) empirical adequacy, and (3) experiential relevance. Simply put, Christianity fulfills all three, and the other religions do not. Rational critiques of mythic figures, and even Hinduism and Islam reveal that they do not meet the ordinary tests of truth.

Christianity also offers a unique metaphysics. In contrast to other religions, the Christian God reveals himself to be absolutely independent and self-contained, yet also absolutely personal, both transcendent and immanent. God is personal and communicates personally. We don't believe in Aphrodite or the Flying Spaghetti Monster because reasoning shows them to fail the tests for truth. This doesn't mean there aren't elements of truth in all religions, because there are. But they are not true.

[Iron Maiden]

>There are three tests for truth: (1) logical consistency, (2) empirical adequacy, and (3) experiential relevance. Simply put, Christianity fulfills all three, and the other religions do not. Rational critiques of mythic figures, and even Hinduism and Islam reveal that they do not meet the ordinary tests of truth.

Can you expand on those three definitions, then? How does Zeus (or pick your favorite) fail be logically consistent, empirically adequate or experientially relevant?

This is the first response I've ever gotten that has attempted to answer the question; thank you!

[jimwalton]

Zeus. Mythography is not meant to relate literal events in the real world. The ancients would consider their mythologies to be meaningful, but nothing that really happened. It was only true in the sense that it rendered the world meaningful to them. The Mesopotamians were not communicating history, but theology, and therein lies the difference. They were trying to portray reality through the lens of ideology. It doesn't pass any any of the tests for truth. So also with Thor, Baal, and Osiris, etc.

Hinduism fails to be logically consistent or experientially relevant. It is not historical. None of its claims enter time and space, and none can be investigated. Hinduism is self-contradictory, incorporating atheism, polytheism, theism, and just about everything else. It teaches us to seek union with the divine and to become divine, but at the same time trains us to disappear to self and merge with the one impersonal absolute. Union with the impersonal absolute defies language, reason, and existential realities. The only way to reach nirvana is to cease to exist. Even some Hindu philosophers and thinkers have labelled it as one of the most contradictory systems of life's purpose ever espoused. It's logically inconsistent, empirically inadequate, and experientially irrelevant.

Islam also fails on all three counts. It is not historically testable. Muhammad's encounter with Gabriel was private. In Islam the distance between Allah and humanity is so vast there is no relationship, or even a possibility of it, and yet it speaks of community. Allah is unknown and unknowable. One's destiny is at the mercy of an unknown will. Mohammad first believed that message he got from an angel choking him was a demon. How can a religion that claims that its prophet came to the entire world restrict its miracle to a language that is not spoken by the vast majority of people? How can Mohammad, whose passions were so untamed, earn the right to speak moral platitudes? The Qur'an claims parts of the Bible are holy Scripture, and then it contradicts the Bible. Mohammad said the prophets were confirmed by miracles, but then he never performed any miracles. Islam is more accurately a geopolitical worldview masquerading as a religion. Political power and enforcement become the means of obedience. It is a religion of power and conquest.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, on the other hand, is a pure fabrication of scoffers and cynics, and doesn't belong in the conversation.