Why Christianity?

[orangebox21]

A question I always ask Christians is, "What arguments do you have to support your beliefs that a Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim does not? In other words, if I accept your notion that the universe must have had a creator, why couldn't it have been Thor or Ba'al? Even if I accept that prayer works, why must it be Yahweh answering them and not Allah or The Flying Spaghetti Monster?"

I agree this is a challenge of natural argumentation.  Even if a person accepts a general deity, how do they know they have the right deity?

A potential inquiry could involve the following:
1.  Does the deity posses the characteristics necessary to be the creator?
2.  A review of mutually exclusive truth claims between the faith's
3.  Disjunctive syllogism

An example of point number 1 would go as follows.  The creation event includes the beginning of time, space, and matter.  Therefore prior to the creation event there was no time, no space, and no matter.  If the  Flying Spaghetti Monster were the creator of the universe, then matter (spaghetti) would exist prior to the existence of matter.  This is a logical impossibility, therefore the Flying spaghetti monster could not be the creator of the universe.

As for number 2.  A comparison of each faith's truth claims can be examined through a review of mutually exclusive truth claims.  In other words, start with any two faith's truth claims and ask, are these two truth claims mutually exclusive or synonymous?  If synonymous they are one and the same; combine the truth claims and subsequent faith's together and proceed.  If the truth claims are mutually exclusive then either claim A or claim B is true.  Eventually you will be left with two choices with mutually exclusive truth claims.  

And that leads to disjunctive syllogism.  Either truth claim A or truth claim B is true.  As an example, one of the truth claims shared by all religions is that man is in a fallen or imperfect state and is in need of salvation/redemption/perfection [a claim atheist's would recognize as well].  To the best of my knowledge, all religions other than Christianity make the claim that salvation/redemption/perfection of man is found in man's own efforts.  In other words, all other religions teach that man is his own redeemer.  Christianity makes a different and mutually exclusive claim.  Namely that you have the forgiveness of sins [salvation/redemption/perfection] through the effort of [God] Jesus Christ.  It is by grace you have been saved, not of works.  So on this specific issue, either Christianity is true or all other religions are true.

Every time I ask any version of these questions I get either radio silence or a quick, sudden change of the topic. Because of my many failed attempts at asking these questions in real life, I decided to ask these questions here.

Are you claiming that a forum isn't 'real life'?