Why Christianity?

[Randy Carson]

1. The argument which is unique to Christianity is that Jesus prophesied that he would die and rise from the dead and that this resurrection gives us a reason to believe his claims of divinity. Scholars who have studied the dying and rising gods genre have determined that Jesus is not the copy-cat god; it is the other gods of the middle east that began to claim bodily resurrection in the first and second century AFTER Jesus. IOW, they are the copy-cats - not Jesus.
Jews and Muslims do not make similar claims for the major figures of their respective faiths.

2. It could have been one of them; therefore, it would be reasonable for you to examine what can be known about Thor, Ba'al and others to determine which God is the most likely candidate. Since it is also reasonable to assume that others have made a similar examination throughout the course of human history, starting with the largest religions - Christianity, Islam and Hinduism - would be most efficient. Further, you might ask yourself whether monotheism is more plausible than polytheism; if so, you could put Hinduism on the back burner.

3. Yahweh and Allah are the same God. The Flying Spaghetti Monster does not seem to qualify as an all-powerful God since it has been argued by its followers that the reason people are taller today on average than they were in the past is that as the population of the planet has grown over the past few centuries, the FSM's noodly appendages have not been able to push people down as much as before. IOW, the FSM does not appear to be omnipotent, and the idea that a god who is not omnipotent created EVERYTHING from nothing fails to persuade.  

4. If you are interested in a lot of interaction with your questions, you will get more and better responses to them at the Catholic Answers Forum.

1. You are funny! None that predate Jesus? How about the ancient Near Eastern and Greek deities Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Attis, Tammuz, Asclepius, Orpheus, Krishna, Ra, Osiris, Jesus, Zalmoxis, Dionysus, Odin, Inanna, also known as Ishtar, whose cult dates to 4000 BCE, and Persephone, the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete.

This is an old and not uncommon attack on Christianity. Consequently, a lot of scholarship and research has been put into evaluating the validity of the "copy-cat" accusation. The bottom line is that Christians have nothing to fear from those who claim that the disciples simply borrowed ideas from gods that existed prior to Jesus' day. The fact is that while there are a few parallels here and there, there is no ancient god who provided the prototype for Jesus. In point of fact, the claims of dying and rising gods actually appeared in these other religions AFTER Jesus. Gods who died and rose with the seasons or who continued to live on but in another world, etc. are NOT the same as Jesus who died and physically rose to life again ONCE in this world before ascending to heaven.

Now, I am well aware of the fact that you may have read books and/or Internet postings that claim the opposite of this, but as Dr. Yamauchi (a legitimate scholar in this area of specialization) has noted, none of these authors have real academic credentials. There are plenty of good books refuting this nonsense which you can read if you are so inclined.

2. There are an infinite amount of gods. Thats going to take a while to go through!

Agreed. That's why I proposed that you start with the largest and work your way down the list till you get to something that makes sense to you.

3. There are no official doctrines for the church of the Flying Spaghetti doctrines. Try again.

Okay, thanks. What has the FSM actually revealed about itself? I ask because apart from any revelation, the FSM would be a deistic god and not a theistic one because if you don't know that it has interacted with creation, you have to conclude that the silence is intentionally deistic.

It also seems reasonable that if we accept that the FSM exists, then it must have certain characteristics that any religion would ascribe to its god(s), and these would form the basis of some theological doctrines however limited they might be.

4. Maybe, if I have the time. Two forums are a lot to keep up with.

Believe me, there's not going to be enough substantive material in this forum to keep you occupied. If you're an adult who still laughs at fart jokes, however, you may fit right in.