Atheism

[Angrboda]

Your arguments against other religions all seem to revolve around criteria that are favorable to your religion, and seem -- at least superficially -- hostile to theirs.  If that's the case, as I think it is, that's simply another version of special pleading.  I don't offhand know what the proper evaluation of a religion or its claims should be, aside from an obvious correspondence to the real world, but your criteria seem unnecessarily biased.

I think the list I made seeks to identify four tests that, if a religion were to fail them, they have a big gaping hole that would be hard to overcome--from a rational-belief perspective. Perhaps #3 is weaker than the others.

Beyond the point noted, the first three of your criteria detail what men do in response to knowledge of the gods. How exactly that is a question of the truth claims of a religious experience, or even of the religion, is something I don't fully understand. The gods may be real and yet men may react to them differently. The difference in cultures and theological assumptions explain the latter without impugning the former. So the first three criteria aren't really questions about the truth claims, but rather about how men have responded to revelations, with the clear implication that a Western, analytical tradition is superior. Coming from a Hindu background myself, I recognize that the differences between the theology of the west and that of India are largely products of cultural differences. That's a clear bias, as noted before. Religion in India was fundamentally pluralistic, whereas religion in the Christian tradition was viciously exclusive. Even if the Western analytical tradition was in some sense superior, that would not indicate that the revelations underlying those traditions were more likely true as a result. As to your fourth criteria, I find that both Christianity and Hinduism likely fail that test.

So, as criteria for the truth of revelation, you've posited three criteria which are specifically friendly to Christianity, yet generally irrelevant to the revelations themselves, and a fourth which doesn't really distinguish the two. It may be true that you've pointed out weaknesses in the religion as a religion, but we're not interested in the virtues of the religion as a religion but rather the likely truth or falsity of the underlying truth claims. With the possible exception of #4, which Christianity also does poorly on, none of your criteria are appropriately aimed.