The Abrahamic religions are (meta)stable, replicating informational constructs initially assembled by (meta)stable replicating chemically stored informational constructs (people) a few thousand years ago. Like a pyramid of stones, they have persisted because they are (meta)stable. Unlike a pyramid of stones, they spread because they replicate.
We recognize the Hebrews as those who recorded this (meta)stable pattern. They may not have been first, just the ones who wrote it down. They dedicated members of their community to waving foam fingers with "we're number one!" written on them. This is a defining characteristic. Self confidence is highly conserved by natural selection, like self awareness. Self awareness makes self preservation much easier and self confidence provides the motivation to self preserve.
The Christians are an iron age mutation of the Jews who inherited from the Hebrew tribes. They changed the meme to include the weak and the poor. By cementing together enough of the underclasses, they built a large, accretive structure, resilient, powerful and growth oriented.
The Muslims are a separate mutation which retains more of the violent strategems of their parent stock. They have some characteristics which are not shared by the cemented scum of Christianity such as blurring the separation of the religious and the political and the dogmatic retention of their text in the original Arabic. The growth of Islam shows the wisdom of these strategic moves as evolutionary success, commonly defined, is persistence and expansion into niches, in this case memory space, often in the face of competition for those storage slots.
All of these are successful, as they persist and expand. It is not at all necessary that their tenets be true. I define true as: being in agreement with observed reality. Being in agreement with observed reality requires observing reality and comparing the alleged truth thereto. This is an active process which must take place at some time in the future showing the alleged truth to have been true in fact in the past. Philip K. Dick pointed out, entertainingly, that we can't trust our memories of the past. Hence, nothing can be shown to be true. So it's a good thing for the Abrahamics that they don't have to be true to thrive and survive.
We recognize the Hebrews as those who recorded this (meta)stable pattern. They may not have been first, just the ones who wrote it down. They dedicated members of their community to waving foam fingers with "we're number one!" written on them. This is a defining characteristic. Self confidence is highly conserved by natural selection, like self awareness. Self awareness makes self preservation much easier and self confidence provides the motivation to self preserve.
The Christians are an iron age mutation of the Jews who inherited from the Hebrew tribes. They changed the meme to include the weak and the poor. By cementing together enough of the underclasses, they built a large, accretive structure, resilient, powerful and growth oriented.
The Muslims are a separate mutation which retains more of the violent strategems of their parent stock. They have some characteristics which are not shared by the cemented scum of Christianity such as blurring the separation of the religious and the political and the dogmatic retention of their text in the original Arabic. The growth of Islam shows the wisdom of these strategic moves as evolutionary success, commonly defined, is persistence and expansion into niches, in this case memory space, often in the face of competition for those storage slots.
All of these are successful, as they persist and expand. It is not at all necessary that their tenets be true. I define true as: being in agreement with observed reality. Being in agreement with observed reality requires observing reality and comparing the alleged truth thereto. This is an active process which must take place at some time in the future showing the alleged truth to have been true in fact in the past. Philip K. Dick pointed out, entertainingly, that we can't trust our memories of the past. Hence, nothing can be shown to be true. So it's a good thing for the Abrahamics that they don't have to be true to thrive and survive.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
