snorider wrote:
1) Are you the same religion of your immediate family.
2) What makes your religion more significant than others.
1.) Yes, but I don't see why that matters. Just about everyone on this site has reasons for what they believe other than that they were raised to do it. I, myself, was raised in a strongly Christian family and did, for a long time, accept what I was taught purely on faith in what my parents told me was true. However, I eventually set off on my own, no longer content with merely mirroring the outlook of those around me, and began to research the issue of religion by myself. After a long and often agonizing process of examination in which I looked into philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, biology, physics, New Testament Studies, comparative religions, etc, I decided to remain a Christian, feeling that it was the most intellectually plausible position of those I had investigated. The fact that I was raised as a Christian had little to do with my decision to remain one, as evidenced by the fact that I am, today, a much different Christian than I was before I began to search for answers on my own. My family does not accept evolution and is probably full of Young Earthers as well, two positions that I have abandoned in favor of Theistic Evolution. My family would insist on a rather wooden, overly-literalist interpretation of scripture, which I no longer would, and my family would likely not look favorably on my enjoyment of philosophy of religion or New Testament studies, preferring for me to simply read the Bible and accept it without question. In short, I am hardly the person I was raised to be, and I feel that my opinions on the truth and nature of Christianity are well-grounded intellectually.
2.) I'm not sure why you use the word 'significant', but I certainly feel that Christianity is more 'true' than other religions. I feel this way for several independent reasons. First, the primary truth claim of the Christian religion is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I have investigated at length the work of historians, textual critics, and New Testament specialists both liberal and conservative, and I find it most likely that Jesus did indeed rise physically from the dead, appearing to his disciples and later to Paul. I came to this conclusion by studying the New Testament writings and what has been written about them, finding them to be historically accurate where testable, highly uncorrupted and written rather early and upon a rich foundation of oral and written tradition. I have found he writings of Paul, who was not a proto gnostic or syncretist despite the claims of some, to be particularly helpful in establishing the existence of early and advanced Christology and a well-connected and early orthodoxy. I have found alternative explanations for the origins of Christianity to be largely unlikely and ad hoc. In fact, my reasons for believing based on the investigation of the New Testament are far to numerous and interconnected to list here, and these alone are enough to convince me that Christianity's central claims are true.
In the world of science, I have come to understand that very little, if anything, that we find out through scientific studies really informs us as to wether or not the Christian God exists. Our understanding of the universe today fits comfortably into the same philosophy expounded upon by Christians like Aquinas that lived centuries ago, and I think I've passed the point at which scientific discoveries cause me to question God, who is invalidated neither by evolution, nor the big bang, nor quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, many would say that these things point to him rather than away. Of course, little of this suggests Christianity over any other type of monotheism, like Judaism or Islam, but it helps narrow the field from some religions that have been made much less plausible by centuries of scientific investigation (like the Greco-Roman gods).
Now, I will admit that I am not particularly well informed about the world's other religions, which are too numerous for any single person to understand in all their intricacies, but I feel that I have a good reasons to think Christianity is true, and if it is, then other religions very likely aren't. For example, Islam, though worshiping the same God as Christians, does not recognize Jesus as the Son of God who died for the sins of the world and rose from the dead, conquering sin and death and bringing God's Kingdom. Because I have good reasons to believe that the Christian claims are true, I must conclude that claims to the contrary, i.e. those of Islam, aren't true.
I'm sure the others on this board can provide a veritable deluge of reasons why they believe Christianity to be true over other belief systems, and these have nothing to do with being raised as a Christian or making circular arguments from Scripture.
