From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: testing claims responses
Article-I.D.: unc.4996
Posted: Sat Apr 16 15:28:30 1983
Received: Mon Apr 18 07:44:50 1983
References: tektroni.1055

	Reply to Bob Bales.

What is unique to
Christianity is the claim that God, as distinct from a prophet or a good man,
lived as a man on earth. And, most importantly, Christianity and Judaism
represent God's attempt to reach man while other religions represent mans'
attempt to reach God.

	Ever hear of a small and insignificant religion called Hinduism,
	Bob? Only a few hundred million adherents. Virtually all the gods
	in this pantheon have avatars (and all the major ones do). An
	avatar is a god born on Earth as a human. It's a very common
	concept. (There are also elements of this in Buddhism, but they are
	clearly Hindu borrowings.) Why do you cling to this weird notion that
	Christianity is unique?

To some, the sureness that comes from having put the claims of Christianity to
the test seems to be offensive arrogance. It is not meant that way. Don't
believe in Christianity because I, or anyone else on or off the net, says to.
Test it for yourself!

	I have often noted in Christians that they will attempt to get away
	with some otherwise offensive verbal utterance by claiming that it
	really isn't what it is. For instance, "I don't mean to seem holier-
	than-thou, but you're going to Hell while I sonbathe in Heaven."
	The fact that you claim you don't mean arrogance deliberately doesn't
	mean that it isn't there. It is incredibly arrogant to say that
	your experiuences with a small subset of a field qualify you as an
	expert on the entirety. It's as if someone were to master TRS-80
	BASIC and then claim to know everything worth knowing about computer
	languages.

Tim Maroney