Are You Religious?

[ManipulatorGeneral]

I think part of the issue is that even if you accept that there's a God, it brings up the issue of "which God?"

Certainly a valid question; there are a few approaches by which I determine this. I find no historical evidence supporting religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and while I hold respect for the philosophies of these belief systems and find significant truths within them (some of their philosophies definitely influence my Christianity), I can't accept them as a true religion as opposed to a true philosophy. As a prominent world religion and an Abrahamic faith, Islam is reasonable to consider, but I find it lacking in how it describes human nature, and I find no compelling reason to believe its alternate historical account of major events in Christianity. Traditional Muslim explanations of Christ's crucifixion are that He was crucified, but ascended to heaven before dying, or that He asked someone else to double for him and suffer the crucifixion instead; not only have I found no historical corroboration of either event (except what the Qur'an says, and that was written six hundred years later, when skeptics question the reliability of the Gospels for only being a few decades late), but Jesus asking someone else to die in His place is out of step with His character as displayed by the rest of His life, of which Muslims would have to accept much of the biblical and extrabiblical sources of to have any support for their claim anyway. Perhaps I'm rambling somewhat, but I find the Muslim account of events simply doesn't make logical sense to my mind, nor do I see sufficient reason to think that, if one accepts that the Abrahamic God exists, the Muslim explanation is more credible than the Christian one. I independently studied some Islamic theology and concepts in the past, but I'm largely operating from my own understanding here.

One other observation I make about the differing gods is the often-cited argument from inconsistent revelations: that all theists experience God, so why should one be any more credible than the other? It is obvious that not everybody can be correct, so the solution is, again, which god makes most sense. I find that positing the Christian God as true, or at least one of the Abrahamic ones, sorts out this problem: His omnibenevolent nature explains why everybody senses Him and why He seems to bless everybody whatever their beliefs are, and the mess of incorrect gods is an attempt of the devil to imitate God and be like Him, the same trick as always. My basic belief is that if one posits a deity, there are only a few religions which have any notable apologetics at hand, and there is one which makes the most overall sense in the broad world context; I chose Christianity as that one, and Muslims follow the same path, though end with a different conclusion. Perhaps you can grasp my perspective somewhat by asking yourself another question: if you knew there was one true religion, which one would you pick and why? Maybe even answer this before rebutting my earlier points, which I, as always, anticipate with interest. I find you satisfyingly informed, BitBuster, and I've learned much from this discussion.