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However, most Christians have never read the entire Bible, even once. (Any of the George Barna reports.) As soon as I begin a discussion with most Christians and quote Augustine, or Calvin, or Luther, or Wesley, or any of the Church Fathers, or even the Bible, most go limp, and have no idea what I am talking about. Ask any Christian (except those who post here or have been to a Christian school, not exactly a majority) what ex nihilo, original sin, atonement, transubstantiation (Catholics), apologetics, or eschatology mean. None has any idea. (However, the answers are always fun.)
Ex Nihilo: Latin for "out of nothing." God created the
world ex nihilo.
Original Sin: The sin committed by Adam and Eve in Eden by
which sin entered the world.
Atonement: To make restitution.
Transubstantiation: The belief that the eucharist becomes
the actual body of Christ when it is prayed over by a priest.
Apologetics: Arguments made in defence of a belief.
I do not know what "eschatology" is however.
I am reasonably familiar with the Reformers (Calvin, Huss,
Luther, Zwingli, Knox, etc.) but my knowledge of the
church fathers is rather cursory.
The easiest repudiation of religion, all religion, is that, to most people it is the most important set of beliefs they have, (because it is the one, after personal considerations, they are most likely to kill or die for), and they are either all wrong (because they all contradict each other), or they are all wrong but one. (Of course they all believe the latter and that their religion is the one that is not wrong.) That is utterly illogical. You do not believe your beliefs are wrong simply because other people have beliefs that are logically irreconcilable with them. It surprises me that many atheistic people think its unreasonable to be religious because different religious beliefs are in conflict but reasonable to be an atheist while secular belief systems are in similar conflict.

HK said: The easiest repudiation of religion, all religion, is that, to most people it is the most important set of beliefs they have, (because it is the one, after personal considerations, they are most likely to kill or die for), and they are either all wrong (because they all contradict each other), or they are all wrong but one. (Of course they all believe the latter and that their religion is the one that is not wrong.) I responded: That is utterly illogical. You do not believe your beliefs are wrong simply because other people have beliefs that are logically irreconcilable with them. It surprises me that many atheistic people think its unreasonable to be religious because different religious beliefs are in conflict but reasonable to be an atheist while secular belief systems are in similar conflict.
I accidently deleted some of the HTML tags as I was working on my response.

The easiest repudiation of religion, all religion, is that, to most people it is the most important set of beliefs they have, (because it is the one, after personal considerations, they are most likely to kill or die for), and they are either all wrong (because they all contradict each other), or they are all wrong but one. ... That is utterly illogical. You do not believe your beliefs are wrong simply because other people have beliefs that are logically irreconcilable with them.

I make the same argument for most political views as well, because it is the next thing most people are willing to die or kill for, and most contradict each other and are wrong.

This discussion was not about secular views verses religious views but about religion verses Objectivism. Except for defense, Objectivism opposes all war, all aggression, and all oppression. That is the view that you most compare to the religious views. Can you think of one religion that has consistently opposed these things. Can you think of one religion that has always opposed slavery in any form, for example. Certainly that won't be Christianity.

My point was that for any given mathematical problem there is only one correct answer. If I give a test, and receive ten different answers to the same problem, without even looking at the answers, I know at least nine of them are wrong. The other may be wrong too, but even if it is right, most of the answers are wrong. I wasn't arguing that any particular religion was wrong, only that, even if one were right, most are wrong.

(Since no religion has consistently opposed slavery, at least on that point, all religions are wrong. Can a religion be partly right and partly wrong?)

(By the way my post was not a test, but if it were, you did very well, and are an exceptional Christian. Don't berate yourself about the church father's, they are a bit esoteric, and not all that helpful, probably. You might find Augustine entertaining, he believed salamanders could live in fire and that there were people in the world without mouths whose nourishment came entirely from the air, and he invented the doctrines of original sin, the sinful nature, and most of the strictly Calvinistic doctrines.)

Hank