Got a cite for that? You’re the one making the assertion.
They don’t. Anyone can define it. I can define it even if I don’t call myself one.
But all of the pluralistic definitions, or the cultural ones, are not subjects of debate because they are not making any exclusive claims about reality or truth.
Only those belief systems that make exclusive claims about reality are valid topics of debate.
For example, chemistry is a belief system that makes exclusive claims about reality. Chemistry for example claims that matter is composed of atoms and molecules. Chemistry has a lot of evidence to back up that belief. Geology claims that the earth has a certain shape, and that the land masses are affected by a process called plate tectonics. These are exclusive claims about truth. It is not possible in the mind of a chemist that matter is made up of atoms for me but not for you. It is not possible according to the geologists that plate tectonics is true for some of us but not for all of us.
The study of art, in contrast, is not a belief system making exclusive claims about reality. When an art scholar explains the subtle details of color, composition, etc, s/he is not saying that this is beautiful to everyone, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Any form of these religions that is pluralistic - ie, states that believe what you want, there is no “true” religion" - is not a subject of debate. They have a right to believe that. But what should be examined by any thinking person is any claim of exclusive truth.
I don’t think any of that is actually true. I think you mean those are the topics you are interested in for purposes of this debate, which is fine. They might be the easiest to debate because they make the absolute claims. But they’re not the only ones that can be debated and I don’t think it’s wise to say that some of the less extreme claims don’t need to be debated. And at the risk of dragging this off topic, it is completely wrongheaded to describe chemistry as a belief system. It’s a science, and the claims that are accepted in modern chemistry are the result of scientific experimentation. That’s very differnet from religions based on revealed truth, and I think you’d do well to keep them separate here.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1O.HTM
*
Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.* (para 618)
Not off topic, in my view. Let’s examine your statement. I happen to believe that science is a belief system too. Do you know the earth is round, or do you believe it to be true? Do you know that matter is composed of atoms, or do you believe it to be true?
I believe these things to be true because I have seen much evidence etc.
Why should a religion be held to less of a test than this? “You claim that your religion is true because it was revealed to so-and-so. Believe what you want, but now you are telling me that I should believe it too. OK, show me the evidence.”
It may be clear to you but not to me, so please enlighten me.
No one that I know - that is, no rational adult - believes in Santa or the Easter Bunny.
However, I know many intelligent adults who believe in these religions. So enlighten me to what is so obviously and clearly made-up about these.
Remember, we have narrowed this debate down to the veracity of their respective books, as representing “the word of God” - don’t start bringing in doctrines or beliefs that you find disagreeable. For instance, if it is true that God gave Mohammed the Koran, then the contents of the Koran are the will of God, regardless of what you and I feel about them. You want to know WHY God would put xyz into his book? That’s a different question. We’re only debating right now which of these books has the most reasonable claim of exclusive truth.
Because none of them can survive it. Therefore, their adherents demand they be taken on faith, and their claims respected simply because they have the “religion” label slapped on them. The religious make claims all the time that if they weren’t labeled as religion would have people pointing at them and laughing; instead, most people solemnly pretend it all deserves to be taken seriously.
How do you know this? Have you examined the historical evidence for the veracity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Can you cite any sources for us?
Nope. That just says he died for all man’s sins.
Let me help you out:
The fact that they were created by a bunch of primitives, they contradict physical laws and historical facts, are logically contradictory and just plain make no sense. They aren’t just fiction; they are poorly made fiction.
You yourself brought up the desirability of the religions in question when you said* 'I would challenge all participants to have the attitude of, “If X religion were proved true, then I would become an X.” '*
I simply don’t care about the will of their god, or any other god.
There isn’t any. I can’t examine what doesn’t exist. It’s all just baseless assertions, with no more evidence than the crazed rantings of some schizophrenic homeless guy on a corner.
Good Lord! If you’re going to quote the catechism, at least have the decency to understand it, not to dump your own oddball interpretation.
Contrarily to most previous posters, I’m willing to say that one of those religions makes even less sense than the two others : Christianity. On the basis of the two following beliefs :
-That god had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to allow himself to change the rules he had made.
-More importantly because it has only one god, but there are three of him.
I couldn’t pick a winner between Judaism and Islam on any logical basis I can think of at the moment.
I have some sympathy for the OP’s project, and would have liked to see it generate a good, intelligent debate along the lines he was looking for, but I’m not holding my breath.
One problem is that, in order to intelligently debate the differences between even the three great Abrahamic religions, it’s necessary to know quite a bit about all three of them, to know in a fair amount of detail what they believe to be true and why they believe it to be true, and perhaps to have studied what each tradition’s greatest philosophers and theologians and apologists have put forth as arguments and evidence for their religion’s doctrines, and few of us on this forum have that kind of background.
And, while the kind of open-minded, impartial attitude the OP asks for would be a good starting point for a debate, it’s difficult to achieve in practice. It’d be like if you brought one of us three women and asked him to decide, through evidence and argument, which one is most likely to be his mother.
Ah, but is that an argument that Christianity is less, or more, likely to be true? 
They say that “truth is stranger than fiction”: maybe the (seemingly?) nonsensical or paradoxical nature of beliefs like those is evidence that no one would have made them up, and expected other people to believe them?
I’m not really going to go there, because I don’t honestly believe that Christian doctrines couldn’t have been invented. But I do believe that it’s presumptuous to assume that truths about God and Ultimate Reality would be something that I could, as a limited human being, fully comprehend, let alone something that I could state in short sentences of one-syllable words without making them sound nonsensical.
Wrong
Judaism teaches it is bad if Jews worship idols. The 614 commandments are binding only on Jews. The rest of humanity only has to abide by the 7 Laws Of Noah. Whether idol worship is covered by those laws is debatable.
You got a cite for that? It’s no sin to watch a Christian service. Just as it’s no sin to go someplace where other people eat shellfish.
Taken from a purely objective and dispassionate point of view, say, from that of a visiting alien race, the differences between the three belief systems would be seen as negligible.
I don’t think you can compare the correctness of three groups, one of which in effect says “the sun is green,” a second, “the sun is pink,” and a third, “the sun is blue.”
I will attempt to answer the question in the spirit it was asked. Which religion is closer to objective reality? I’d say Judaism in that it offers a fair amount of commonsense prescriptions for everyday life. Much of the Torah deals with legal problems and decisions that arise in the community.
That should be 613 commandments not 614
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
On the other hand…that specific debate could be approached rationally. There is some historic evidence for a person who inspired the myths of Saint Nicholas, whereas the Easter Bunny is obviously just a cartoon character. So…
An awful lot depends on exactly which version of the three Abrahamic religions is being put forward as the “type” of the religion. The odds that Fred Phelps’ version of Christianity is correct would seem to be rather less than the odds that, say, Billy Graham’s version is correct. This is true, if only on the grounds that Fred Phelps includes more specific tenets.
(i.e., the odds that “A&B” is true are necessarily greater or equal than the odds that “A&B&C” is true. Phelps’ theology is more…ah…ornate than Graham’s.)
Even so, the odds are so absurdly small as to be safely negligible. I’m far more concerned about a comet impact than about God’s existence.
On the other hand, Phelp’s version is more in line with the Old Testament All Smightey God that who condemned a coupled of people who couldn’t have known they did a bad thing until after they did it, wasn’t happy with the world he himself slapped together and drowned most everything and everybody like a bag o’ kittens tossed in the river, turned a woman into a pillar of salt just because she looked back at the only home she had ever known, and so bloody on and so bloody forth.