"This remark makes me wince as it illustrates the very problem with the sort of missionary work that I've been discussing. The American Indian religions must not have been all they are cracked up to be if they couldn't withstand Christianity?

The religions of many of the American Indian cultures are what are termed "syncretic." They absorb what works from other belief systems they encounter. They are, however, based on the land from which the people live on (autochthonous) and utilize the world around them as dynamic expressions of the truth as they know it. Religions serve, in the most basic of functions, in teaching people how to get along in a society. In the world where they live. They have components that deal with "others" and with the environment and with "self.""

See, this is my assertion. If they depend on an unchanging world around them for the survival of their religion, they will necessarily fail…..as I said, if not by Christian influence, by some other influence that does function better in a changing world. The environment, both physical and intellectual, stands still for no one. That's my point.

"A big problem I see with the Industrial religions (called thus because though they appear to be the opposite of science, they are in fact hand-in-hand with science, unlike the religions of the low-tech New World) is their unrootedness. They also originated in an autochthonous place, but on another continent in another environment. In a desert, in the case of Christianity. Harsh social attitudes necessary to survive in the desert may be what contributes to the aggressiveness of this transplanted believe system. It has acted as a weed on this continent, beneficial at times, totally destructive at other times. But in no way should the indigenous beliefs be considered inferior, destined to fail anyway when one considers the firepower to which they were subjected along WITH Christianity."

And this statement is indicative of the point I made----that this discussion dismisses prior to the argument, the possibility that revelatory religions might be based on an objective truth. It also make assertions about the nature of religions in general that exceed the scope of a forum discussion to properly hash out—in short though, I respectfully do not agree with them. We accept everyday that something may be both true and unproveable. We dismiss this notion when we talk about religion…..probably because that possibility makes us too uncomfortable to think about.