Ben:
Yeh sorry about devoting so much time to the Bible in my last posts. (I wasn't insulted by the Archers analogy).

I disagree with the idea that the new testament diciples could be deluded. For one thing at the time they already had knowledge of God and creation, so telling people that they had seen Jesus alive would not have satisfied the desire to acknowledge their creator.
I highly recommend reading this article written by a chief magistrate analysing the accounts of the witnesses in the New Testament as he would have done as a judge, which I think covers any points I would otherwise bring up.

I am not liberal in that sense. There is unfourtunately a common attitude that any faith can lead to God, but thats not what the bible says. Jesus said:

• "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6)

You're right that there are incompatibilities, and this verse makes christianity incompatible with any religion that says that there is another way to God except through Jesus.

The thing about the Christian faith is that it provides a solution for sin. I don't know of any other faith that solves it satisfactorally.

Although I am not very familiar with other religious texts, i would expect them to have inconsistencies in the same way the Bible probably would if it was entirely from man, it would be interesting to look into this.

I'm not really qualified to analyse the consistency of scientology or islam, however from what wikipedia tells me scientologists believe in reincarnation which isn't really consistent with what we observe (I don't see any intelligent insects, and where have all the souls from the recent surge in world population come from?).

Re: the claim of being created in God's image, it is indeed arrogant from the assumption that we are a tiny and insignificant part of creation (which would make it particularly undeserved). The bible teaches us that God did make us in his image and gave us the task of looking after the earth, which is what separates us from all the other creatures on earth and allows us to reason about such things. I suppose my argument against it being arrogant is the fact that christian's acknowledge that they are sinful and non-deserving of God's love or forgiveness (which I would say is humble, quite the oposite of arrogant - even that we claim to be saved is not by our own acts). In contrast many athiests use their self-confessed "logic" and "objectivity" to justify their superiority over and verbal abuse of those who "have faith". Which do you think is more arrogant?