Become a theist

The religions may be older but how reliable is the information we have of these religious texts? 

All religious texts are myth and of equal standing. 

So my question is how reliable is the transmission of these religious texts as opposed to the biblical texts? Obviously the greater number of texts (for comparison) and the earlier the text the more close to the original data, and the less chance of transmission errors. 

Yet by saying it is a piece of God, does that not imply that this piece is missing from God?

Or even that the pieces make up God?

God is not diminished.

God is not divided into parts.

Neither is it a strange thing for God to call matter into existence.

They are all older than Abraham (late 6th century BCE).  Does it matter how old they are?  Would you abandon your religion if the dates were ancient enough?  Is that your primary criteria?

Yes, it matters. The transmission, the additions, the corruptions all play into it. The more manuscripts we have the better the comparison between texts.

Abraham did not grow up christian.

Abraham was born and raised in Ur of the Chaldees, which is in modern Iraq, near Nasiriyah in the southeastern part of the country. Joshua 24:2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

What does this have to do with the biblical God?

So, father, son, holy-spirit is itself pure blasphemy?

So, father, son, holy-spirit is itself pure blasphemy?

One in essence, undivided.

But as for everything else, no, there is a big problem.

We do not make parts and pieces of God.

We are not the bricks that make God. We are not the toenails of God. 

The uncreated is not composed of created things.

Created things are not pieces of the uncreated.

I admit we both start from presuppositions in building our worldviews (atheists and Christians)

I assume nothing, because I'm not the one claiming to know how the universe began.

That being said, I'm going to prove you wrong with one very simple sentence in response to the above quote:

A presupposition is a position taken from a premise rooted in assumption, and an assumption is quite literally the opposite of knowledge, therefore, by your own admission, you do not know how the universe began.

End of debate. You lose.

No I am not. There is no evidence anything in religious text actually happened. Any other statement is a lie. 

Yet by saying it is a piece of God, does that not imply that this piece is missing from God? Or even that the pieces make up God?

God is not diminished. God is not divided into parts. Neither is it a strange thing for God to call matter into existence.

The evidence is roughly equivalent for each, they all have ancient writings and prophecies (that are confirmed by the writings).

Again, you never answered my original question. I'll add another question. How many ancient copies are found from each of these three and when do they date back to?

Your pursuit of specific names and dates and copies is a misguided red-herring.

Your very oldest and most accurate transcripts are from "The Dead Sea Scrolls" and the overwhelming majority of that goldmine does not support the modern christian viewpoint.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient writing that we have multiple, independent original manuscripts of, that very closely corroborate each other.

Based on these fact alone (age and multiple copies), do you believe the Epic of Gilgamesh is true?

I'm going to hazard a guess of "no".

I have no idea what your personal standard of evidence are.  Although I have a strong feeling that you would not accept prima facie, a writing that said something like "and then the prophet said, in 200 years there will be a war" and then in the same document, "and it came to pass, exactly 200 years later, that there was a war".  If you want some examples of ancient contradictions and specific rationalizations, 

Take for instance Daniel 2 and the four kingdoms or empires that are easily discernable by their descriptions and later mention of two of them. Then Daniel 9 speaks of six conditions that would take place within a specific period of time in which a Messiah would be killed and THEN the city and sanctuary would be destroyed with details of wars and desolation. The reference is AD 70 when all this happened. Copies of Daniel were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls dating back 200 years before AD 70. Or take Daniel 12 in which all prophecy concerning Daniel's people would be fulfilled.

Here's the problem you're missing.

A lot of people make a lot of predictions.  Most of the predictions are wrong, a few of them are right.  WE FORGET ABOUT THE WRONG ONES.  Nobody catalogs every idiotic failed prediction of ancient times.  Literacy was extremely rare in the bronze age and it was both time consuming and expensive to keep records of anything.  This means there is always a SAMPLE BIAS when it comes to predictions (and other writings in general).  WE OVER-EMPHASIZE THE ACCURATE ONES.  Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus are famous for the uncannily accurate predictions.  Does this fact alone lend any credibility to any of their beliefs about GODS?  Not really.  Making predictions does not, itself, mean anything at all.  What you need is a RELIABLE SYSTEM OF MAKING PREDICTIONS THAT IS INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIABLE.  Making some number of accurate predictions without revealing your methods "oh, I had a dream or vision or heard a voice" - is less than meaningless.

How is the information equivalent? Do you know anything of Hindu prophecies and how they relate to human history to date? I don't see anything specific there.  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_eschatology

The point here is that I care about as much as YOU DO about the accuracy of Hindu prophecy.  Because, even if Hindu prophecy was 100% accurate, it would still not convince you to change your beliefs.  Accurate predictions are made by mortals every day of the year.  IT PROVES NOTHING.  People thought Democritus was a GOD when he proved he could predict the weather.  Ancient people were quite unskeptical.

Not quite. When you use a personal pronoun like "you" and "your" it becomes an ad hom directed at the person. 

Dude, your car is dirty.

Dude, your logic has an error.

Just because I said "your" doesn't make this a personal attack.

You begin by accepting that either God or chance (that is the presupposition) and you build from there

by the way, I insist that you capitalize God

"The Gods" should be translated "The gods"

. His word demonstrates His love for humanity.

You begin by accepting that either God or chance (that is the presupposition) and you build from there

This statement alone defeats literally your entire argument. You don't begin a belief system with an assumption.

How do you not understand how insane that is? An assumption is exactly the same as ignorance.

It is a belief taken without knowledge. AKA faith. Wow dude. You seriously believe you can know something because you assumed it?

I can't even... the sheer stupidity of that statement baffles me to the point of being unable to articulate a response. If that were true, then i could assume the moon is made of milk, and build an entire factual philosophy of life based on that. You seriously need help.

I can't continue this with you. You deny the most simplistic, basic things that even children grasp as a part of human reality. There's just no reasoning with you man. I can't believe I used to think you were intellectually honest. You're literally the opposite. No way man.

So my question is how reliable is the transmission of these religious texts as opposed to the biblical texts? Obviously the greater number of texts (for comparison) and the earlier the text the more close to the original data, and the less chance of transmission errors. 

Are you Jewish now?  You seem to be suggesting, based on your stated criteria, that the age and number of preserved Jewish manuscripts somehow lends 100% credibility to the Christian belief system.

The true experts, the Jews themselves, would strongly disagree with this conclusion.

However, all of this "historical accuracy" is completely beside the point.

If we had reliable historical evidence that the author of the Book of Mormon "really existed" would that mean that their teachings are more likely to be "true"?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

They are all older than Abraham (late 6th century BCE).  Does it matter how old they are?  Would you abandon your religion if the dates were ancient enough?  Is that your primary criteria?

Yes, it matters. The transmission, the additions, the corruptions all play into it. The more manuscripts we have the better the comparison between texts.

Ok, but does that mean, that hypothetically speaking, if you were convinced that some other religion (Judaism) had older and more reliable texts than yours (Christianity), that you would then convert?  That is the crux.

Abraham did not grow up christian.

Abraham was born and raised in Ur of the Chaldees, which is in modern Iraq, near Nasiriyah in the southeastern part of the country. Joshua 24:2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

What does this have to do with the biblical God?

It means that Nanna the Moon god is an older religion than Judaism.  It also begs the question of why the "YHWH" would have been hiding-out up to this point.

Yet Abraham turned to the biblical God from idols. So what?

It also lends some credibility to the idea that Abraham's concept of god and heavenly hosts was very likely shaped by this pre-existing religion.

Abraham did not grow up christian.

Abraham was born and raised in Ur of the Chaldees, which is in modern Iraq, near Nasiriyah in the southeastern part of the country. Joshua 24:2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

What does this have to do with the biblical God?

It means that Nanna the Moon god is an older religion than Judaism.  It also begs the question of why the "YHWH" would have been hiding-out up to this point.

Yet Abraham turned to the biblical God from idols. So what?

It also lends some credibility to the idea that Abraham's concept of god and heavenly hosts was very likely shaped by this pre-existing religion.

The word "Gods" is a nonsensical word, because there cannot be 2 ultimate realities.

I think you are playing stupid, because you are breaking up my posts and responding to things like "as for everything else, there is a big problem" when I literally follow that statement with the problem.

You are mocking me.