My opinion of different denominations

Inb4 OP realizes Martin Luther called his church Evangelical before it was called Lutheran

I will save my comments for the debate.

There are an estimated 45,000 to 47,300 Christian denominations and distinct groups worldwide, a number that has grown rapidly from around 500 in 1800 and is expected to continue increasing. You have listed just four .

Yes, the term "evangelical" has been hijacked by sacrament-denying schismatics

I'm well aware that I have listed four, I have particularly strong opinions about those four but I could speak on others. There are also much less denominations if you exclude trinitarian/christological heresy sects, individual factions within single denominations, and different institutions which all fall under umbrellas like "lutheran" or "presbyterian". In fact once you do that there are only like 12 denominations.

I mean, there's nothing to deny.

Insofar as Jesus commanded his followers to be baptized, and to hold a supper in remembrance of him (at unspecified intervals), Evangelicals already do that. But insofar as "sacraments" has some meaning beyond that, the burden is on proponents to prove said extrabiblical doctrine conceived of by men who lived centuries after the NT canon closed holds any weight.

ultimately you either go properly ND/Baptist or you go Catholic.

Orthodox is valid only when your nation basically rigs it that if you went Cath you can't marry an Ortho and your nearest Cath church is 4 towns away and just not worth it.

In such scenario God will forgive you not having a true seal-guaranteed confessional process. You can use the seal-not-guaranteed confessional for most sins and any too risky/taboo God will forgive because in that nation you prioritised assimilation to their Christianity and tried your best.

At least they try their best to be true Christians (and Russia's actually is the single worst out of the EO at this so idk why you chose them, furthermore if you're anti-Islam to that degree, you shoul dbe aware that Russia is the only EO nation that has literally harsh enforced blasphemy laws that it applies to thos ethat speak against Islam just as harshly as to those that speak against Christianity (yes, the religions, not the people alone it actually probably goes less harsh on racism than anti theism).

You are Lutheran, big deal. You think Nordic model can be anything by heavily secularised and agnostic/atheistic to the hilt, big deal. The actual Lutheran OG cultures have proven exactly what Lutheranism leads to, you're trying to compensate by making it as Catholic-Mass as possible without being Catholic and you're only focused on the Mass, ignoring the works and actual serving of God that matter far more than some damn bread on your tongue. Even Catholics who are very serious, know that works matter a lot. That is actually why you must not take Eucharist if your works were too terrible and you haven't yet been absolved as per Catholic doctrine.

I don't dislike Confessional Lutheranism, it's better than the stuff the generic Lutheranism does. What you will realise in the debate is that Luther would not at all give a damn about them and that modern Baptists are actually a lot closer to Luther's approach, you just have it wrong. Modern Baptists who are not heavy on the added solas (PotS etc) push the angle Luther did more strong than even confessional Lutherans do. They actually live out the Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura approach significantly more because to them that bread is just another physical works-like or pagan-like concept they deny outright as they're very literalist about that stuff. They're also wither happy clappy liberal types (I don't dislike their love and joy for God and music unlike a hard trad cath but I do think they are barely trying to submit to God) or they're the ultra abstinence (even from alcohol etc) types that believe in some rigid sort of application of rules that Paul actually preached against.

The reality is that the only reason Confessional Lutherans are good Christians potentially, is that they can end up mimicking Catholic approach enough that they probably do end up being decent Christians. That's the cold hard truth.

Pope Leo is starting now to go the Pope Francis route a little too much. He's said Anglicans and Catholics are "are already one". This double speak politically correct stuff is not my style but my style likely would cause major upheaval. The reality is that you can keep pushing what you want.

You either are an ND and your denomination basically is just a means to an end to have a community and take the bread/wine if that means a lot to you or you're one of the OG churches that have apostolic succession and proper eucharistic approach (orthodox do have proper eucharistic approach and do have an arguably valid apostolic succession).

You already conceded bit by bit every single thing I opposed you on earlier. The main disagreement you and I have is about the Catholic Church and its approach. That will be the hugest clash in the debate.

You believe a Catholic that's quietly slightly heretical is immediately to be excommed and thus should opt for Lutheranism (I predict). Whereas I believe that a Lutheran who wants confession to a Priest and the other stuff should be Catholic (your Priests are basically just Pastors btw, cosplaying as valid clergy I am not saying this to be cruel but you need to realise the actual way the Catholic Church sees your Clergy to realise the issue with confessing to that 'Priest'). You have every right to be a Lutheran and a Christian. You can be one that stamps your foot down, screams to the wind about how great Lutheranism is and all of this. You will find over time that you only can justify Lutheranism when it more and more mimics Catholicism. So the reality is, what I was saying this paragraph's start is that you see a Catholic who slightly heresies and leans Lutheran on some things (like you know Caths these days often are to some degree in Europe at least), or you can decide it's that huge of an issue and stay Lutheran.

Just remember, your Lutheran priest's 'seal of confession' is about as secure as a chat with anyone else at basically any time. It's not even close to doctor nor lawyer level confidentiality. A Catholic Priest's is. That's a huge difference already with the level of trust you can have. Also realise that because it's entirely optional to Lutherans as opposed to 'maybe optional in a technical way but you definitely are supposed to do it' as modern Catholicism sees it, that your Lutheran Priest is going to be annoyed if you go too often (which probably means going more than twice in 4 months). In contrast, a Catholic Priest would begin to get annoyed if you consistently went let's say every week or 2 weeks again and again especially for the same sins. The Priest wouldn't be annoyed at your neediness to have it alone, just at maybe needing to make time for it or in that scenario that you seem unrepentant and are treating it like a 'soothing session' and taking advantage of pastoral care duties vs truly submitting and serving the Lord.

You can do what you want. You can keep believing what you want. I also am pretty sure it's a lot easier to become a Lutheran Priest than a Catholic Priest. LGBTQ (maybe not T but LGB openly) and female Lutheran Priests already operate in Scandinavia and some parts of Germany. It's a matter of time before you will see that happen to your American Lutheranism, confessional or not.

Jesus literally said "this is my body". "evangelical" heretics are the ones going against the plain reading of scripture. "Yes lets take scripture super literally about everything until it mentions sacraments".

Also saying that sacraments are just a metaphorical symbol is something that literally no one ever believed until well after the protestant reformation, other views like sola scriptura and sola fide exist on a spectrum and you can find church fathers saying all sorts of stuff but sacraments being nothing but metaphors wasn't even a view any historical christian took seriously. Not even Zwingli himself was that extreme.

Jesus literally said "this is my body". "evangelical" heretics are the ones going against the plain reading of scripture. "Yes lets take scripture super literally about everything until it mentions sacraments".

Jesus said "I am the vine and you are the branches." Is Jesus a plant, then?

Also saying that sacraments are just a metaphorical symbol is something that literally no one ever believed until well after the protestant reformation, other views like sola scriptura and sola fide exist on a spectrum and you can find church fathers saying all sorts of stuff but sacraments being nothing but metaphors wasn't even a view any historical christian took seriously. Not even Zwingli himself was that extreme.

Again, you're talking about people who lived after the closing of the Biblical canon. Just because a misconception is passed down through many generations doesn't make it truth.

What a nation says on paper isn't always evenly enforced. Where ROC really shines though is that it attracts a lot of american converts.

The issue with most lutheran denominations is ecclesiology. The state-church model and congregationalist model just doesn't work. Presbyterians proved this by staying conservative longer but ultimately the LCMS model is the strongest imo. It mimics congregationalism on ground level but ultimately runs itself like business that has very specific policies. The LCMS staying conservative and confessional proves that it isn't protestant doctrine that is the problem, its the typical forms of protestant ecclesiology, but when its done right it works.

I don't take the catholic church seriously for many reasons, namely because it CAN'T be the true church. It dogmatically affirms libertarian free will. It contradicts its own teachings and whores itself to other religions.

You can't lecture me about "valid clergy" when you are in a church that thinks muslims can be saved. There are already liberal denominations of lutheranism in the US, they operate fundamentally different from LCMS though. The LCMS literally hasn't budged, the catholic church is way more liberal and failed as a church than LCMS because your pope is a religious pluralist who sucks up to muslims and jews.

Also "confessional lutheran" isn't about "going to confession". It is confessional because it follows the lutheran doctrinal confessions, the confessions of faith outlined in the book of concord.

So you think you're smarter than almost every christian in history. Interesting.

Jesus didn't make any kind of sacrament or ordinance out of vines, unless you ironically relate that to the eucharist. Paul describes christians being "grafted in" to Israel. If Jesus's body is the temple, you are grafted in by being a member of the body of christ, which is literally how the church is defined in scripture. If you are not sacramentally united to God via the human nature of Christ you are not saved.

You can't lecture me about "valid clergy" when you are in a church that thinks muslims can be saved.

You're already mortally sinning by saying all Muslims can't be saved.

First of all, to qualify as rejecting Jesus is complex if you're Muslim and were abused/coerced into Islam your entire life with even straight up blackmail of beating and/or death on the table if you apostated. There is no possible way that God is going to judge that identical to a Muslim from a more liberal Islamic family in a Christian Western cultured nation.

This is a first and very important thing to get into your brain. The Catholic Church actually taught that but what's ended up being interpreted is that the Muslims you know best and closest to you that you actually could have converted to Christianity, can be easily saved anyway. That may be problematic, not sure how to take it. The biggest selling point of this is that they're monotheistic, they claim that the deity they worship is the same of the Jews (which means they're at least trying hard to worship the Father) and they are holding tothat Yeshua/Jesus was a completely valid prophet of that deity.

The problem is that of course this doesn't mean the same thing as worshipping Jesus as Lord and Saviour. It also actively has scripture saying bad things and 'shirk' in Islam means that Christian Trinity is a huge Hell/Jahannam-guaranteeing Sin to them...

This however doesn't change the fact that invincible ignorance exists and can exist even for those that came across Christianity. We do not know how God is running the judgement system of what qualifies as invincible ignorance and what counts as actively knowing Yeshua and then rejecting him.

This leads us to realise that it was a correct adjustement to make that the old claim that they knew for sure there was no salvation outside the Catholic Church (let alone outside the Christian religion) had to be adjusted. There's no way an all loving God is going to literally reject all non believers in the specific Jesus in and of itself. He has to weigh in how active and knowing that rejection of Jesus was. This is a 100% correct adaptation of text.

I will also let you know that there's no possible way you're telling me that Lutheran cultures you admire most,the Nordic, hold that Muslims all go to Hell. That is false. That's a hyper protestant idea in fact to say they all go there.

So I think that a bunch of men were smarter than the God who wrote the Bible, and were clever enough to add rules He never mentioned at all.

Fixed

Jesus didn't make any kind of sacrament or ordinance out of vines, unless you ironically relate that to the eucharist. Paul describes christians being "grafted in" to Israel. If Jesus's body is the temple, you are grafted in by being a member of the body of christ, which is literally how the church is defined in scripture. If you are not sacramentally united to God via the human nature of Christ you are not saved.

Again, the idea of Jesus making a sacrament was the invention of later men.

More specifically we know that the idea of the Eucharist was an adaptation of the symposion, a banquet that was a focal activity of many communities in the Hellenistic world at that time. Victims (sacrificed animals) would be slaughtered and the meat would be shared at the banquet, which was often accompanied by the singing of hymns and praying of prayers to the gods. Early Christians who hailed from this cultural milieu intuitively understood this to be how religion in general was practiced, so that was how they did things. It was that culture's mode of expressing their faith, and it did not take on the later form of consuming an unleavened wafer or drinking from a shared sacramental cup of wine at a specific moment. It was quite simply a meal shared with other believers.

I wonder how much time you get in purgatory for doing the best you can as someone who is forced to be muslim. If you are catholic you might actually be worse off because the time you get in purgatory can only be 0 if you are literally a perfect catholic. Purgatory even existing kind of contradicts the logic behind it. Isn't everyone just doing the best they can? Why can't God be as lenient to Catholics by letting them off purgatory as he is to non-catholics by letting them off hell?

A religion that says you must experience mini-hell for being anything less than perfect can't turn around and pretend to be lenient.

Oh but you see its all about free will,it isn't about christ. Catholicism spits on Christ's sacrifice by making salvation only as good as your works. Yes Christ died for your sins but you must serve 5 billion years on purgatory for not following every word of RCC because he didn't really DO anything on the cross except make it so your works even count to begin with.

God is more merciful to the muslim who "does his best" than to the christian who trusts in Christ for his salvation and does the same thing apparently.

Do you know how else I know Catholicism is false? Because even the man made Talmud is better than the man made RCC. The Talmud has rules that protect children from abuse/neglect much more than RCC does.

Lutheranism teaches that no human by their own merit is righteous before God. You think you know what "righteous" even means but you don't Us humans are so much lower than God that there are levels of righteousness we don't even conceive of. Christians are not saved because they deserve to be, so you shouldn't expect the "good" muslims to be saved because they're so much less shitty than most muslims by evil human standards.

As for the nordic countries I fully acknowledge that they are a mess religiously with super liberal churches at 10% actual christian population at best. The thing is that most "left wing" countries and parties are fake leftism that are weaponized and co-opted. Yes lets continue to barely help the poor and barely care about public health and the environment, true leftism is about bending over backwards to appease muslims and trannies.

I admire nordic countries because their system takes care of people and the environment in the ways that matter, and demonstrates the distinction between "left wing" and "cultural marxist". They are much more left wing yet much more willing to say "we are proud of our cultural heritage" and tell muslims to gtfo than the UK is.

I wish the nordic countries weren't so secular but that happens to everyone who adopts a state-church model. Still, the fact that Lutheranism laid the foundations for the most prosperity-inducing socioeconomic model proves it is true.

I am curious what kind of church you go to specifically.

Paul says that people got sick and died for receiving the eucharist unworthily. He says that happened because they "failed to discern the body and blood of the Lord". This is literally in the Bible.

I believe this happened so it could be written for us to read. I believe we must read it in scripture and think "wow this eucharist thing should be taken seriously".

Yes, and the passage reads as follows:

"In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.

Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter! For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,

“This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying,

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world."

The Lord's Supper does warrant respect, but it's chiefly representative of participation in church life, and its mishandling in the passage tied to mishandling one's relationship with the church. Some are gathering together as part of the church while treating other members with disdain. Or they're gathering as part of the church while not being sincerely penitent of heart or sufficiently reverent toward the body that they're a part of. It is not really the bread and wine itself that's at issue here; this is an example of synecdoche, where one component of a thing (the food that's eaten during the Lord's Supper) is rhetorically taken to mean the whole thing (the church). Whoever participates in church in an unworthy manner sins against the body and blood of Christ which redeemed the church.

Short answer: yes — the original language strongly undercuts a “mere mental reminder” reading, and that’s one reason sacramental churches (Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox) have always leaned on it.

Let’s walk it carefully but cleanly.

1. The word Jesus uses

In the institution narrative (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24–25), the Greek word translated “remembrance” is:

ἀνάμνησις (anamnesis)

This is the key term.

2. What anamnesis does not mean

It does not mean:

1. Casual recollection
2. Psychological recall
3. “Thinking back fondly”
4. A symbolic reminder in the modern sense

That’s a very post-Enlightenment way of reading it.

3. What anamnesis actually means (biblical usage)

A. Cultic / liturgical sense

In Second Temple Judaism and the Septuagint (Greek OT), anamnesis is a technical liturgical term.

Example:

1. Leviticus 24:7 – the memorial offering (anamnesis) placed before the Lord
2. Numbers 10:10 – offerings as a memorial before God

Here, “remembrance” is:

An objective act that brings something into effective presence before God.

It is performative, not psychological.

B. Passover background (crucial)

Jesus institutes the Supper during Passover.

In Jewish thought:

1. Passover is not “remembering that something happened”
2. It is participating in the saving event
3. Each generation is said to go out of Egypt

So:

“Remembrance” = re-presentation, not representation.

This background dominates the meaning.

4. Anamnesis in Hebrews (explicitly sacrificial)

Hebrews uses anamnesis in a sacrificial context:

Hebrews 10:3

“But in these sacrifices there is a remembrance (anamnesis) of sins every year.”

This is:

1. Not mental recall
2. But a ritual act that objectively brings sins before God

Same word. Same cultic logic.

5. Jesus’ command in that light

So when Jesus says:

“Do this in anamnesis of me”

He is saying something closer to:

“Perform this act by which my once-for-all sacrifice is made present and applied.”

Not:

1. “Think about me”
2. Not:
3. “Use this as a teaching illustration”

This fits perfectly with:

1. “This is my body”
2. “This is my blood”
3. “For the forgiveness of sins”

6. Why this supports Real Presence (even without metaphysics)

Important nuance:

1. Anamnesis does not require transubstantiation
2. It does not define how Christ is present
3. But it does rule out a purely symbolic meal

That’s why:

1. Lutherans: sacramental union
2. Catholics: transubstantiation
3. Orthodox: mystery

All appeal to anamnesis — despite disagreeing on metaphysics.

7. Why the “memorial-only” view is historically late

The idea that “remembrance” means:

“We remember Jesus in our minds, and nothing objective happens”

1. Is not found in:
2. Church Fathers
3. Medieval theology
4. Reformation-era Lutheranism
5. Emerges clearly with:
6. Zwingli
7. Enlightenment rationalism

That reading flattens anamnesis into modern psychology.

8. Patristic confirmation (brief)

Early Christians consistently spoke of the Eucharist as:

1. A sacrifice of praise
2. A real participation
3. A mystery that does something

They did not argue over “symbol vs real” — that debate comes much later.

What is your opinion of America's approach to religion?

the reason why I never chose Christianity as my main religion is because I realized that even if I used Sola Scriptura, I still wouldnt have clear answer because Bible is a collection of texts, made after excluding many texts which wasnt done by Jesus or apostles, but by ordinary humans much later. So not even Sola Scriptura works because you cant logically explain Gnosticism and still believe in Old testament. New testament is only slighty workable with Gnosticism. Old testament God is demiurge according to Gnosticism, and also slightly implied in New testament.

The Apocryphon of John basically says God of Old testament isnt Father, but is demiurge. And there is no way to accept it together with Bible at the same time in same thoughts.

So even when I want to go by scripture alone, question rises: Which scripture?

America is full of fast food christianity. Baptists, nondenoms and pentecostals who make christianity look like a joke and pedal cheap slop full of microplastics instead of the grass fed beef of traditional protestantism. America's version of christianity ends up looking not much better than islam in fundamentalist spaces. The mark of a true religion is that you can take it super seriously and basically be a fundamentalist without being a regressive psychopath. So what I've realized is its not baptists solely who are the problem, its not "reformed" who are the problem, its evangelicals in the modern sense who are the problem.

Trumpism, which you love to blame on presbyterianism, is a product of this type of christianity. The american political system is weaponized so that there is no actual left wing option. You must accept piles and piles of SJW bullshit just for a crumb of what nordic countries get if you are left wing, meanwhile the right will reel in christians with things they obviously support like being against abortion but then rig everything to prop up their nepotism-based aristocracy and shit on the poor. The only christians who passionately defend this en masse are evangelicals and ones who are influenced by evangelicals. In the LCMS the vibe is more "we vote republican usually because of ideas that are obviously against christian morality in the democrat party, but we don't necessarily like Trump either".

And this is the irony of you stereotyping presbyterians as the Trump-supporting elitists. The mainline PCUSA is full of cultural marxism and the conservative offshoots (especially the PCA which is the largest of them) is so heavily influenced by baptists that it often ends up more baptist in practice than presbyterian.

Whats good about america though is that its averse to the state-church model, which allowed solid unwavering denominations like the LCMS to form. The fact that LCMS is Lutheran in and of itself helps, because Lutheranism (that actually follows a Lutheran operating system) has a type of stubbornness to it that resists doctrinal drift and compromise. Puritanism was decent while it lasted but it was too full of people making up their own BS which eventually decayed into evangelical christianity.

What you see in conservative lutheran denoms in america is much less openness to other denominations. This uniquely protects Lutheranism in a way that seems mean to other protestants. Lutherans are consistently the least ecumenical and least open to inter-denominational unity among protestants in america. This isn't true of the ELCA but thats because ELCA is a captured institution much like the roman catholic church. So the issue with Lutheranism historically is having a purely congregational or state-church polity, once you protect Lutheran identity and ethos under the right ecclesial framework it becomes the most stubborn and uncompromisingly orthodox version of christianity ever known to man.

Its actually very easy to answer this. The apocrypha/deuterocanon consists of books written in a roughly 500 year time period where there were no prophets, between the last prophet and the first century. The NT is written in the first century when the apostles actually were alive (they are also written earlier than most people think) and the gnostic gospels are all written in the second century AD and thus cannot be apostolic writings.

If you define scripture as "writings that come from prophets and apostles" then only the protestant canon can be true.

The NT is written in the first century

No copy of nt exists from first century or written by apostles. Copies of gnosticism, are dated as old as any oldest text from Bible nt.

And lets not forget that the very same people who gathered texts into Bible also prosecuted and destroyed gnostics and their texts. there wouldnt actually be any gnostic text, almost all were destroyed, if it wasnt for a lucky find in Egypt over thousands of years later.

So when you have a group of people not just claiming they are ultimate authority on which text is valid, but also destroying all other texts and originals too, and killing people who believe in different texts, then really, it is a miracle that Gnosticism even has texts as old as those of New testament.

I agree with you on America's Christianity overall. I am a pro theocracy guy and my issue with Islam is actually pretty much solely that it truly is the wrong religion in all ways and never fit non Arab cultures properly... Ever. Actually I noticed this and told someone the other day. For Arabs specifically, as an ethnoreligion, Islam did somehow work for them. They somehow ethnically suited polygamy, suited that type of patriarchy, suited the guerilla warfare stuff and suited genuinely undemocratic rule.

This is proven by the fact that today the only fully Islamic nations you'd want to live in are either the secularised ones or the Arab ones (UAE, Qatar, Saudi etc). In contrast, you maybe will say you'd want to live in Pakistan as it's a lot easier to naturalise to and maybe is truer to the Qur'an than the Arab nations are but look at its state economically, technologically and in basically all departments that matter. The reason Islam only has worked fantastically well for Arabs is that I genuinely believe that Arabs suit Islam on some ethnic level that isn't translated into other ethnos, not even a tiny bit. It consistently works terribly for others but decently for Arabs. Arab Christianity whether Maronite Catholic or Assyrian COE etc, is very Islam-like in how it presents (they have far less focus on statues and instrumental music, far more on oral singing, verses, the cross rather than the Jesus statue etc.

It is also obvious that Islam suited staying as an Arab ethnoreligion because it only apparently can be fully understood in fluent old Arabic and all translations apparently 'corrupt its meaning' (if they do, why didn't their Allah think of that?)

Polygamy in particular seems to somehow work healthily for Arabs. I am not saying I support it for them, that would be excommunicable. I am saying I can see for them it is more ethnically natural. The women feel less envy within it, the men heavily crave it and the left over incels don't seem to care about the disparity.

In contrast, almost all non-Arab Islamified ethnicities have ended up needing to use brutality and other means to force the polygamy acceptance onto the women and also they tend to even resort to underage marriages way way more. This is in stark contrast to the Arab cultures that shifted to a strict 18 age of marriage. Arabs understood that Islam was meant to be adjusted over time because it was to them an ethnoreligion, not the immovable construct that other ethnicities are perceiving it as.

Yes, I am heavily generalising ethnicities here and yes technically Hamas and Hezbollah are Arab. I didn't say it's at all peaceful for them at all times. I am saying I strongly believe it's an innate ethnoreligion to them that fit them in a way it has never fitted others.

I recommend the book "cold case christianity" by J. Warner Wallace. He applies cold-case homicide detective methodology to prove the canonical gospels are reliable eye witness testimony in a way that isn't true of gnostic gospels. He also goes over many topics like proving the gospels are written earlier in the 1st century and how the first church fathers and other historical facts including statements of non-christian historical figures corroborate the gospels being both trustworthy and genuine 1st century texts.

I also recommend the youtube channel Testify. If you don't feel like reading a book his videos have much the same approach and subject matter.

He also goes over many topics like proving the gospels are written earlier

Well, sure, present the proof. But if proof is hearsay, you should know in advance hearsay says gnosticism appeared in first century too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_655

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter

these are oldest copies of gnostic texts, written in year 200 or 150.

Oldest copies of gospels from Bible are also not earlier than year 150.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52

So the gnostic texts, despite being destroyed on mass scale by the very same people who wanted to play victims of persecution while being mass prosecutors at same time, gnostic texts still have copies which are as old as earliest fragments of New testament. And when we talk of fragments of new testament, these are dated around second century, not first. And they are fragments, in other words, not even one whole page from New testament.

Islamic countries are also the highest in inbreeding statistically. I believe the american south/bible belt has a lot of inbreeding too. That might explain the overlap between baptists/pentecostals and muslims.

Even if Arabs are prone to Islam, cultures can be shifted over time. It makes it harder when you have a heavily inbred and indoctrinated population though.

When it comes to scandinavian countries, they are not wired on an ethnic level to be the type of christian you see as optimal. It is no coincidence they gravitated to Lutheranism which is the polar opposite of catholicism when it comes to works and strict rules as far as christianity goes. I have a celtic-nordid phenotype and heritage and its no secret that we like our freedom. Despite this christianity did tame a lot of the viking barbarism over time. Where Scandinavian Lutheranism went wrong is that it was set up ecclesiologically to relax if the culture relaxed rather than stay firm.

Confessional Lutheranism is the sweet spot for someone with a nordic temperament. It doesn't say "do whatever you want" but it doesn't suffocate you with rules either. Vikings under paganism are savages, vikings under secularism are hedonists, vikings under catholicism are rebels and vikings under lutheranism are rough around the edges but morally driven.

You can feel like Catholic cultures are superior because they handle strictness better but the evidence says otherwise. The only issue with Scandinavia is that it became secular, other than that they built a system that mogs everyone.

Christianity isn't about feeling superior because you followed the rules and did the stuff. Christianity is about humans needing God, and being inspired to help others because of Christ. As Martin Luther said "God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does". You can flog yourself, put on scratchy uncomfortable clothes, put ashes in your food so you can't enjoy it, all the things the catholic church historically thought of as making you holier, but how does that help anyone. At the end of the day you didn't love your neighbor any more than the guy who drinks a little too much beer and gets a little too kinky with his wife but still takes vocational theology seriously and gives it his all.

For all your criticism Islam and Muslims don’t have as many problems as Christianity or division among them. You just have the Shia and Sunni Muslim divided over a technicality.