Thoughts on Ancient Lore and Legends

I have listened to a ton of arguments from Christians when they find themselves in a debate or discussion about whether or not the god of the Bible, Yahweh, exists or not and I have made some observations and I have some thoughts/questions.

• They misinterpret similarities between religions of the period. 
• I don't actually blame the Christians for this. The church doesn't focus on the historical aspect of the time periods aside from painting a contextual picture for the story being preached. They don't encourage learning about the history of the time period as a whole, nor do they teach it. That stuff is kind of on a need-to-know basis. So, the fact that Christians don't know about the timelines and how these ancient civilizations interacted with one another and how that impacted their religious beliefs, is not a shock. What I find interesting and even frustrating though, is that when they are confronted with these similarities of stories and legends from earlier writings by other groups, it does not occur to them that they are borrowed and spun and modified. To them it seems to confirm that several groups experienced the same stuff, like the flood, for example. Even though the different versions star different protagonists and the details aren't the same. They see these similarities as evidence of the authenticity of these things happening in the literal sense, instead of looking at them as something to scratch your head over. They don't consider that the stories are copies. That they are stolen from other, older groups and retold starring their guys and their god(s). I also find it odd that the people who teach this to congregations of people literally took a seminary course and learned this and they STILL choose to ignore and preach it anyway. 
• They don't look at their own religion with the same criteria they view others by.
• If you talk about gods with a Christian and bring up any other god (even Allah, if it is a person who is unaware that Islam is also an Abrahamic religion) and ask if they are real or not, they will tell you that, no, there is only one true god and all those other gods are fake. If you ask them why they believe Odin and Triton are pretend but Yahweh is real they can typically give you a list of the reasons they KNOW FOR A FACT that those other gods do not exist. Things like, they were ways for people to explain things they didn't understand back then; that sort of thing. The funny thing is, they never look at their own god with that same kind of skepticism. They don't take that same criteria and look at their own religion through that lens. If they did they would find that the exact same things are true about their god and their religion. The exact same principles, when applied to Christianity, show that it is just as much a pile of BS as all those others. But, for whatever reason, the fact that it is so widely believed means it MUST be truth. If that's the case then there is a MAJOR argument here for Hinduism, which was the earliest known religion and still has billions who practice it. If numbers are the criteria, Hindus have a place at the table, here.  
• They fail to properly explain how it is they know their particular brand of religion is the correct one.
• Christians (and people of a variety of other religions) are 100% convinced that their particular god-brand is the one and only correct one out there and everyone who doesn't subscribe it will be punished for all of eternity. They believe this with every fiber of their being. When you ask them how it is they know that theirs is the one true way, they can never answer in a way that provides any evidence to confirm it. They usually answer with some version of, "Well, that's just what I believe," or "It's what the Bible/Quran says," or my favorite, "I just have faith." The truth is, they have no idea if they're right nor not. Which leads me into my final point.  
• They all seem to live by the idea of Pascal's Wager.
• Pascal's Wager is a philosophical question and is defined as a person betting their life of whether or not God exists. So basically he is saying you are betting your after life by whether or not you believe in God and so weighing the risks, it's just better to believe as you have everything to gain if you're right and everything to lose if you're wrong. Of course, that would also depend on whether or not you guessed the correct god and the correct religion and the correct sect of that religion. Oye. Sounds complicated. But, it's what I think most people are doing. They think they're playing it safe.