Thorne explained it exellently when he explained about the need of the early church to make the new religion more palatable. There are countless other examples. One that springs (pun intended) to mind is Easter. Easter was a pagan festival in honour of Ostare, the goddess of fertility. And like most religious festivals it coiincides with the seasons and sun. Easter heralds the start of spring when crops start to grow and pagans needed the gods to be a happy to ensure a good harvest. It would have been almost impossible for the church to covert the pagan of northern europe, if converting meant having to give up a much loved booze up and orgy. I can imagine what my ancestors would have told the bible puncher to do with his new god. So a bit of hasty damage limitation and tactical withdrawal was needed by the church. The date fudged the crucification and said, OK you can keep your piss up lads on condition you celebrate christs death not a pagan god. Whahey, we'll celebrate whavever you want mate, now where's my pint. Problem solved and the Brits and other converted with little objection. I'm sure posters can come up with other cases of the church incorpating paganism into christian traditions.

IDCrewDawg: Maybe you want to google on the miracles of the Quran. This is a nice hot potatoe. There are numerous cases where the Quran appears to "predict" scientific discoveries and the same counter argument applies to your trinity excample.

Incidentally those of you who have no problem with the God in three personalties should have no problem with us swithces. We only have two persona but that's maybe because we are only demi-gods.

PS- Annie don't worry about killing a religious thread, its sure to resurrect a few days later.