Am I a Christian due to historical accident?

The charge is a common one. You're a Christian because you were born and raised in North America. If you had been born in India you'd probably be a Hindu. If you had been born in a certain part of Africa, you'd probably be an animist.

The conclusion is given by one of my readers, AnAtheist.Net, who charges: "You arbitrarily prefer a belief that is popular in your particular region at your particular time in history." That is, apparently religious belief is determined by the time and place you're born, and thus it is arbitrary: it is, in short, a historical accident.

Should the Christian accept this reasoning? Does it undercut the justification for my Christian belief if I concede that had I been born in Saudi Arabia, I probably would have been a Muslim?

Although this argument is enormously popular these days, it faces a standard tu quoque (or "you too") objection. That is, the atheist faces the same problem that he raises against the religious devotee. So in reply to the atheist's claim that "you're a Christian because of your socio-historical circumstances" the Christian can say: "By the same token, you're an atheist because of your socio-historical circumstances."

In order to defuse this objection the atheist would have to establish that his beliefs are not held due to socio-historical location while the beliefs of all religious people are. Good luck! I await such an argument.

Oh, one more thing. The atheist should also explain why Ted is not a democrat simply because he was born a Boston Kennedy, and why George is not merely a republican because he was raised a Texas Bush.