I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (8 page)

“The theme of my sermon this morning,” the pastor began, “is that all religious beliefs are true!” The student squirmed in his seat as the pastor went on to assure each member of the congregation that every religious belief they had was “true!”

When the sermon was over, the student wanted to slip out unnoticed, but the heavy-set, robed pastor was waiting at the door bear-hugging each passing congregant.

“Son,” the pastor boomed upon greeting the student, “where are you from?”

“Actually, I’m from Bowling Green, sir. I’m home on break from seminary.”

“Seminary! Good. So what religious beliefs do you have, Son?”

“I’d rather not say, sir.”

“Why not, Son?”

“Because I don’t want to offend you, sir.”

“Oh, Son, you can’t offend me. Besides, it doesn’t matter what your beliefs are—they’re true. So what do you believe?”

“Okay,” the student relented. He leaned toward the pastor, cupped his hand around his mouth, and whispered, “Sir, I believe that you are going to hell!”

The pastor’s face turned bright red as he struggled to respond. “I, ah, guess I, ah, made a mistake! All religious beliefs can
not
be true because yours certainly aren’t true!”

Indeed, as the pastor realized, religious beliefs cannot all be true, because many religious beliefs are contradictory—they teach opposites. For example, conservative Christians believe that those who haven’t accepted Christ as their Savior have chosen hell as their ultimate destination. It’s often overlooked, but many Muslims believe the same about non-Muslims—they’re headed for hell as well. And Hindus generally believe that everyone, regardless of beliefs, is caught in an indefinite cycle of reincarnation based on works. These contradictory beliefs can’t all be true.

In fact, world religions have more contradictory beliefs than complementary ones. The notion that all religions teach basically the same thing—that we ought to love one another—demonstrates a serious mis- understanding of world religions. While most religions have some kind of similar moral code because God has implanted right and wrong on our consciences (we’ll discuss that in chapter 7), they disagree on virtually every major issue, including the nature of God, the nature of man, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation!

Think about it:
the nature of God, the nature of man, sin, salvation,
heaven, hell,
and
creation.
Those are the biggies! Here are a few of those big differences:

Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in different versions of a theistic God, while most Hindus and New Agers believe that everything that exists is part of an impersonal, pantheistic force they call God.

Many Hindus believe that evil is a complete illusion, while Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe that evil is real.

Christians believe that people are saved by grace while all other religions, if they believe in salvation at all, teach some kind of salvation by good works (the definition of “good” and what one is saved from varies greatly).

These are just a few of the many essential differences. So much for the idea that all religions teach basically the same things!

Truth vs. Tolerance

While most
religions
have some beliefs that are true, not all religious
beliefs
can be true because they are mutually exclusive—they teach opposites. In other words, some religious beliefs must be wrong. But you’re not supposed to say that in America today. You’re supposed to be “tolerant” of all religious beliefs. And in our culture today, tolerance no longer means to put up with something you believe to be false (after all, you don’t tolerate things you agree with).
Tolerance now means that
you’re supposed to accept every belief as true!
In a religious context, this is known as religious pluralism—the belief that all religions are true. There are a number of problems with this new definition of tolerance.

First, let us say that we are thankful that we have religious freedom in this country, and we don’t believe in imposing a religion legislatively (see our book
Legislating Morality
).
³
We are well aware of the dangers of religious intolerance and believe that we should accept and respect people who have different religious beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that personally we ought to embrace the impossible notion that all religious beliefs are true. Since mutually exclusive religious beliefs cannot be true, it makes no sense to pretend that they are. In fact, on an individual level it can be dangerous to do so. If Christianity is true, then it’s dangerous to your eternal destiny not to be a Christian. Likewise, if Islam is true, then it’s dangerous to your eternal destiny not to be a Muslim.

Second, the claim that “you ought not question someone’s religious beliefs” is itself a religious belief for pluralists. But this belief is just as exclusive and “intolerant” as any religious belief of a Christian or Muslim. In other words, pluralists think all non-pluralist beliefs are wrong. So pluralists are just as dogmatic and closed-minded as anyone else making truth claims in the public square. And they want everyone who disagrees with them to see things
their
way.

Third, the prohibition against questioning religious beliefs is also an absolute moral position. Why shouldn’t we question religious beliefs? Would it be immoral to do so? And if so, by whose standard? Do pluralists have any good reasons supporting
their belief
that we ought not question religious beliefs, or is it just their own personal opinion that they want to impose on the rest of us? Unless they can give us good reasons for such a moral standard, why should we allow them to impose it on us? And why are pluralists trying to impose that moral position on us anyway? That’s not very “tolerant” of them.

Fourth, the Bible commands Christians to question religious beliefs (e.g., Deut. 13:1-5; 1 John 4:1; Gal. 1:8; 2 Cor. 11:13; etc.). Since Christians have a religious belief that they ought to question religious beliefs, then pluralists—according to their own standard—should accept this Christian belief as well. But of course they do not. Ironically, pluralists—advocates of the new tolerance—are not really tolerant at all. They only “tolerate” those who already agree with them, which by anyone’s definition is not tolerance.

Fifth, the pluralist’s claim that we ought not question religious beliefs is a derivative of the false cultural prohibition against making judgments. The prohibition against judging is false because it fails to meet its own standard: “you ought not judge” is itself a judgment! (Pluralists misinterpret Jesus’ comments on judging [Matt. 7:1-5]. Jesus did not prohibit judging as such, only judging hypocritically.) Indeed, everyone—the pluralist, the Christian, the atheist, the agnostic—makes judgments. So the issue isn’t whether or not we make judgments, but whether or not we make the
right
judgments.

Finally, are pluralists ready to accept as true the religious beliefs of Muslim terrorists—especially when those beliefs say that all nonMuslims (including pluralists) should be killed? Are they ready to accept as true the religious beliefs of those who believe in child sacrifice or other heinous acts? We hope not.

While we should respect the rights of others to believe what they want, we are foolish, and maybe even unloving, to tacitly accept every religious belief as true. Why is this unloving? Because
if
Christianity is true, then it would be unloving to suggest to anyone that their opposing religious beliefs are true as well. Affirming such error might keep them on the road to damnation. Instead, if Christianity is true, we ought to kindly tell them the truth because only the truth can set them free.

Once I Was Blind but Now I See

What does the vast plurality of religious beliefs tell us about truth in religion? At first glance, it might appear that the existence of so many contradictory beliefs just reinforces the elephant parable we mentioned in the introduction—namely, that truth in religion cannot be known. But exactly the opposite is the case.

To refresh your memory, in this parable an elephant is being examined by six blind men. Each man feels a different part of the elephant and thus reaches a different conclusion about the object in front of him. One grabs the tusk and says, “This is a spear!” Another holds the trunk and says, “This is a snake!” The one hugging the leg claims, “This is a tree!” The blind man holding the tail thinks, “I have a rope!” The one feeling the ear believes, “This is a fan!” And the one leaning on the elephant’s side is certain, “This is a wall!” These blind men are said to represent world religions, because they each come to a different conclusion about what they are sensing. Like each blind man, we are told, no one religion has
the
truth. Religious truth is relative to the individual. It is subjective, not objective.

This may seem persuasive until you ask yourself one question: “What’s the perspective of the one telling the parable?” Hmmmm, let’s see, the one telling the parable. . . . He appears to have an
objective
per spective of the entire proceeding because he can see that the blind men are mistaken. Exactly! In fact, he wouldn’t know that the blind men were wrong unless he had an objective perspective of what was right!

So if the person telling the parable can have an objective perspective, why can’t the blind men? They could—if the blind men suddenly could see, they too would realize that they were originally mistaken. That’s really an elephant in front of them and not a wall, fan, or rope.

We too can see the truth in religion. Unfortunately, many of us who deny there’s truth in religion are not
actually
blind but only
willfully
blind. We may not want to admit that there’s truth in religion because that truth will convict us. But if we open our eyes and stop hiding behind the self-defeating nonsense that truth cannot be known, then we’ll be able to see the truth as well. And not just truth in the areas where we demand it—money, relationships, health, law, etc.—but truth in religion as well. As the blind man healed by Jesus said, “Once I was blind, but now I see.”

The skeptic may say, “Wait a minute! The elephant parable may be a bad parable, but that still doesn’t prove that truth in religion can be known. You’ve proven that truth can be known, but not necessarily truth in religion. In fact, didn’t David Hume and Immanuel Kant disprove the idea of truth in religion?”

Not at all, and we’ll discuss why in the next chapter.

S
UMMARY

1. Despite the relativism that emanates from our culture, truth is absolute, exclusive, and knowable. To deny absolute truth and its knowability is self-defeating.

2. The “Road Runner” tactic turns a statement on itself and helps expose the self-defeating (and thus false) statements that are so common today. These include statements such as, “There is no truth!” (Is
that
true?); “All truth is relative!” (Is
that
a relative truth?); and “You can’t know truth!” (Then how do you know
that?
). Basically, any statement that is unaf-firmable (because it contradicts itself) must be false. Relativists are defeated by their own logic.