To Know the Truth.

The blogger at the-canadian-reformed-church.blogspot.ca recently published a post titled How Can Anyone Know the Truth? It’s a good read. Here’s my take on it.

The point of the piece is essentially, “what makes you think you’re right?” “What the are the chances YOUR religious beliefs are as close to correct as can be, and the majority of the world is incorrect. It’s a good question. It's also an age-old question.

If you’ve ever been to the mall, you may have noticed that there are often other people there besides yourself. Those people often have beliefs that differ from yours. Many of them are quite religious as well. And they all believe they are on the only path to truth.

Is it fair, dear reader, to ask yourself whether you could be wrong about your beliefs?* What is it that’s holding you to this view? I’m here to tell you that faith is not a good enough answer. We are all experts at imagining a world that suits us. Are you imagining the world where you were among the chosen? This is not ironic for me to ask—after all, I think I’m ultimately just worm-food—hardly a world that suits me.

If one thinks one is so blessed as to be one of the chosen few, surely one builds this belief on a firm foundation. But are you, or are you just believing what the people around you have told you (and believed) your entire life?

Without a doubt, right now, some baptist kids are secretly debating this very same question. And some Jews. And some Muslims (veeeery secretly).

A slight digression to get to the point: When you were a young child, you were probably very proud of your dad. You thought he was the very, very best. Maybe you knew someone else’s smart dad, handsome dad, business-savvy dad… but you knew that your dad was still the best one. He worked hard. He was a good provider, a good teacher, a stalwart, deeply moral man…

As you grew into a teenager, you began to notice his foibles, struggles and weakness. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t the loving, dedicated man you knew as a kid, it just means that you learned that he wasn’t perfect. And you did what I did. You overlooked and forgave because you loved him and you saw some of the same weakness in yourself. The point is, you were comfortable letting go of the illusion of having a perfect father.

Evolution built you to trust and believe. To trust and believe what you were borne into. I was too. But then, I grew up.

You’re naturally inquisitive in every other facet of your life. Why have you sworn off thinking about this one thing?


*Wait! don’t do it! That’s that whole doubt thing that always comes up in the home visits.