Some conclude that they are all equal in their dangerous claim to monopolize the truth, that they are all equally inclined to intolerance and as such dangerous, and that it is better to adopt towards them a hostility of egalitarian principle. The most coherent among them consider it necessary to fight politically and ideologically against their influence with the same uncompromising determination as when undertaking a rodent control campaign. They are the heirs of the Enlightenment.
She is crazy because it is a delusional presumption to unilaterally decree that all the spiritual experience accumulated by humanity since its appearance is incapable of teaching them anything.
It is radically false because its presuppositions are false: it is not true that all religions claim a monopoly on truth and that the guarantees they provide are equivalent. A typology of religions, even a summary one, is enough to demonstrate this.
Most religions do not claim to reveal the truth
Hinduism, a religion whose founding myths are lost in the mists of time, does not claim the exclusivity of the truth. Passed down from generation to generation, its founding stories are not under the supervision of any identified authority. This does not prevent certain Hindus, like men of any religion, from persecuting those who do not share their religion (Christians and Muslims).
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism are all wisdom of life founded by great masters of wisdom (Buddha, Confucius, and Lao Tzu) who are not strictly speaking religions in the sense in which we understand them. They do not claim to reveal the truth but to constitute an art of living intended to succeed in one’s existence here on earth. They do not tell us about the meaning of our life here on earth and our possible life after death.
Animist religions – and in particular those which include human sacrifices as in the case of the worship given by the Carthaginians to the god Baal or that which the Aztecs paid to the sun god – aim to preserve an always precarious cosmic harmony, to purchase social peace with the dark and evil forces of the universe by keeping them at bay. They are neither concerned with certifying their divine origin, nor with responding to a quest for meaning. The question of truth does not concern them.
Some religions are what we would call “secular religions” which deify the political system… and reinforce the authority of those who run it: this was the case of the Incan, Egyptian, and Roman empires, and this is still the case of Shintoism in Japan. And in a sense, this is also true of atheist religions like Nazism or Communism which we saw flourish in the 20th century. The truth is not their concern either. Theirs are more prosaic: maintaining social cohesion and strengthening the legitimacy of the power in place.
Syncretic religions ( New Age and sects.) are the product of a marketing approach aimed at offering the public a new product corresponding to their expectations. This is not the result of a quest for truth. Only the revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism) claim to reveal and transmit a truth of which they are not the inventor. The divine origin of their content, which they all claim, is the guarantee of the authenticity of the message and they all present themselves as faithful messengers who have added nothing nor taken anything away from the original divine truth.
Only revealed religions claim exclusivity of truth
The heirs of the Enlightenment are mistaken and therefore deceive their world by asserting that all religions claim the exclusivity of truth: this is simply false. The question of truth is only central for religions that present themselves as revealed religions and these are few.
It is for them, and for them alone, that the question of the authenticity of their divine origin arises. But this does not mean that the question is insoluble. We can apply to this revelation the methodology used daily by journalists, historians, police investigation services, and intelligence services: the cross-checking of sources.
The criterion is simple: do these religions present themselves as the product of a private revelation, attested by a single individual and by definition unverifiable, or of a collective revelation, attested by several individuals? In other words, can we cross-check the sources? This criterion makes it possible to exclude a priori Islam and Mormonism, not Judaism or Christianity.
In biblical revelation it is through patriarchs, priests, kings prophets, and the Messiah living at different times who spoke the word of God, prophesied the events to come, and fulfilled the prophecies announced.
In the New Testament, we have four distinct testimonies (the four Gospels) which correspond in broad outline and differ only in detail. Exactly as the historians’ sources tell us the history of Rome. It is not a guarantee of truth, it is not proof: it is a guarantee of plausibility.
Converging clusters of evidence, not proof
The absence of proof, in the scientific sense of the term, is sometimes a source of skepticism for many undecided people and even for believers. But it is precisely this which is surprising that the absence of proof is regrettable, we can admit it.
But why would that be problematic? After all, who married their partner after he had proven his love for them? Person.
We get married because someone declares their love for us and we trust them based on a certain number of converging clues and based on our intuition that Pascal called the heart and which understands without being able to demonstrate: the heart has its reasons that reason ignores.
Who has ever followed a doctor’s prescriptions because the doctor had previously demonstrated the accuracy of his diagnosis and proven the accuracy of the treatment he recommended? Person.
We possibly trust a doctor based on what friends or acquaintances tell us, whose testimony also seems trustworthy to us.
Generally speaking, we spend our lives making decisions based on incomplete and imperfect information, that is to say without having proof, without having absolute certainty.
We usually do this based on probability, relying on converging clusters of evidence rather than on evidence. At some point, we decide to place our trust in someone. In the literal sense of the word, we give him our faith. What we do every day in all areas of life with the people around us is not absurd. So why would what we do with them be absurd with God?
