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After re-reading chapter 1 of "TheReason for God" by Timothy Keller, I think this early point is a highlight of my problems with Protestant apologia.

He's supposed to be responding to

"There can't be just one True religion"

And to do that I think he's trying make it look like he's refuting aspects of that idea. So we have

"“All major religions are equally valid and basically teach the same thing.”

This assertion is so common that one journalist recently wrote that anyone who believed that “there are inferior religions” is a right-wing extremist.7 Do we really want to say that the Branch Davidians or religions requiring child sacrifice are not inferior to any other faith? The great majority of people would almost certainly agree that they are."

Which is not a logical refutation it is just another assertion. How are the Branch Davidians actually different from any other Christian faith? They believe in Jesus, heavily value community, know that the Christian god works in mysterious ways, and knows he speaks through prophets on earth.

This is my view as an atheist, I can't tell the difference between a "True Religion" and a "False Religion" because I see two sets of people who have an enchanted world view that something bigger than themselves is part of this world and through personal experience with that being they now have faith that this is true.

This makes ALL religious claims equally valid. From Christianity, to Islam, to the Cargo Cults of the Pacific Islands, they're all equally valid and any claim contrary has to take into account this diversity to assert "True Religion" status.

And it doesn't matter to ME that there are major, irreconcilable differences between the major desert religions. Or the wholesale incompatibility of those religions to any religion of the far East.

It should matter to YOU as a religious person who wants to claim ownership of universal Truth because now you have to fit into a world who 1) Knows your story 2) Knows your reasonings 2) and Rejects them anyways often in favor of their regional religion because this means YOUR TRUTH is not obvious.

Your truth is no truth at all. There is no proof of any religion, I'll even grant that a strictly atheist view based on scientific investigations into the world is not necessarily true, but it is truth seeking and aware that we may never know "The Truth". But all religious " truths" are just very very strong beliefs about how the world works. They're convictions. And sincerely, this is fine. I genuinely have no problems with believing the world is a certain way. There's a serenity to having this belief. A peace in knowing our place in the universe.

But to call it "Truth" is wrong.

#Christian #atheist #apologetics #debate #religion #philosophy

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