By John Beckett
[Snip] All religions deal with matters that are inherently uncertain. From the oldest tribal religion to the many variants of the “Big Five” to the newest of the New Age, all religions attempt to answer (or at least deal with) big questions like where we came from, why we’re here, and where (if anywhere) we’re going after death. Even non-theistic religions that claim there are no answers to those questions still deal with questions of truth, goodness, ethics and morality – questions that can and should be approached with reason but whose answers cannot be established with certainty.
There are several ways to deal with this uncertainty.
We can lie to ourselves and claim there is no uncertainty and that our way is the One True Way. This requires believing things that are either untrue or highly unlikely, usually by way of unexamined assumptions like “the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God.” And it requires dismissing the conflicting assumptions and beliefs of other religions for which there are no less (and no more) evidence.
What’s been said…