Can Anyone Be Certain that Their God is the True One?
Millions continue to leave religion. Why?
How can billions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and many others be certain that their religion is the true one, when they know little or nothing about the other ones?
Almost all believers accept the religion that their parents and/or culture told them was true… which should indicate that “faith”, more times than not, does not lead one to the truth. Throughout history, hundreds of gods were worshiped in temples built by devotees who erroneously believed that they were real and true. The “why” is obvious: that is what their parents and culture taught them without providing any objective or testable evidence.
Can it honestly be argued that if American Christians were born in Saudi Arabia, they wouldn’t believe that Islam was the true religion and that Christianity was false? Their faith would be just as strong because their loving parents would have taught them that Islam was the true religion, and almost everyone else they encountered would have reinforced that “truth.” When indoctrination includes the threat of punishment, often an endless hell, while teaching them that to doubt is a grave sin, it is no wonder.
Many will say that their holy book is evidence as their God speaks to them through it. Again, that is a belief based on nothing but faith. Is there really any difference between “faith,” “blind faith,” or “wishful thinking,”? Can one objectively believe that the Bible is true without knowing how it came about and at least hearing and considering the arguments of those who claim it is full of contradictions, that it contains historical errors, that its ignorance of science is exactly the same as the unenlightened people of that day? And that it clearly advocates for many blatant immoralities? For a few contradictions, see here and here for a few of its immoralities.
If the Bible is in fact deeply flawed, would it not be strong evidence that a good and perfect God could not have possibly inspired it? Even if imperfect scribes or unenlightened authors were the ones who were responsible for the errors, the bottom line is that God’s attempt to publish a perfect book failed.
Millions of Christians passionately declare that every word in the Bible is true, yet few are aware that the books of the New Testament were voted on by the powerful men in control centuries after Jesus and Paul, some of whom were downright evil. A key criterion was that it contained things that they agreed with. In other words, they put into God’s mouth only the things they agreed with. Many other books were kept out of the canon by just a few votes. The father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, believed that the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation did not belong in the Bible and that others should have been included in the canon that were rejected. Even today, various church groups have different books in their canon. It is far from being universal.
Christians readily claim that the Quran contains many evil and immoral things yet most have never read it nor even tried to compare it with the Bible. Should there not be a reasonable and rational basis for accepting something as being true, other than just assuming that your parents and culture were right? Shouldn’t even a little fact-checking be a reasonable thing to do?
Of those who claim that their religion is the true one, most will admit that they have doubts and often pray for some tangible proof… which confirms that their belief is not solid. Many have “decided to believe”, despite doubts, confusion and a lack of evidence; yet these same individuals would never be able to force themselves to believe in Santa Claus, unicorns, Zeus, or another religion, even if their eternal destiny was at stake, thus indicating that their god-belief is an exception to their general standard of requiring some evidence to judge things on. Most spend more time researching the best smartphone or automobile before purchasing it than they do comparing religions before declaring one of them to be the only true one.
Studying just one side of an issue, such as from apologetics or authors of one’s favorite religion, is not unbiased research. Neither is cherry-picking a few nice verses and stories while discarding or ignoring everything else. Doing that can make Hitler look like a very warm and loving person as he was in fact nice to certain people.
There is a test that someone can take that can assist them in determining if their “belief” or “faith” is based on reasonable grounds. It is called the Outsider Test. It is simply a sincere attempt to view one’s beliefs by trying to see them from the perspective of someone outside the faith. Using this criterion, believers would be required to treat books such as the Bible with the same critical skepticism that they would apply to competing holy books, such as the Koran or the Book of Mormon.
In a letter from Thomas Jefferson to his nephew Peter Carr, Jefferson offers some advice on how to study religion:
“In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible as you would read Livy or Tacitus. I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it.”
Richard Dawkins argued,
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further”
Stephen Roberts once remarked to a critic that,
“Once you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods; you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
I think those quotes are much more intelligent than the one I often hear preachers use; “Fake it until you make it.” If everyone read their holy book themselves, without having been indoctrinated as children and surrounded by a culture of people who were also previously indoctrinated to believe the same thing, few would have come to believe many of the things they do.
Several common sense questions that devout believers should ask: if you really believe that you will spend an endless eternity in paradise with absolutely no pain or sadness of any kind, how is it that you worry and stress out so much about the “nano second” you have to spend on earth? If you really believe, why do you, or at least most of your fellow believers, think they must protect their god with man-made laws and tax exemptions? Do your priorities with money and time correspond with your beliefs regarding eternal rewards? In most cases, actions do speak louder than words.
In just the last few years, thanks to the internet and search engines like Google, it is now easy to fact check and research things that were difficult before. We now have free online University Courses, numerous books, videos, and podcasts available, to help anyone searching for the truth. The fields of Geology and Archaeology have provided amazing evidence of the fossil record, and along with what we learn from Biology, from DNA, how evolution makes any literal interpretation of Adam and Eve impossible.
From Astrophysics and Astronomy, we see how stars are born and can now observe that all galaxies are moving away in all directions, which provides strong evidence for the theory of the big bang. And thanks to the vast resource of information, it is now easy to document the many historical and scientific errors the Bible contains; showing things like the Exodus could not have occurred.
All of that makes it easy to understand the speed at which younger generations are escaping from religious indoctrination, many of them finding a purpose in saving our environment and concerning themselves with injustices and suffering (which is seen less frequently in believers).
Many of us older folk have also studied and found that the threat of hell is something no longer that needs to be feared. Instead of focusing on a nonexistent next life, we can focus on this life and try to make it better for future generations, as previous generations have done for us. Thanks to their hard work and the advances they uncovered from science, much of the world no longer have to fear smallpox or polio, we live much longer thanks to clean water, sanitation and medical advances, and enjoy conveniences such as air conditioning, electricity, cells phones, televisions, and jet airplanes. Thousands of other things can quickly be added to each of those lists.
I have attempted to write a few brief articles as starting points to those who desire a true and honest analysis of their faith. No one should ever believe what anyone says, including me, without careful fact-checking and thoughtful critical thinking.
We should always ask ourselves “how do I know that is true”?
And even if we do not like the conclusion, the truth is always what it is, regardless of what we may wish it to be.
