Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch4 - Relative Truth

This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God Irrational?" Chapter 4. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like. 

Ch4) Christians haven't tried out all the alternatives. They've never tried believing in something else. How can they then know the truth?
Here I think Orr-Ewing misses part of the question. She addresses six assumptions that often lie behind this question regarding relative truth (what's true or a good path for me might not be for you), which is a big issue, but does not mention its connection to the first chapter - what about the religions experiences of other faiths? This second aspect of the question could be phrase "If Christians have not legitimately tried out other religions for their experiential evidence , how do they know they are not false? I'll answer that question at the end of this chapter, but first we'll cover six assumptions:

a) Often the world puts religion in its own category, separate from the sciences or philosophy, something of cultural preference or self-help choice, so that people can pick and choose their own religions without reference to truth. Perhaps 'religion' can be defined that way, but not the way I've been using it in this post. Some who claim religion hope that it is seen as a scientific pursuit, on level with all the other sciences, subject to evidence and reason. This means that religion, like science, is also applicable to all people. The sky is blue and we argue that God loves you. You can argue back or ignore our questions, but do not dismiss it as something that should be left to the individual.

b) There is a philosophical school of thought called logical positivism whose main tenet states that if something can't be proved true, it isn't. People often state that God cannot be proved and so dismiss the matter, perhaps not even realizing the principle they are using. i) The principle does not withstand its own test. Because the tenet itself cannot be proved true, it isn't. ii) Morals, in general, cannot be proved and so, under this idea, must be done away with. Typically most supporters of positivism do not wish to discard morals. iii) I was slightly ashamed to see that Amy did not mention arguments for the existence of God. There are a number that are still being contested and may, in fact, prove God. In this way, setting aside the problems with the principle, God still withstands the test. iv) In what sense can anything be proved? (This may be brought up against arguments for God or anything else.) Science has never claimed to ultimately prove something in the correspondent sense, only in the pragmatic sense (which is quite limited). Under the correspondent definition, nothing is true by Logical Positivism.

c) Like with religion, there is another assumption about definitions. Tolerance, though perhaps defined well formally, is used politically as 'mind your own business' or 'have an open mind' or 'their way is equally right' or 'it doesn't really  matter so don't make a fuss'. NO. If you wish, you may use the word that way. However, I see two possible definitions of tolerance, the commonly used one is not imperative, but the calmer one ought to be. Tolerance in the quieter sense is not treating anyone with special deference or negativity due to their culture, views, etc. Of course if someone believes in killing, it is commonsense not to hire them, but that springs from a concern for yourself, not a special hate of the other person.

d) A common implication during conversations is that ones religion is merely determined by birth. You were indoctrinated by your parents and cannot be changed, pity you. You need to learn to tolerate other upbringings. i) Ones upbringing has nothing to do with what is actually true. After all, you were indoctrinated by your school to believe 1+1=2. Oh, well I believe 1+1=3, who are you to discriminate against me, you were only brought up to believe that. ii) If beliefs, even restricting them to religious beliefs, are a product of your childhood, do atheistic homes have the same treatment?

What follows is an attack on relativism based on its implications, followed by a very fundamental (or eye-opening) assumption behind some parts of relativism. Then I will get into my defense of the original question "How can you know the truth if you haven't explored other options?"
 
e) The logical result of relative or personal religion is relative morality. If anyone can choose his or her own beliefs, without question from others, there is no basis for law, morals, good manners, and all kinds of things. Do you wish your children do not swear or use drugs? Then you are imposing your personal values, your religion, on them. Nothing in formal science says that one should not cheat at card games, get drunk every night, or even murder. Now many will reply that these things are commonsense and not related to religion. Commonsense based on what? How you feel? How your were brought up? We already discussed how relative and unimportant that is. Some others may claim that good manners are good for society. i) What if they aren't? What if killing someone is the survival of the fittest? We don't know, we're just in the moment. Only time will tell. We can arrest them, claiming that a fit society that punishes people who kill tends to survive, but we don't know. ii) Good for society? What do you mean by good? People are happier? Whoever said we should try to make people happy? Nothing innate in the way the world is made suggests that we should pursue our own happiness, promote the survival of our species, or get up tomorrow morning. Anything you strive for, anything you seek, think about what good reason you have for pursuing that thing. After all, you've devoted your life to it.

f) Look at these assumptions. Religion is a product of upbringing, your personal desires, in it's own category. This is a picture of man deciding what his own religion is, it is man pursuing and inventing God. Even for New Age thinkers, they are pursuing God to solve their own aches through an assortment of loosely valued ways. However, Christianity does not work this way. Christ is not about mans attempt to satisfy self, to reach God. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is God reaching down to man to give us what he has planned for us, which is far better than what we want.

Now we get to the question:
g) How can Christians discredit other religions if they haven't explored their experiential evidence? A large foundation for Christian belief is on a personal experience with God; how can Christians be so arrogant as to disregard other experiences?

i) There is one point that Amy makes to defend this question. This is the observation that many people use this argument to discourage all religion, because since it would be impossible to explore all religions, religious truth is unattainable. This is a minor point that could be brought up during a discussion to see the reaction of the questioner, however, it has no philosophical weight. So what if religious truth is unreachable? If that's the way the world happens to be, we have to deal with it. We can't plead our innocence because such a possibility discourages all truth.

ii)  A second idea that is not compulsory is that of terrible 'religions'. I define religion as a set of beliefs that drive actions, a set of values, desires, etc. Therefore, the idolization of the state and obsession to exterminate 'weaker' races, Nazi Facism, is a religion. If you disagree with my definition I still hope you see my point. If we have not given ourselves over the the thrill of being united under one all-controlling government, how do we know what it feels like, how do we know if it isn't the way? Obviously exploring such possibilities is both impractical and disagreeable.

iii) The one logical function that aids us here is that of truth exclusion. If you have found and tested that 1+1=2, then you do not need to test 1+1=5 or any other number. If somehow you can prove that all of the acceleration of an object can be accounted for by gravity, you do not need to search for others (well, there could be equal but opposite other forces that would change later due to position, but that's outside of the analogy). In the same way, if we have somehow proved that God exists, we know that no other religions are completely true because the idea of God logically excludes all others. We know "in the beginning God created" and major history afterward, so we can exclude all other creation stories, etc.  In this way, it is legitimate to exclude other religions once you believe you have found the truth.
Now, of course other religions can claim the same principle. Buddhist monks may claim to have reached some level of enlightenment which proves (at least to them) that Buddhism is true. Please see Chapter 1 for this.