Absolutely

I just posted another installment of Neil’s and my Christianity Interview, this one a follow-up to my last question on Biblical interpretation. Click here or on the link to the right to read it.

This question and response touch at the very heart of why dogma can be such a dangerous force. Neil takes great care to justify his stances through personal interpretations, but in my experience, most do not. In fact, I am routinely astonished by how often I find myself giving Bible lessons to Christians. It used to amuse me, now it just annoys me.

I am not surprised that a majority of the world’s population believes they have access to the absolute truth – after all, it is a very comforting idea. Nor am I surprised that their interpretations of those texts are what shape most people’s moral stances. What does surprise me is the fervor with which people point to their respective religious texts as proof that their stance is inarguably correct while in the same sentence correcting past interpretations of that text used to justify atrocities.

This, in a nutshell, is why I cannot take so many of the dogmatized seriously. It’s not that I think the prospect of a divinely inspired text is impossible – improbable perhaps, but not impossible. What humors me is the idea held by so many that to disagree with them is to disagree with the absolute truth when in fact, to disagree with them is to disagree with their interpretation of a text containing the absolute truth – the difference is subtle but critical.

My father is fond of Schoepenhouer who famous explained that all truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident. I am keenly aware of the fact that today’s hotly contested issues will be tomorrow’s self-evident truths and I try to keep in mind that tomorrow’s hotly contested issues are so benign by today’s standards as to be unrecognizable. This in mind, what amuses me most is not those who think they have access to the absolute truth but rather those who think their interpretation is unique – that after centuries of mistakes, they finally got it right. Neil is not one of these – perhaps that’s why we get along.

Once the religious acknowledge that believing they have access to the absolute truth does nothing to guarantee they have extracted it properly, the walls between the pious and the secular can begin to crumble. If only every religious person realized how naïve it is to assume their interpretation is infallible – it wouldn’t change the outcome of the dialogue, but it would make it much more enjoyable…more like this one.