If you’ve ever brought up religion in conversation you’ve probably heard someone say “no religion has the whole truth about God”, or “every religion has a piece of the truth, but not the whole picture”. The sentiment goes that it would be arrogant to claim only your religion is true as opposed to the others that are false.
I admit that it would be a bold claim to present one religion as true, however truth is by definition exclusive, so they all can’t be true based on that fact. Truth is not subject to the changing whims and subjective feelings of humanity. Truth is truth no matter who believes it or not.
The fact of the matter is that most religions have competing truth claims and therefore both cannot be true. For example, Christianity claims that Jesus is the Messiah while Judaism denies that claim. Therefore they cannot both be correct on that statement.
So, Whattaya Do?
If someone says “it’s arrogant to claim you have the whole truth about God when there are so many other religions”, just ask a question: how do you know that? You see, the person asking the question is really making a truth claim about God without knowing it.
In asking his question, he’s claiming to know something about God that the other religions don’t know or can’t see. Only he can see the whole picture and knows where each religion is right or wrong while we just can’t see it.
In other words, he’s sees the whole truth about God and we don’t. Hmmmm…. sounds a bit arrogant, no?
Most people make sweeping statements about religious truths because they’ve never looked into the specifics of each religion. They are either avoiding doing the tough mental work it takes, or they’re suppressing the truth about God’s existence because they don’t want God to exist. Most people are looking for God the way a thief looks for a policeman. They know they’re guilty and they avoid having to be accountable to him.
Anyway, don’t let other people’s claims of arrogance stop you from making your claims. And now you know “Whattaya Do”. Glad you asked.