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Friday, May 30, 2008

All Religions Can't Be Right

Two Latter Day Saints missionaries sat quietly in my place of business for two hours doing whatever they needed to accomplish in our city, which like so many, can no doubt benefit from the positive activities missionaries engage in. As I thought of them and others like them I had seen through the years, I thought of the unique beliefs that I've learned about LDS folk from watching documentaries, particularly their belief in baptism for the dead, and to a lesser degree, their off-shoot movements that still practice polygamy.


I then thought of all the different varieties of Christianity, as well as my own, and realized that they can't all be right. If they can't all be right, then it may be fair to grant them all the possibility that they are all wrong, including my own. If that is accepted, at least as a remote possibility, that leaves room for some hidden truth or reality that has not yet surfaced. Perhaps that hidden truth may never come to light either. In the meantime then, we continue with whatever brand of Christianity--or religion in general--we have come to accept as true.


Such uncertainty in uncertain times is neither agreeable nor comforting. Nevertheless, being dogmatic about the absolute superiority of one's own religion or brand of Christianity, is neither agreeable nor comforting. So we're back where we started. We keep on doing what we've been doing for a lifetime for some, only years, months or weeks for others. We hold onto what we think is superior truth, for whatever it's worth to us.


All religions can't be right, but they're right enough for those that subscribe to those particular values and beliefs.

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