Someone (A) posted on my cousin's Facebook post in which A claimed to be an "omniest (sic)", defining it as "a person who does not claim any one religion, practice, or belief, but finds truth in all of them."
I don't think there's a huge issue in engaging in a conversation online. Certainly, there's courage in the anonymity, coupled with the risk of losing emotional context, having your tone misinterpreted. But I sometimes go ahead and engage because I wouldn't see or know the speaker otherwise. It's the only chance I have to speak what I believe to them. I have to be careful not to sound irate or extremely negative.
All this is to explain the genesis of my flow chart in the picture. I was thinking about what A posted and began to realize that it doesn't hold any water.
I think that everyone should pursue the truth. To do that, there are three options in the world.
1. There is no truth.
2. There is one truth.
3. There are many truths.
First, let's define truth. It is actuality, what is real, reality, in accordance with fact. Truth is that which is indisputably accurate; absolute truths are what should be sought.
1. There is no truth. - This disproves itself. It's a statement of truth saying there is no truth.
2. There is one truth. - I will try to show that it is the only possible reality through what follows.
3. There are many truths.
A. Some are more true than others.
- Truth is the essence of a standard. To say that something is more true than others would be making a judgment call. You cannot base that on anything if you do not hold a greater, underlying standard of truth, and so it ends up being subjective. How can something be more true than something else? It's like saying the water in my water bottle is wetter than that in a lake. Again, the definition of truth explains away this premise.
- This subjective call goes into the discussion of "your truth," later discussed in 3D.
B. All things together make a puzzle of truth.
- To take the "best" or "most true" parts of each religion, practice, or belief is to take away from each of these. Once you pick and choose parts of something, it's no longer fully what it once was originally. If something is true, it will be true throughout. To take only the truest parts of something is to say that it is only partly true, which means that it's not fully true, which means it's not true.
C. All things are valid/equally true.
- It's impossible that everything can be right. If you have only one contradiction, this viewpoint no longer holds. It'd be ridiculous to say "everything is true, with these exceptions" because the exception list would grow larger the more you think about things. For example, to say everything is true is to say that both Christianity and Hinduism are fully true, that their respective claims are based in fact in the world. That's impossible because Christianity recognizes one God, and Hindus worship thousands. There can't be both one God and thousands of gods. It can't also be that the Christian's God is as real as the thousands in Hinduism because Christianity rejects any other god.
- In my experience, this viewpoint is used to pacify arguments; it's agreeing to disagree. That doesn't solve the argument because there is still unstated disagreement.
D. The concept of the phrase "your truth."
- With truth as the above definition, the phrase your truth is an oxymoron. This phrase could be reworded more accurately by replacing truth with experience. Everyone's experience can lead them to live their lives differently than others, but it will still be within the bounds of truth.
- For example, someone may get in a car accident and then determine to be much more cautious on the road from there on in comparison to haven't been in an accident. The person who experienced the accident may instruct their family members to drive a certain way or be especially careful at a certain intersection. Someone might, essentially, say, "I've never had a car come from that direction at that intersection. You can stop as long as you want, but I'll continue to roll through the stop sign." The person who experienced the accident will be stopping at the stop sign, and the second person will get pulled over the first time a police officer sees them run the stop sign.
- It might appear that I'm getting bothered about the definition of one word, truth. Language changes all the time, so cynics might ask, "what's the harm in adding to the current definition?" Well, words matter. It's the same as if you were in a conversation with someone who spoke a different language. If you disagree on the basic definitions of words crucial to the conversation, you might as well be speaking your native language to a foreigner who only speaks their native language.
E. There are different ways to get to god/heaven.
- Why would a deity present itself in various ways to various people? It can't be just to accommodate cultures or feelings people have about what seems right. It can't be that because cultures don't transcend time and political boundaries, as truth does. What seems right to people, what they're comfortable with, can't be the reason god would present itself in myriad ways because that goes into the concept of your truth.
- These various ways to get to heaven, religions, the meaning of life, etc., contradict each other. Truth can't contradict itself because it would no longer be true. For example, Christianity is a faith-based religion. Hinduism and so many other religions are works-based. The faith-based-ness of Christianity and works-based-ness of the others are so integral to each that these conflict with one another and can't both be the case.
- If the deity wanted people to know itself, it would present itself exactly as it actually is, not in contradictory terms. We each show ourselves differently to the different people in our lives, spouse, children, employees, friends, and strangers. While we can't always understand things about God by extending Him to a greater version of what we'd do in His situation, or if He was a human, it does work here. We have the phrase "out of character" because each person is perceived by how everyone in their lives perceives him or her. If a person goes missing, it's sometimes said that "It's not like him/her to go somewhere without telling someone." God wouldn't present Himself with contradictory characteristics or ways to understand Him if He wanted to be known by us.
I welcome other points either to the numerical categories or alphabetical list. Neither is completely exhaustive, as I haven't discussed this out loud with many people enough times. The alphabetical list is my own thoughts of a possible response to the three numerical options for how many truths there are.
It is another post, at least, to explain why Christianity is the one truth that exists in the world. My point in this blog is to prove that there can only be one. The question then becomes, "which is the one truth?" Because there is only one truth, if it's honestly and earnestly sought, it can be discovered by those who truly seek it and recognize its reality.
Comments