... "we do not care to discuss the truth or falsity of religious systems; but looking at it from a statesman's point of view we hold that in self-defense the foreign religion should be banished from these shores."
-- Fukuzawa Yukichi (1882)
The other day I disagreed publicly with one of my teachers - an old habit that I can't seem to break - on the subject of truth in religion. Why do so many people act as though religion is a matter of ethnicity? If a religion is true only for a Westerner or only for a Japanese person or only for me personally... well, then its not really true at all!
Which is, I think, what my teacher believes.
He's right in this: if religious truth is not objectively true - true whether or not you or I or anyone believes it - its not true at all. And if its not true at all why bother?!
But doesn't it only make sense that the rules of the physical world would extend into the spiritual world? And if truth exists apart from us I may argue rightly or I may argue wrongly - the truth still remains the same with or without my sanction.
In other words, I may be right or I may be wrong in my perception of the truth, but regardless of whether I accurately apprehend that truth or not, religious truth is universal... there are no continental or ethnic divides.
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