On Non-belief

[Neo-Scholastic]

…his existence isn't just an everyday fact but rather an "abstract truth" that isn't all that evident, especially when there's so many religions claiming that they're the ones worshipping the true god(s).

Remember to distinguish between general revelation and special revelation. The everyday fact of a divine aspect to reality seems to be ‘properly basic’ as MysticKnight would say. Some form of divinity is intuitively obvious, even if later application of reason, forces you to conclude that your intuition was incorrect. Meanwhile the application of reason may force others, like myself, to conclude that the original intuition was sound. Proceeding from there relies on the special revelation particular to each religious tradition – if Christian, the bible; if Hindu, the Vedas; etc.

The argument presented refutes the idea of ‘orthodoxy’ in the sense that salvation depends on having the right thoughts or holding a certain set of facts to be true. This would apply to the Reformed doctrine of ‘Faith Alone’. Are thoughts, by themselves, meritorious? The Catholic and Orthodox churches do not think so, nor does Swedenborg (who would have guessed!)

Thought, and the knowledge of truths that come from it, allows us to love more effectively and to do good. Truth plays a supporting role to love. Love alone is meritorious.

Okay. So I’m a Christian and I believe the special revelation of the bible is true, or at least a better approximation of the truth than say the Vedas. By definition, if I read something in the Vedas that contradicted the bible I would call it a false teaching. Closer to home, I think the New Church interpretation of the bible is more accurate than that of say Southern Baptists. So I would call those false teachings as well. That does not mean that a false teaching is necessarily harmful if it does not prevent the believer from cultivating love within themselves and acting out that love. Drich, Godschild, Frodo, and I all love the Lord. I would like to believe that we all live our lives in conformity to that love, despite our doctrinal differences. I’m quite certain that when we meet together in heaven we’ll all have a good laugh about how wrong each of us was.