On Non-belief

[FallentoReason]

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.

It seems like you have a problem with premise 4? This argument doesn't account for a Deistic god, so I'll meet you half way when you say the divine aspect of reality could be properly basic. This by no means implies that such an entity decided to reveal itself, thus making the entity Theistic in nature. This is where I stand; I believe it is a non-sequitur to say a) "GOD" exists therefore b) Christianity is true. There's a whole lot of work ahead of you to get to (b), which is actually the point of the argument: the fact that it is not obvious that the claims of Christianity are the true ones.

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.

I don't think you ever explicitly stated it here, but are you saying that believing in x is not a sufficient nor even a necessary condition to salvation? In other words, is it true that someone who is not a Christian (i.e. they don't believe x to be true, where x is arguably the fundamental teachings of Christianity such as Jesus dying for your sins) can get to heaven? If this is what you're saying, then I believe it raises more problems than answers, but I'll let you answer this first.