An Illusory Concern For Truth

There is a dramatic cognitive dissonance in the worldviews of many Christians.  On one hand, they claim to stand for truth because the Bible commands honesty and prescribes an obligation to the truth, but, on the other hand, they endorse a great variety of epistemological errors and dishonesties.  One example is that they will usually misrepresent faith (using the common definition of belief/trust in something that has not been fully proven) as something rational while they strongly denounce the telling of lies.  That these conflicting beliefs are loudly defended simultaneously is often rarely brought up, even by the most vicious opponents of organized religion as a whole.

It is as if many Christians do not even want to face the possibility that some core parts of Christianity might prove false, and, to flee from existential terror, they often avoid discussing the obvious possibility that only the parts of Christianity which must be true by logical necessity are in fact true.  Only a very small proportion of the teachings of Christianity have to be true.  As I have written before, the existence of some form of matter cannot be an illusion, and Christianity affirms that a material world truly does exist.  Consciousness is objectively distinct from the body, and the Bible affirms this.  An infinite past is impossible, and the Bible teaches that time and matter had a finite beginning.  Conscience cannot reveal any truths about morality itself, and, as with each of these other facts, the Bible acknowledges this.  These teachings, along with several others, cannot be false, even if many of the moral and theological aspects of Christianity are.

You can even bring many Christians, including evangelicals, to the point where they admit that all parts of Christianity that go beyond necessary truths could be false, and yet they might still insist that their allegiance to Christianity will always remain resolute.  They might as well say, “Even if I knew my worldview was false, I would still cling to it.”  Such a declaration is a declaration that one prefers a familiar worldview based on ignorance to a complex worldview rooted in what can actually be known about reality.  It signifies a commitment that exists irrespective of the veracity of the ideas the commitment binds a person to.  This carries a stark irony, for these people fallaciously cling to a religion derived from a text that demands honesty and intellectual soundness.

Just because an idea is comforting or fulfilling does not mean that it is false.  But, likewise, just because the absence or inverse of a belief is subjectively terrifying does not mean that the belief is true.  Many Christians--even the ones who are sincerely devoted to Christianity--do not seem to live for Christianity out of a legitimate desire for truth.  Instead, they have only an illusory concern for truth, with their worldviews hinging on fallacious zeal.  Their alleged love of truth contradicts their defense of irrationalities.

People who have a legitimate concern for truth will seek out, face, and acknowledge the truth even if they dislike it, even if the process of discovery causes them great pain.  They will abandon errors even if those errors have been the source of existential motivation.  Few Christians are like this.