Tom Facchine – There Is Truth & Falsehood
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the confusion surrounding the definition of religion and how it is not just a group of people who say they have faith in religion, but also individual religion. They stress the importance of studying other cultures and not define religion as a group of people who want to be understood. The speaker also suggests that while there may be some truths and falsehoods in religion, it is ultimately not true and should be considered in one's own view.
AI: Summary ©
Some people feel that they're entitled to just make really sweeping generalizations about all faiths. They say all religion is this or all religions say that are all rather than say that and 999 times out of 1000, that person has no idea what they're talking about. Because first of all, most people don't actually study religions like that. And it's like we're talking about even myself. It's like I have an understanding of, of Christianity and Christian history, I don't know Latin and Greek, right? I would be hesitant to get into a discussion with somebody about, you know, Greek texts, and I understand how the manuscripts were preserved or not preserved in the case of
Christianity, but I don't know that and in Greek, right, I don't know Hebrew, right? I'm, you know, hamdulillah fluent in Arabic, I'm able to engage in the Quran and the Hadith. And you know, all of that Sanskrit, Pali, the Pali canon, all these different sorts of languages that major religious texts are written down in, like, have some humility, right? Have some have some humility, people want to get and they want to talk about all religions say those all religions say that, and they know a few languages, and they've just studied, you know, one religion really, and what they think they know about other religions is really more of a product of their ideology, and their
sensibilities. And it is about actual study of other religions. That's one thing. And second of all, religions, not all the same in the sense that we have to be very, very careful to not define religion as a human venture. Okay, religion, and that's the danger of the category of religion in and of itself. There is no real religion, there's the truth. And there's falsehood, right? If we say that, Oh, well, you have the religion of Islam and the religion of Christianity that that makes it seem like we just came up with this stuff ourselves, like some do just sat down and started writing about it. And that's not true. If you believe in a creator, and you believe that the Creator is
merciful enough to want to communicate guidance to human beings, then you have a dichotomy. You have a binary either the things that are claiming to be religious guidance or divine guidance, either they're true, or they're not either it's divine guidance that came from the Creator, or it's not truth and falsehood, genuine, made up. And so within that paradigm, are we going to talk about different religions? Or should we be talking about what's true, and not in an ad hoc way? Not in a utilitarian way? Not in a well, I'm living in North America 2022 I get to decide what's true. And I'll look at the text and say, Well, I don't agree that shouldn't say that. Let's change that. What
type of arrogance is this? Right? But to actually say, Okay, let's figure out what actually came from a divine source and what didn't. And once we figure that out, let's submit to it.