While pure relativism isn’t necessarily believed by most, it is perhaps more common to believe that all religions are equally valid or true. While I believe, of course, that most religions contain some truth, I don’t believe this theory. Let me try to explain, with the use of a familiar metaphor. I hate metaphors as much as anyone but for the life of me I can’t think of a better way to explain it.
I’ll use an elephant to represent the truth; the things that are actually real. I’ll use a bunch of people standing around the elephant looking at it from different angles to represent each of us. I shall classify all these people into 3 groups (normally this is a bad idea but it’s just to make a point).
The first group of people suppose that their view of the elephant is the only correct view. Or perhaps they suppose that they can see the whole elephant all at once, as if they were somehow God. I have fallen into the first group so often that I’m utterly astounded God has not rained fireballs down on me. These people are wrong.
The second group of people suppose that their view of the elephant is correct, but that other people can look at it from different perspectives and see the same thing they do, so that they are also right. These people, I believe, are correct.
The third group of people suppose that whatever everybody sees is the elephant, whether they’re actually looking at the elephant or whether they’re seeing imaginary things – whether they’re looking at a ghost of an elephant, at the ground, or the sky, or nothing, etc. This is what I mean by “relativist”. These people are wrong.
But perhaps I should correct this metaphor a bit. For everyone in all three groups looks at the imaginary things once in a while; everyone sees partly the imaginary things and partly the elephant. This comes from at least 2 sources: (1) incorrect reasoning, and (2) a brain that cannot take in sensory information perfectly. Relativists, the way I use the term, say that this does not matter; that what’s important is believing what you’re sincere about, rather than what’s actually there.
So far I have only said what I think anyone who is not insane would agree with. Now let me tell you what I personally believe. I believe that “the elephant” is Christ. People don’t like this. It’s not that they don’t believe it; it’s that they don’t like it. It’s not cool. It seems unfair.
But let’s avoid making a grave mistake here. It is not true that the people who see the elephant are better than the people who don’t. It’s only a difference. Everyone is equally important, but everyone is not the same. I think some people become relativists to avoid this mistake; but they go too far.
Let me also tell you what I now strongly suspect (but certainly don’t know) about the Bible. I believe it is the word of God in the sense that it presents the truth, or Christ, from a bunch of angles. That’s why it seems to contradict itself – because the two seemingly contraditory passages are looking at the elephant from opposite views. I also believe that the different Christian denominations (but not Christian cults) are looking at the truth from different perspectives. I also believe that other religions see part, or even most, of the truth, but that they are all looking at “imaginary” things as well.
A common mistake that I think many people make here is to think that group 1 corresponds to “conservatives” and group 3 corresponds to “liberals”. That is not true, according to the dictionary. There are people who profess to be conservative and also believe other people see truth, and there are people who profess to be liberal and refuse to change their mind. People from all groups, denominations and religions can fall into all 3 categories, whether left or right or up or down or backwards or sideways. We really have to stop grouping people.
What an atheist might say at this point is that the “imaginary” things in the metaphor are religious beliefs. I would ask them how they know. For it seems to me that it is just as likely that there is a “real” (or, more accurately, an eternal) thing that exists, and we are deluding ourselves into thinking that everything we sense (and nothing else) is real, when as a matter of fact it is parts of this world that are “imaginary”. This doesn’t mean matter or evil don’t exist, by the way – some make that mistake. Nor does it mean there is no Hell. What it means is that only paying attention to what you sense with your five senses, and not trying to find out whether all that information more likely leads to a truth other than that only the physical world exists, is a mistake based on an assumption which, I believe, we as a society were raised to have.
I hope this clears up some misconceptions.
I probably got some of these ideas from Michael Green’s website (I forget where that is) and from his book “But Don’t All Religions Lead to God?”
Humans Aren't Rational 