Imagine that just one of the world's religions is true. Imagine that among the countless number of completely spurious, false religions, there is a ‘true’ religion, which represents God's best attempt to guide and communicate with mankind. As the best effort of an omnipotent being, this guide is by definition perfect.
If this idea is true, it would have some strange implications. The fact of one true religion would create insuperable epistemological problems for the person trying to find the correct religion. And for every epistemic problem of the religious seeker, a parallel theological problem is created – God being the author of the epistemic problem. I want to keep this post short, so I’m not going to give all of the problems. But try to come up with some of your own. I think there a potentially infinite amount of problems here.
1. The first problem is that religious belief is geographically determined. The vast majority of religious adherents don't choose their religion – they have it chosen for them, and it nearly always matches the prevailing religion of their culture. This is no coincidence. A person's religion is caused, if not enforced by their culture. People do not choose what God to believe in.
Now I know the words ‘genetic fallacy’, are normally employed to dismiss this argument out of hand. The genetic fallacy is when a proposition is dismissed because of the reasons someone has for believing it. Here's why this response will not work against my argument.
1.1. To believe that one religion is true, one must believe that God engineered the scenario I've just described. God has caused this state of affairs, where our salvation or damnation is based on a choice we do not ourselves make, but have drilled into us. If we adhere to the wrong religion, it's because it was drilled into us, the same way it would have been drilled into the lucky followers of the correct religion. God has made his religion conform to all the same patterns and modes of propagation as the false ones. How bizarre would it then be if one of these were true, and the rest false? They are all so similar to anyone not threatened into believing one of them, and yet we are supposed to believe one of them is an accurate portrayal of the mind of God himself. If your religion has at least one person bodily ascending to heaven, your God is going to eternally burn the inevitably existing subset of people who fail to realize the religions they were indoctrinated into are false. God is transferring his own problem, his hiddenness; onto the lowly creatures he created to worship him. A ‘true and correct’ dogmatic and close-minded religion is indistinguishable from a dogmatic and close-minded religion which is false. This is why this objection cannot be brushed aside by whipping out the genetic fallacy. The problem of geographic determinacy has far reaching theological implications.
1.2. A person who believes in one religion must believe God has set up the world's religions like a game of Risk and demanded that his color wins, while adamantly refusing to reveal which color is in fact really his. On this view, there is one group of plastic figurines who God really wants to succeed in their preaching efforts, but this could be any group. He wants the board to be completely one color. He wants one set of figurines to go out and conquer all of the others, via the medium of flimsy literature, half-baked apologetics and appeals to blind faith. Any of the reasons a believer could give for thinking god is on their team could be given by someone who believes differently, with the same force. It could be Jainism, or Zoroastrianism, or something almost no-one has ever heard of. In the meantime, every religious faction is convinced it is they who have the correct answer to God's ultimately important multi-choice exam question. When the stakes are so high – think of what awaits the people who get this question wrong, how could this scenario reflect the wishes of an omni-benevolent deity? If one religion is true, God has well hidden this fact. He has created us in complete and inescapable ignorance, and demanded that we know. God has engineered a state of affairs where our eternal fate is based on a choice we do not ourselves make. Just consider what an absurd situation this would be if it were the case. ‘Christians, I want you guys to do really well! I hope you make it in the preaching business. Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus? Nah, you've got it all wrong.’ Is this really what's going through the mind of an all-knowing being? How can you believe that Christianity is true and accurate, but Sikhism, Islam and Hinduism are just empty, signifying nothing?
God would apparently agree with me that walking around city centers screeching scriptural passages at incredulous strangers is a silly waste of time – but only in most cases. When his team do it, this activity represents the best possible use of a person's time on this earth.
2. The second problem is that the 'true religion’, which God is apparently rooting for, is completely indistinguishable from all the false ones – at least to anyone not already indoctrinated or threatened into adhering to one. This ‘true’ religion, whichever one it is, has all of the same characteristics as the false ones. The ‘true’ religion is similar to the false ones in its repressive, dogmatic and scientifically backward nature. This is the religious seeker's epistemic problem. This is a problem for any person who wants to find the right religion. I'm not saying all religions are all the same in every way; just all of the ways that could be considered objectively indicative of truth value.
2.1. The theological problem is this; why on earth did God bury the needle in the haystack? And why did he make the needle look like hay? God has caused this world to come into being. Therefore he has caused the plethora of false religions which look like true ones. What basis is there supposed to be for choosing the right religion? They all look and act the same. Why make salvation dependent on coming to a certain religion, and then offer a countless number of ways to go astray? What would God say to me if I died, and after being told I was headed for the fiery fun-house, said 'All the religions look the same! How is someone supposed to choose?’ What can anyone say to this?
I hope you can see what I mean. This was very hard to write. It's probably just a bit of a rant which no-one will understand.
