Replies

Speaking of truth, meatball is the only acceptable pizza topping. Pepperoni, mushroom, sausage, and the like, are sins. This is such an obvious truth that no further explanation is required, because we meatball-topping-pizza-eaters have a monopoly on all truth. Anyone who believes otherwise is a relativist headed down the wrong path, and has no business being out in public trying to sell us normal folk on their evil toppings. We must teach...no, instill...no, wait, ram this down the throats of our children or we will all perish!

It sounds like you are a victim of the same flawed thinking that the children in the author's example are. Here is the concept put more simply: either believe in something or do not. If you believe in something only until someone with a different belief comes along, then you didn't really hold that belief, did you?

As an example, let's say I believe that the world is round. I am absolutely convinced of it. In such a case, it would be a betrayal of my own beliefs for me to say that "the world is flat" is an equally valid belief. Either the world is round, or the world is flat (or it is an oblate spheroid, but let's keep it simple). The point is that if I really believe the world is round, then I should be able to state that belief without doubt, and should have no compunction whatsoever about promoting that belief, as it is what I believe to be true, and therefore I would be leading others to truth if I were to convince them.

In the same way, if one believes that Christianity is the truth, and that all men go to God by faith in Jesus Christ, it would be asinine to undercut my own belief by stating that other beliefs could be valid, too. If I truly believe in Christianity, then I MUST believe that non-Christians are being led astray. If the non-Christians do not want to accept my views, then they certainly don't have to, but for me to say that their views are equally valid is to say that I don't really believe that my views are true.

One important thing to understand is that each person WILL eventually accept one belief or another, whether it be atheism, Christianity, Islam, or whatever. What is certain is that those belief systems in which the adherents are firm in their beliefs will survive, and those systems that have only wishy-washer followers will perish. If Christians do not stand firm and confident in their beliefs, then another belief will eventually take its place. One of the reasons Islam has made such inroads with people who would ordinarily scoff at religion is because they offer confident belief in the truth, and those Jewish and Christian sects which offer only wishy-washy, maybe-this maybe-that kind of stuff cannot compete.

Atheism offers nothing in spiritual terms, and so atheists are vulnerable to silly belief systems like Wicca and dangerous ones like Islam.

Revisionist Italian foods are sinful!!