Seen this way, and when you realize that *everything* else may be questioned, it becomes easy to see two things. The first is that religions have something suspicious about them for being so impervious to questioning, and second, that actually questioning the religions doesn't really bring forth the horror and doom the theists claim it will. It used to be said that plagues and earthquakes came about from god's anger-- now that we know that such claims are nonsense, the theists have had to roll back where god's anger is displayed, which is a place where we can never examine to see if their claims are true-- now god's anger happens after we die. This is *very* convenient for people who wish to make a claim that cannot be investigated for its veracity.
My love for my daughter and my acknowledgement of that love is not based on scientific evidence. It hasn't been proven to me in a lab, or in a court of law. It is based on direct subjective experience.
“Kierkegaard also said that truth is `subjective`. By this he did not mean it doesn't matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are `true for me`.” -Gaarder
Treeshepherd's 2nd Law states that in any message board discussion about religion, it is both the atheists and fundamentalist theists who insist on a literal interpretation of scripture, and the 'immutable' word found therein.
Treeshepherd's Model of Truth;
Truth is not absolute (but for the non-manifested first principles of the universe). Neither is truth relative, as in Aristotle's Golden Mean (truth is the mean between the two extremes and if everyone is thieving than it's okay for me also to steal). Truth is relational, as within an ecosystem. Is it right and proper for a treesnake to behave like a shrew, or a jaguar to behave like a monkey? No. Each component of the rainforest has its role for which it was cast. Together, taken collectively, they form an ever-evolving balance. Likewise, for each man and woman, he was born with certain gifts and if allowed to reach his potential will contribute to the betterment of mankind.
Truth is relational, and given the circumstances, I think most of us would say that it was understandable for Jean Valjean (Hugo's Les Mis, one of the most intelligent and passionate treatises on Christianity) to steal a loaf of bread. Perhaps you might even be able to say that absolute truth appears to us at every instant when we face a choice, and vanishes just as quickly.
In light of that, and the shrinking world we live in, we must ask how each religion relates to the ecosystem of religions in its entirety. And also, how do these religions live beside our present understanding of science? Is there a destructive conflict necessitating an extinction, or a creative tension that serves to improve understanding?