Modern Myth #9 is the belief that all religions are equal or true. MTV and The Associated Press recently asked young people between the ages of 13 and 24 to choose between two statements about their views of religious faiths other than their own.

68% agreed with this statement: “I follow my own religious and spiritual beliefs, but I think other religious beliefs could be true as well.” 31% picked this one: “I strongly believe that my religious beliefs are true and universal and that other religious beliefs are not right.”

Now the problem with the first statement is that religions contradict each other. Take monotheism (the belief in only one God as in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) and polytheism (the belief in many gods as in Hinduism, Mormonism, and the religions of ancient Rome and Greece). How can the Jewish statement, “There is only one God,” and the Hindu statement, “There are more than a million gods,” both be true? Both statements could be false if atheists are right; but both statements cannot be correct. If one statement is right, logic says the other is wrong. (To disagree with this is anti-intellectual.)

Personally I choose to believe in monotheism. By making the choice of monotheism, I have rejected polytheism because it is the opposite of monotheism and opposite or contradictory beliefs cannot both be true at the same time. (For example, if I believe I am 6 feet tall, I can’t at the same time logically say that people who believe I am 7 feet tall are also correct.) Thus by choosing monotheism, I have chosen to believe that polytheism is incorrect in its belief in many gods.

Now logic does not imply intolerance. I respect the right of people to believe in and proclaim polytheism even though I believe it is wrong. I also appreciate and agree with many of the ethical teachings of polytheism. They may be wrong about the number of gods, but they are correct in many of their moral ideas. One of my greatest heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, was a Hindu.

So are all religions true? All religions contain some truth, but all religions cannot be correct in their contradictory views about God. God is what He is regardless of what I or anyone else believes about Him. If I want to be right in my religion, I must give up my ideas, beliefs, opinions, and traditions about what God is like, and seek to find out what He is like in reality