From Skeptic to becoming the Christ-follower

We live in a plularlistic society where intolerance to other religion is intolerant. The majority of Americans believe in God. The numbers are astounding. According to the Washington Post, 92% of all Americans believe in God and even one in five atheists believes in God. I think this is funny. Atheism gets all this airplay, but there seems like a few dozens in the country. They get all the Time articles and come out on CNN, but it's a minority group, come on, 8%. But here is a thing, 92% of Americans believe that there is some sort of God, but at the same time, the majority of Americans believe that no one religion can know the fullness of spiritual truth. And that those who claim they do know the absolute truth, they are mocked as arrogant and intolerant.

A common parable of the elephant and the blind men proves the point. The story goes like this. A group of blind men were asked to describe an elephant.
And the first one grabbed the trunk and said, “An elephant's like a snake. Yeah, it's just like a snake with two holes on the end. It's really weird.”
And the other one was touching the leg going, “No, it's nothing like a snake.” He’s feeling the leg. “What are you, blind? Does that guy not have any hands? It's like a tree trunk. An elephant's like a tree trunk.”
And the other one is feeling the side of the elephant. He goes, “What is wrong with these people?” “It is nothing like tree trunk.” “An elephant's like a wall.”
The last guy's at the end; he's just holding the tail. He's like, “No, it's kind of hairy, and long, and humid.”

The point of the parable is to show how each of the religions, although somewhat correct, is in the end wrong. If anyone is making absolute claim like, “An elephant is like a snake” or “an elephant is like tree trunk,” he is wrong. Furthermore, if he is making absolute claim about it, then that guy is arrogant and foolish and causes violence against humanity.

But there is a serious problem about this parable. The problem is that it is intellectually inconsistent. It accuses Christians for being intolerant when in reality the skeptics are no more tolerant. Let me explain. The only way the parable of the elephant and the blind men makes any sense is if the narrator of the story sees the whole elephant.
What skeptics are saying is that they see the whole picture, and Christians do not. The point is this. The moment you claim that ultimate reality is unknowable, you have just claimed the knowledge that you say can't be known. The moment you say ultimate reality is unknowable, you've just claimed what you say can't be claimed. This is intellectually inconsistent.

Here would be skeptic’s affirmations: that God is ultimately unknowable, that no one can know and claim the absolute truth about God. The only way you could possibly know that would be to know how the universe is wired, why it's wired that way, which is the same thing. What they're claiming can't be known.

I (Christian) and the skeptics, we're claiming the same thing: an understanding of ultimate reality, Only difference is I'm considered arrogant and I'm intolerant because I say I know ultimate reality. To the notion of Skeptic, I don't really know ultimate reality, but he knows ultimate reality, I'm arrogant for claiming I know ultimate reality because he really knows ultimate reality.

If you are skeptic about Christian faith, set the religion (Christianity) aside, and try to get to know Jesus; His life, his teaching, and his work.