Holy Certainty: Dismissing Other Religions While Demanding Respect for Your Own
In this "Enlightened Age" of grandiose megachurches, faith healers, flat earthers, laughing revivalists and campaigners for creationism, one paradox remains as alive as ever: folks who are absolutely convinced they possess a direct line to the Divine still manage to consider everyone else’s beliefs as wacky fanfiction.
Yet, while demanding unflinching reverence for their own God—who coincidentally shares their political views, national identity, and taste in flags—they dismiss others' deities as silly, quaint or downright dangerous. It’s not just ethnocentrism—it’s a full-blown tribal loyalty test, where the entry fee is suspension of disbelief (for your own ancient myths) and gleeful derision (for everyone else's).
“The oddity of other people’s religion is always more apparent than that of one’s own.”
This quote, attributed to Anthropologist Pascal Boyer, can be found in summaries and paraphrased interpretations of his book Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Said another way,
"What is 'natural' in one’s religious world seems 'superstitious' in another."
This observation highlights a cognitive bias: people are socialized into a belief system from an early age, and that system becomes the default framework through which they view the world. Contradictions or fantastical elements in their own beliefs are either normalized or spiritualized, while similar elements in others' faiths are ridiculed.
This phenomenon can be seen across cultures. A Christian may scoff at the Hindu belief in elephant-headed gods, while accepting, without question, the incarnation of God in a virgin-born man who walked on water. A Muslim may reject the Christian Trinity as polytheistic, while believing that a prophet split the moon. These acts of belief are often treated not just as matters of faith, but as non-negotiable truths.
But today’s faithful warriors have taken their manic thinking up a level. They don’t just see other religions as odd—they see them as threats to civilization, family values, and the delicate ecosystem of Christian bakeries. Meanwhile, virgin births, talking snakes, and zombie resurrections? Totally reasonable! Just don’t mention Ganesh or the Quran unless you’re ready to launch a culture war.
The oddity of other people’s religion is always more apparent than that of one’s own.
—Pascal Boyer Let’s be honest: if you believe that God dictated a holy book, of course that book sounds like the Truth™—especially when it affirms your right to hate, judge and condemn total strangers, and use “thoughts and prayers” as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. The faithful don’t just believe... They know! And with that knowledge comes voting patterns, campaign donations, and the occasional storming of a Capitol.
Case in point: American Christians who rail against Sharia law while pushing for Ten Commandments monuments in courthouses, and who denounce "religious extremism" while trying to criminalize abortion based on their interpretation of a Bronze Age manuscript. Religious humility? Please. This is a political project, dressed in choir robes.
As Scientist Richard Dawkins observed,
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
This quote appears early in The God Delusion, where Dawkins makes the point that even devout theists typically reject thousands of other gods—they just make an exception for their own.
But try suggesting that to someone who sees doubt as a spiritual failing and diversity as a liberal plot. You'll be accused of persecuting them—by daring not to agree.
The real engine here isn’t doctrine—it’s identity. As Social Scientist Jonathan Haidt explains,
“Moral reasoning is not a means for discovering moral truth, but rather a means for justifying beliefs and actions that are already held for intuitive reasons.” — The Righteous Mind (2012), Chapter 4.
In essence, the mechanism underlying this double standard is not purely doctrinal; it is deeply emotional and tribal. Haidt argues that people primarily form beliefs based on intuition and emotion, then use reason post hoc to defend them. “We are not moral philosophers,” he writes, “we are moral lawyers, using whatever arguments we can muster to defend our team.” In religious contexts, “our team” includes family, history, and identity—making challenges to belief feel like existential threats.
So, people don't form beliefs rationally and then live by them. No, they feel first, then backfill the logic later. So when someone says, “I just know this is true,” what they often mean is, “This is what my parents, pastor, and political party told me, and I’m too emotionally invested to question it now.”
It doesn’t help that many religions are built to self-insulate. Doubt is painted as temptation, questioning as rebellion, and alternative views as demonic deception.
Karen Armstrong, former nun and renowned scholar of religion, writes in The Case for God (2009),
“Faith is not about believing certain propositions. It is about doing things that change you.”
Yet in practice, religious identity is frequently reduced to rigid assent to particular doctrines, which in turn must be defended—sometimes aggressively—against outside influence.
It’s all so familiar. Believe in the exclusive truth of your tradition, then demand laws that enforce it. Strip other people’s rights in the name of your god, then act shocked when anyone suggests that’s not exactly democratic. Say you’re pro-life, but cut school lunches and universal healthcare. Preach forgiveness, but condemn anyone who disagrees with your theology or lifestyle.
At some point, the question isn’t why do people believe strange things, but why do they only find other people’s beliefs strange? The honest answer? Because recognizing the similarities between religions—their myths, miracles, and moral tales—would threaten the illusion of uniqueness. And for many, that illusion is all that’s holding up the whole divine pyramid scheme.
If your faith can’t tolerate comparison, conversation, or contradiction, maybe it’s not “truth” you’re defending.