Response to:
"All religions are equally valid."
You probably won't go for long in college without hearing the popular Eastern story about six blind men who visit the palace of a Rajah and encounter an elephant. They've never seen, heard, felt or known of an elephant. Each man touches a different part of the elephant and describes what he feels.
The first blind man put out his hand and touched the side of the elephant. "How smooth! An elephant is like a wall." The second blind man put out his hand and touched the trunk of the elephant. "How round! An elephant is like a snake." The third blind man put out his hand and touched the tusk of the elephant. "How sharp! An elephant is like a spear." The fourth blind man put out his hand and touched the leg of the elephant. "How tall! An elephant is like a tree." The fifth blind man reached out his hand and touched the ear of the elephant. "How wide! An elephant is like a fan." The sixth blind man put out his hand and touched the tail of the elephant. "How thin! An elephant is like a rope."
The men begin to argue and awaken the Rajah. He comes to the balcony and declares, "The elephant is a big animal. Each man touched only one part. You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like." The blind men get it and restate the moral of the story, "Each one of us knows only a part. To find out the whole truth we must put all the parts together."
This certainly is a good illustration of how we can put our knowledge and experiences together to understand and solve a problem but it has its limitations. Well meaning but naive people will parrot this story to argue that each culture defines its own view of religious truth (and morality) so no one can claim to have exclusive knowledge of the objective truth. They might add, "All religions are just different paths up the same mountain. The truths found by each religion must be put together to find the whole truth about the ultimate questions of life.”
But there is a catch. How did the Rajah know that they were all touching the same elephant and not different objects around his palace courtyard? He stood outside of the courtyard up on the balcony watching the whole thing. He was not even a part of the activity. If he was one of the blind men his interpretation would be just as valid as the others'. In a similar way, the person who thinks this story proves that all religions are equal would have to be standing outside in a position of objective judgment, which is the very thing he says can't be done. He is only contradicting himself.
References
Beckwith, Francis J. and Koukl, Gregory. Relativism. Baker Books, 1998., p. 47.
Note: Beckwith and Koukl think the above is from the story as retold by Lillian Quigley, The Blind Men and the Elephant. (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1959. Possible original sources of the story are the Jataka Tales, a collection of Buddhist birth stories, and the Pancatantra Stories, Hindu religious instruction fables.
Copyright 2005. Gary C. Burger and New Media Ministries. This article may be reproduced and distributed freely as long as it is done so in its entirety. If quoted it must be properly cited as a reference.
