Truth Is What’s Common to All
Religiosity is the art of making meaning through story, symbol, ritual, and prayer. The tools of religiosity are, as the Zen people say, fingers pointing toward the moon, and they should not be mistaken for the moon itself. Healthy religions know this and use their tools to point beyond themselves. Unhealthy religions reject this, insisting that the tool is the Truth rather than a pointer to the Truth. Healthy religions ascribe to the teaching “Truth is one. Different people call it by different names” (Rig-Veda 1.164.46). Unhealthy religions ascribe to a slightly different teaching: “Truth is one. And we own it.”
For the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence . . . illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
LUDWIG FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity