In religious affairs, we don’t typically notice the sheer
declarativeness in the assertions of belief. In passing, we don’t isolate the
underpinning assumptions. We are all human beings relative to the divine, and
yet distinctions within our ranks are asserted or declared to be so, even if
implicitly. All too often, the human mind overreaches with impunity. Rarely are
the leaps themselves the subject of attention and thus subject to critique.
Much more commonly, the substance of the religious belief is noticed and
debated. I submit that the assumptions typically involved in making religious
statements—even the very nature of the declarative assertion—are more worthy of
note on account of the human mind’s vulnerabilities that are rarely noticed,
much less subject to rebuke.
The full essay is at "Infallible Assumptions in Religion."
