RELIGIOSITY IS NOT A QUALIFICATION FOR TRUTHTELLERS
People who believe in and claim follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (i.e. Jews and Christians) believe that they have exclusive access to biblical truth. They also believe that atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, freethinkers, secular humanists, rationalists and followers of other religions (collectively categorized as “unbelievers” by Christians) do not have access to biblical truth.  Just like they are wrong about so many things that they believe, Jews and Christians are wrong about who has access to truth and who doesn’t.

Unbelievers should be encouraged  to know, therefore, that lack of belief in God, and religious piety are not prerequisites to being an effective truth teller. Truth is truth — no matter who speaks it.

It is a curious fact that people who are not religious and skeptical that God exists seem to be especially skilled at sorting truth from lies. This is especially true regarding Christian Nationalism, religious extremism and conspiracy theories which they easily identify as lies. It is also a curious fact that non-religious people often do a much better job of obeying God’s commands about loving and caring for one another.

Why non-religious people are able to discern truth from lies is not well-understood, but logical explanations could include, but are not limited to the following:

• • • They have not been trained as children to believe that the words of the literal bible are true.
    • As adults they have figured out that the words of the literal bible are not true.
    • They have observed the hypocrisy of Christians and Jews who say they believe one thing and then do another.
    • They have willfully chosen to reject and resist religious beliefs, doctrines and practices because they are unwilling to suspend logic, science and reason for the sake of belief in a god for whom there is no evidence that he exists.
    • They have willfully chosen to reject and resist religious beliefs, doctrines and practices that are based on illogical, unbelievable bible stores that they characterize as magic and myth.
    • They are not able to reconcile the disconnects between their understanding of God’s character — as they understand it — with the literal words of the bible and the teachings of religious leaders.
    • Having opted out of religion which demands suspension of logic, science and reason, they habitually use their hearts and minds to discern the difference between truth and lies rather than trust the teachings of religious leaders who trade in deceit, myths, lies and magic.

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While these are all reasonable explanations for why non-religious people might be especially skilled at sorting out truth from lies, we have the following scriptures that explain why unbelievers are qualified to be truth tellers:

Luke 18:1-8 Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart. 2 saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. 3 “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ 4 “For a while he was unwilling ; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’ “ 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; 7 now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?8″ I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” INTERPRETATION: This has been a confusing story for Christians to interpret because it seems to elevate unbelievers to equality with believers. This is difficult because Christians cannot imagine unbelievers receiving praise from God for executing justice. What Christians and Jews do not understand is that unbelievers do have the capacity to execute justice even though they do not believe in God. See this link for understanding. The interpretation challenge begins with understanding of what it means to be “unrighteous”.  Jews and Christians wrongly attribute righteousness to those who say they believe in God and obey religious laws. As is always the case, the understandings of religious people is very different from what God says. God attributes righteousness to people who obey God’s spiritual laws — not religious laws. So-called unbelievers who execute justice do so because they have God’s laws written on their hearts. Christians and Jews have read and heard the law but do not do the law. That means they are not righteous in God’s eyes. Unbelievers either have not heard or read religious laws, but whether they have or not is not the issue. What is important is that they have somehow heard God’s spiritual laws in their hearts and obeyed them. This is why God calls them righteous. Romans 2:11-15 For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for [it is] not the hearers of the Law [who] are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law [who] will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law instinctively perform the [requirements] of the Law, these, though not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, INTERPRETATION: Jews and Christians wrongly believe that God is partial to them in every way because they follow religious laws. See this link about God and partiality. See this link for scriptures about God and partiality. Because God’s impartiality extends to unreligious people, he writes his laws on their hearts. That is what qualifies them to be truth tellers. Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on [the] evil and [the] good, and sends rain on [the] righteous and [the] unrighteous. INTERPRETATION: This explains God’s impartiality. Both the righteous and can have access to God’s laws (symbolically represented as rain) written on their hearts. It is these laws — not religious laws — that enables people to love all of their neighbors  (including their enemies and those who persecute them.)

With these scriptural explanations in mind, we understand why so many people who are not actively religious seem to have an acute ability to know the difference between truth and lies in politics, good and evil, justice and injustice, conspiracy theories and truth. This is a necessary skill when confronting Christian Nationalism.

In a country that identifies so strongly with religions that put their trust in the literal words of the bible, the ability of those who do not identify as Christians to discern lies from truth offers the best hope we have that Christian Nationalism can be overcome and democracy preserved. Opportunities for such hope grow as the numbers of religious dropouts continues unabated because, as people drop out of religion, their ability to discern truth from lies increases.

Room for hope that unbelievers can be constructively involved in confrontations with Christian Nationalism is found in the story of Balaam and the donkey through whom God spoke. When we understand the symbolism of this story we learn that lack of belief in God is not an obstacle to God working through people to share truth.

It is counterintuitive for Christians, atheists and agnostics to consider that lack of religious training, aversion to religious practices, and perhaps unbelief in God can be a useful asset when it comes to knowing truth and then sharing that truth in a constructive way. But this is exactly what we learn when we correctly interpret the symbolism of the story of Balaam.

More hope for success is found in the fact that, as the population of ex-christians grows, more and more people are dropping out of church. See this link for more about this phenomenon. Religious people see his trend as a bad thing for God. It is bad for churches and religious leaders, but, in fact, people dropping out of church is a good thing for God because he is calling them out of religion so they will stop listening to religious leaders and start listening to his spoken voice.

Since God is calling people out of religion, it is reasonable to expect that ex-christians have heard God’s voice somewhere in their transition out of religion. They did not hear his voice while religious because, while they were religious, they listened to the voices of religious leaders — not God. While they were religious, they were part of the problem but, now that they no longer practice religion, they, along with other religiously unaffiliated people, can be part of the solution as truthtellers.

It is also reasonable to expect that the minds and hearts of these ex-christians have been cleansed a little or a lot from the lies they were taught while they were religious. That is why they now possess that critical ability to discern the difference between truth and lies in politics, good and evil, justice and injustice, conspiracy theories and biblical truth. They, along with people whose minds have never been muddled with religious lies, will be front-line defenders of democracy in the war against Christian Nationalism.

Despite this trend of people dropping out of religion, the fact remains that religiously unaffiliated people are still in the minority in America according to The 2020 Census of American Religion. But that is not a problem for God as we learn in the story of Gideon who reduced his army from twenty-two thousand men down to three hundred.