How can you be so convinced your beliefs are right? There’s millions of Jews and Muslims who are just as sure as you that they’re on the right path.

It might be tempting to assume this must be true; it is certainly easy to assume. However, anyone that has studied the more common forms of Judaism and Islam are aware that the practitioners of these religions feel no such assurance—primarily because their religion does not do business in such assurances. It would take me numerous pages to explain the various relevant features of these religions and the attitudes of their adherents, but the result is the same for each: namely, that they are never certain that they’re on the right path or that they’ll have a spot in heaven, as it were. Both Jews and Muslims live with that spiritual angst of being at the mercy of their gods.

But more importantly, truth is never determined by the level of one’s conviction. In other words, it does not even matter whether the Muslim is convinced he’s on the right path or even how convinced of it he is. A madman can swear with the deepest level of conviction that there is a purple elephant wearing pink nylons playing checkers on the front lawn, but however intensely he’s convinced of this it’s not going to suddenly come true. It’s called a delusion for a reason. A person might be deeply convinced he is on the right path but that matter is never settled by the level of his conviction. Truth is determined by other means—or else anything and everything is true and the word itself has lost all meaning.