The Hidden Structures of Belief Most People Never Question

There once was a kingdom with many different religious sects who constantly argued over metaphysical truths. Is the world eternal or is it finite? Does a person who has attained enlightenment live after death or do they perish like the rest of us? Seeing this unrest, the king gathered blind men and brought before them an

elephant. Each was allowed to feel only one part, but describe the whole elephant. The one who touched the head said it felt like a jar. Another who felt the tusk insisted it was a spear. So soon they were arguing over what the elephant truly was. This is the Buddhist parable of the blind men and it perfectly encapsulates

the limited subjectivity of our belief systems. The Buddha believed that people only see different sides of the whole and so they engage in petty quarrels. In more recent interpretations, this parable is used to suggest that just as the blind men had one part of the elephant, each religion is simply one aspect of a larger truth.

Religious thinkers from the Renaissance thought something similar when they uncovered what they believed was evidence of an ancient theology in texts believed to be written by an Egyptian saint named Hermes Trismegistus, who translated to Hermes thrice greatest, which by the way is just such a cool name. The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino believed this body of writing was

the first text to reflect an ancient theology or prisca theologica, which they believed had the true theology that threads through all major religions and many different philosophies. The notion that all religions share a common theology is appealing for several reasons. It implies that there's no reason to fight over which is true, as they're all