It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that there is some confusion here. OzSpen is asking for a definition of truth, not what people believe to be true. If something is true, it is true for everyone, but not everyone may believe that it is true.
At the most basic level, I think that truth is that which corresponds with reality. So it isn't a matter of we have truth as Christians but it isn't the truth of unbelievers. It's just truth and unbelievers don't believe that to be the case. There is no 'my truth' and 'his truth'.
There likewise seems to me to be a great deal of confusion in this thread, or at least a lot of people talking past each other. Pretty clearly, Jethro's OP was in the vein of "Are people really searching for the truth about the ultimate nature of reality or are they content with some understanding of their own that they find comforting and appealing?" (Correct me if I'm wrong, Jethro, but that's how I understood it.) My experience, as I've suggested, is that most people do little searching at all. They are culturally conditioned into some belief system, or indoctrinated by parents into some belief system, or simply gravitate to some belief system they find appealing or socially advantageous without much regard to whether it corresponds to the ultimate nature of reality. I believe a large number of people have the attitude, "We can't really know the ultimate nature of reality anyway, so I'll just find a landing spot where I'm comfortable." I live in a heavily LDS area, and I can't tell you how many people I've seen convert solely because it's the only way they are going to have any social acceptance or business success in this area.
As I've suggested in my posts, the only way anyone could really
know the truth about the ultimate nature of reality would be by direct observation or experience. The only way I can know my Ford is sitting in my garage is by observing it. I may have a strong belief, based on the fact that I parked it there last night, that it is sitting in my garage - but I am, to some extent, speculating until I go look. (A couple of years ago, my neighbor was surprised to discover his truck wasn't sitting in his garage in the morning.) This is precisely the point of someone like Dawkins. In his materialistic belief system, we
can observe and experience ultimate reality. It's all around us. There is no higher reality. End of discussion.
Christians and other believers say they know there is a higher reality. For Christians, the direct observation and experience consists of things like being born again, answers to prayer, and sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit. Some have direct mystical encounters with Jesus. But: (1) believers of other faiths can claim equivalent observations and experiences, and (2) none of these observations and experiences counts for anything with Dawkins - they are simply inadmissible in his belief system and thus
have to be the product of misunderstanding, misinterpretation, ignorance or delusion. Thus, in the great scheme of things, what Christians "know" is little different from what a Muslim "knows" or Dawkins "knows." Each believes that what he "knows" is true (corresponds to the nature of ultimate reality) and what everyone else "knows" is false. And round and round it goes.
Apart from direct observation and experience
of the higher reality, we have the evidence pointing
toward it. For a Christian, this might be the historical evidence for the Resurrection, the prophecies in the Bible that were fulfilled, and the evidence for Intelligent Design. Muslims and Hindus have their versions of such evidence. Dawkins has his reasons for believing all such evidence is hooey. A legitimate debate can be had as to whose evidence is stronger. But evidence such as this will never really get you to a state of "knowing" the truth about the nature of a reality higher than your own.
When we talk about the "truth" of Hitler's plans, this is a different sense of "truth." We're talking here about "moral truth" (if this is a legitimate use of the term at all). All of the historical facts of the Nazi regime are true in the sense discussed above - what history says the Nazis did corresponds pretty closely to the reality of what the Nazis did. But can we even talk about "truth" in the context of the Nazis'
objectives? Does it even make sense to ask whether Hitler's objective in exterminating the Jews was "true"?
A Christian (or Jesus, for that matter) would say, "It was objectively immoral because God's laws determine what is moral and it violated God's laws." Dawkins would say, "I disagree with what the Nazis did and everyone should condemn it because it was objectively irrational and destructive, but there is no God and there are no God's laws." A believer of a different religion would say, "It was objectively immoral, but only because it violates the tenets of my religion." Even when we are talking about moral truth, therefore, we come back to the nature of ultimate reality - is Christian morality "true" because Christians' understanding of God corresponds to reality or is Muslim morality "true" because Muslims' understanding of Allah corresponds to reality? What if Christian morality and Muslim morality both condemn the same act - are both moralities "true," or is only the Christian's (or the Muslim's) "true" because only his understanding of the source of the morality is correct? It seems to me that you cannot get away from the core question, "What is the ultimate nature of reality and what basis do we have for claiming to know anything about it?" I think it's healthy, as Bill suggested above, for believers of all types to grapple with this question.
