When frightened by catastrophe we reach for certainty, and there is something very reassuring about the idea that underneath the complexity and apparent contradictions of everyday life a simple truth lies hidden. Fundamentalism is comforting. It tells us that confusion, complexity, and contradiction are illusions masking a simple reality, and that to reach that reality we need only break the code.
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It probably makes sense at this point to make something perfectly clear. By criticizing the belief that “the truth is out there” I am not thereby criticizing truth or embracing so-called postmodern relativism (although I confess a certain fondness for democracy and pluralism). Rather, what I am questioning is the belief that the truth in question is out there, that is, that it already exists as a kind of knowledge, waiting to be discovered, copied down, or translated. Truths, in other words, are statements about the world; they are not things we can round up and measure but statements about the things we round up and measure. That means that we can compare statements as regards their truth value, criticize them, and ultimately reject some as false without ever accepting the idea that the truth itself is out there prior to our formulating it.
— William Egginton, In Defense of Religious Moderation, p 25