[R]eligious belief constitutes a pervasive interpretive framework for a believer. Religious belief is far more than a matter of assenting to propositions, though it includes that. A religious adherent understands and interprets her world with the categories provided by her religious belief. Through it she understands God, history, the nature of the self, human suffering, human cognition, values, the future, the afterlife, metaphysics, art, and, finally, other religions. As such she can be rationally justified in interpreting the religious claims of others in her own terms, as long as she rationally possesses the requisite confidence in her beliefs.
(Jerome Gellman, "In Defence of a Contented Religious Exclusivism," Religious Studies 36 [December 2000]: 401-17, at 404 [italics in original])
