I was admitting that I could be wrong about everyone who claims to be right and that others who disagree are wrong displaying arrogance, which is why I used "in my opinion". Of course I've had the thought that other people know and I don't, many, many times, in fact my childhood and young adulthood had that concept looming large in my mind. But that goes both ways. Does it ever occur to you that YOU could be wrong? My point in this whole matter is that we all live our own truths and I find it rude to try to make absolutist statements about what is and isn't what people should believe in. I don't believe in the Christian concept of god, I don't believe religion is the answer, I believe it is AN answer. But you should feel free to believe whatever you want, that's valid too, because no one knows. I just don't like seeing people taking a moral high ground stand as if their beliefs are superior to another's.
Christianity could be right, Islam could be right, Judaism could be right, tribal shamanism could be right, atheism could be right... but it would require that all the rest of them are wrong. Christianity is just one among many religions that has developed. They all have their prophets and their mythologies. It just seems more likely to me that no one is right, that we're all just trying to understand something far beyond our ability to grasp. So that's where I'm at. I have things that I believe (that we are all the universe experiencing itself subjectively), but my beliefs slowly shift over time as I have more life experiences, and I remain open to the very real possibility that I'm way off the mark, and I don't expect to ever know what's going on. How could I?
Anyway I apologize for calling you arrogant (not just you by the way), I was having a bad day at work. I do, however, find some (often well-intentioned) arrogance in making absolute statements about the nature of reality. There are as many ways of perceiving reality as there are people, there are many religions as there are cultures. Isn't making the statement "[I am/my religion] is absolutely correct" necessitating the implication that everyone else is wrong?
You don't need to apologize, I understood the context of what you were saying... But check this out, because this is something that really has been bugging me for years.. You say people have their own truths, and I agree, people define their own truths now more than ever.. But here is the issue.. When antithetical truths meet, there is disagreement, and if everyone simply defined their own truth, then the result could only be chaos. We live in a weird post truth age where personal beliefs define truth, rather than people conforming to the truth. As a philosopher, perhaps one of my greatest struggles is with this current generation and how truth is being redefined into something that changes or is somehow malleable and relative, but truth, in principle, cannot change, and our beliefs don't affect it, nor can they. What I see is a world full of axomatic beliefs, which can be compelling, but I want more, I want the truth. I want the truth that all truth is contingent on. That we are simply the universe experiencing itself is nothing more than a vague assertion, one that I myself at one point in time held to, but it doesn't answer any of the big questions, its just not capable as an ideology.
You asked me if it occurred to me if I could be wrong, presuming we are talking about the existence of God, and to be quite frank, the answer to that is no, absolutely not. Naturally you think I am closeminded, and I would say, that's the point. Ive arrived at a conclusion via deduction which yields a different result than induction, which I think there are major problems with.
Rather than letting my statement get you upset or inciting some feelings of disdain over my certainty, ask yourself, and truly invest time into this question. What truth can all truth rest on, what truth is all truth contingent on. This question nearly drove me insane, and I kinda stumbled on the answer inadvertainly, because when I gave my life to Christ, it wasn't to answer a philosophical question, rather, I acknowledged that I had some serious flaws about my character, and no matter how hard I tried, those flaws were affecting every aspect of my life. Christ did change me in that regard, but the 'aha moment' came later.
Perhaps one of my greatest struggles with being a Christian is having to deal with other Christians. Non believers simply lack an understanding of Christian theology, and that can be changed, but Christians by far have proven to be the most dogmatic and theologically inept of all the people I encounter. I later found out that this was the fate of the Church, as scripture teaches, but it doesn't change the fact that my greatest opponents of the Christian faith, are in fact Christians, which seems paradoxical, but its very true. An example of bad Christiantiy would be for example how Christians treat the lgbt community, or how Christians line up to accost a woman in a frail emotional state who is about to get an abortion, and rather than loving these people as we are commanded, Christians are judging them, against the will of Christ.
Nothing could be said against Christiantiy that infuriates me more than how Christians misrepresent the truth of our faith, leaving people like me to suffer from their ignorance, because non believers have quite honestly had enough of that nonsense, and myself, and others like me get lumped together with them, but I digress..
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
