(July 17, 2012 at 1:02 am)Faith No More Wrote: Calling you out on your inability to understand that your beliefs are simply beliefs is not ad-hominem. You have no monopoly on truth, yet you claim to be advocating the only cure. Therein lies the arrogance. A simple qualifier such as "I believe" before statements such as the one I quoted would alleviate this problem.
I'm sorry if I came off harsh, but dispensing advice to reexamine religious beliefs that have been cast aside is a pet peeve of mine. People should have the right to choose their own beleifs, and any claims on the truth directed towards another come across as an attempt to influence that choice.
People definitely have the right to choose their religious beliefs. However, if you are saying that simply the statement: there is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ, is arrogant, then it seems to me that so is the statement: "there is only one medicine that can cure such and such disease."
If the latter statement (there is only one medicine…) is true, it is definitely not arrogant. And, so it seems to me, it is with the former statement. ("there is only one way to God…")
So its potentiality of being arrogant is dependent on its truth value. Therefore, it seems to me that you would have to claim that there is not only one way to God in order to show that such a statement is arrogant. However, that presupposes that Christianity is false and so is sort of like arguing in a circle.
"the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate" (1 Cor. 1:19)