I think that a distinction can be made between confidence and arrogance. And I want to reiterate that my accusations of arrogance are not directed at you or anyone else specifically. Everything below is meant as general commentary.
You can be confident in your religion while also accepting your own fallibility and the limitations of human understanding and intelligence. You can be confident in your faith while also being willing to listen to and consider other points of view without immediate defensiveness or condemnation. You can be confident in your beliefs without needing to prove its superiority over someone else's beliefs.
What I call arrogance is the assertion that 'your' beliefs, interpretations about God, and understanding of God is infallible and that those that disagree must be misguided. What I call arrogance is the judgement of other views or beliefs as evil or wicked or sinister. Arrogance is the practice of dismissing anyone else's personal spiritual experience while asserting that your personal spiritual experience must be correct. Arrogance is 'your religion and your beliefs are wrong, because mine are right because I can't be wrong'. Arrogance assumes authority over objective truth without evidence or humility.
I am very confident in my non-belief. I don't assert that my views are absolute or infallible. In fact, I assume (because I'm not God), that a great many things that I believe are, in fact, wrong. I don't assume my secular values are more objectively 'true' or superior to yours. And I do not view your sincere and honest investigation into reality and your differing conclusions are the result of evilness or wickedness. I feel very confident that Christianity is not true - but that doesn't mean I need to put it down, assert philosophical dominance, or convince you of your misguidance and demonic influences.
Confidence in your beliefs is fine; claiming those beliefs represent objective truth for everyone else, however, can sometimes cross into presumption.
And for the record, I'm certainly open to the argument that some of the things I say can be interpreted as arrogant. I'm open to being corrected when I make that mistake.
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You've stated your convictions as stemming from a relationship with a Creator rather than an ideology. I don't know if that is a distinction without a difference in this discussion. Every religion (or relationship with the Creator), yours included, involves a human interpretation of what that Creator wants. Those interpretations differ wildly between faiths, and every believer thinks theirs is the correct one. That's exactly the "absolute certainty" being criticized: the inability to admit that maybe your understanding could be mistaken. Confidence and humility of our own fallibility because of our limitations need not be opposites.
I accept that, for most believers, the desire to bring me to 'their side of the coin' comes from a sincere and very well intentioned place. I take no offense or have no ill will toward anyone who has attempted to bring me back to Christianity. Using King's analogy of my house on fire - If you truly think my house is fire and then I truly appreciate your concern. If you are to insist my house is on fire and fail to respect my investigation and conclusions stating my house is NOT on fire, then I think you've stopped respecting me. This is the point, in my opinion, where proselytizing goes wrong and crosses respect to disrespect - from compassion to condescension - from 'I want to share this idea' to 'you better believe me'.
Even at its best implementation, proselytizing maybe requires a hint of arrogance. I mean, what if you are convincing me, an atheist, to join a religion in a reality where the actual God despises and punishes people for the following the false idols of Christianity? You could be leading me to my doom. The fact that I don't think most Christians even consider that a possibility is what I think is arrogant.
You can be confident in your religion while also accepting your own fallibility and the limitations of human understanding and intelligence. You can be confident in your faith while also being willing to listen to and consider other points of view without immediate defensiveness or condemnation. You can be confident in your beliefs without needing to prove its superiority over someone else's beliefs.
What I call arrogance is the assertion that 'your' beliefs, interpretations about God, and understanding of God is infallible and that those that disagree must be misguided. What I call arrogance is the judgement of other views or beliefs as evil or wicked or sinister. Arrogance is the practice of dismissing anyone else's personal spiritual experience while asserting that your personal spiritual experience must be correct. Arrogance is 'your religion and your beliefs are wrong, because mine are right because I can't be wrong'. Arrogance assumes authority over objective truth without evidence or humility.
I am very confident in my non-belief. I don't assert that my views are absolute or infallible. In fact, I assume (because I'm not God), that a great many things that I believe are, in fact, wrong. I don't assume my secular values are more objectively 'true' or superior to yours. And I do not view your sincere and honest investigation into reality and your differing conclusions are the result of evilness or wickedness. I feel very confident that Christianity is not true - but that doesn't mean I need to put it down, assert philosophical dominance, or convince you of your misguidance and demonic influences.
Confidence in your beliefs is fine; claiming those beliefs represent objective truth for everyone else, however, can sometimes cross into presumption.
And for the record, I'm certainly open to the argument that some of the things I say can be interpreted as arrogant. I'm open to being corrected when I make that mistake.
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You've stated your convictions as stemming from a relationship with a Creator rather than an ideology. I don't know if that is a distinction without a difference in this discussion. Every religion (or relationship with the Creator), yours included, involves a human interpretation of what that Creator wants. Those interpretations differ wildly between faiths, and every believer thinks theirs is the correct one. That's exactly the "absolute certainty" being criticized: the inability to admit that maybe your understanding could be mistaken. Confidence and humility of our own fallibility because of our limitations need not be opposites.
I accept that, for most believers, the desire to bring me to 'their side of the coin' comes from a sincere and very well intentioned place. I take no offense or have no ill will toward anyone who has attempted to bring me back to Christianity. Using King's analogy of my house on fire - If you truly think my house is fire and then I truly appreciate your concern. If you are to insist my house is on fire and fail to respect my investigation and conclusions stating my house is NOT on fire, then I think you've stopped respecting me. This is the point, in my opinion, where proselytizing goes wrong and crosses respect to disrespect - from compassion to condescension - from 'I want to share this idea' to 'you better believe me'.
Even at its best implementation, proselytizing maybe requires a hint of arrogance. I mean, what if you are convincing me, an atheist, to join a religion in a reality where the actual God despises and punishes people for the following the false idols of Christianity? You could be leading me to my doom. The fact that I don't think most Christians even consider that a possibility is what I think is arrogant.