Religious Authority and Logical Fallacy

I had a Social Studies teacher whose family was active in the mission field. One day she spent a few minutes talking about the part of the world where her missionary relatives were stationed. "They're lovely people," she said. "But we know that we're right and they're wrong." The sheer audacity of the statement shocked me. Her perspective was completely arbitrary. She assumed that her religion was the one true religion solely because it was the one that she had been born into. I found it reprehensible that a teacher could subscribe to such a fallacy and not recognize the folly of it. From that day forward, I vowed to respect all peaceful religious and cultural traditions. I am proud to be a believing and practicing Christian, but that doesn't give me license to dismiss someone else's religion as false. If we feel compelled to dismiss someone else's belief system, it betrays a lack of confidence in our own. I am comfortable being a Christan. I don't have to run around telling other people that I'm right and they're wrong.

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