Notice that one can't tolerate someone unless he disagrees with him. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.

This essential element of tolerance–disagreement–has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.

This presents us with a very curious problem. Judging someone wrong makes one intolerant, yet one must first think another is wrong in order to be tolerant. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible. (Greg Koukl, Tolerance Requires Judgment, Stand to Reason)

Greg Koukl is one of my favorite authors. He has a way of talking about issues in a way that gets right to the heart of the matter.

I thought of this little article (reprinted in its entirety above) when I read these comments (on another blog that I will not link to due to the blog's disrespectful nature, although these comments themselves are a bit more amicable):

I firmly believe that a person of one religion should never attempt to dissuade a person of another religion from practicing thier faith. I don’t see a problem with encouraging someone to do research or open thier [sic] mind, but when it’s a “You’re wrong and I’m right” message, it sickens me. (Some guy)

For the record, I do encourage people to do research and approach faith with an open mind. However, I think that the above is an example of tolerance gone too far. Don't get me wrong, I am entirely for tolerance. No one should try to force their beliefs on anyone else. Of course, I would say that the person quoted above is violating his own principle, when he talks about what people "should" do. If I go along with his reasoning, he should not be trying to dissuade me from practicing my faith if my faith involves spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ.

But there's the rub! Why wouldn't a person be able to claim "I'm right, you're wrong" if that's what they believe and if they can present reasons to back themselves up? Sometimes people are wrong, even on matters regarding faith and religion. Why wouldn't someone be able to challenge others regarding their beliefs?

Noticed an article today on Skeptical Christian titled "Arguments Christians Should Not Use". It's a good article, so take a look. I'll comment briefly on each 'bad argument' raised in that article here:

Pascal's Wager: Certain forms of Pascal's argument may be worthwhile, but I've found that generally speaking they are not considered very persuasive.

{Bad person} was an Atheist, or {Good person} was a Christian: The obvious comeback is "{Bad person} was a Christian" or "{Good person} was an atheist".

Everyone Believes that God Exists: If taken literally, this seems to be refuted easily by considering that there are approximately 1 billion "nonreligious" people in the world, if you go with Adherents.com's numbers. The less literal version, that "most" people believe God exists, proves nothing about the truthfulness of the proposition, and as Skeptical Christian points out it is an argument ad populum.

You Can’t Know that God Doesn’t Exist Unless You’re Omniscient: This argument is actually true; however, most atheists realize this and argue only that there is sufficient evidence that God doesn't exist. Or the reverse, that while there is some positive evidence that God exists, the evidence is not significant enough for them. In this way, the argument as formulated above is attacking a straw man. I disagree with the atheist assessment of the evidence, of course.

You Just Have to Have Faith: Oh no. Not only is this not an argument, it smacks of "blind faith" which is a big turn off for most non-Christians. The problem is that Muslims, Mormons, Raelians and all other religious groups could say the same thing.

Atheists Have no Morals: Obviously this is untrue, most/many atheists behave morally. The distinction needs to be made, as I alluded to in my previous post "Hope vs Unyielding Despair", and as Skeptical Christian also notes, that there is no objective foundation for atheist morals.

Turn or BURN!: aka "You're going to hell!" This is an ineffective argument because it is so emotionally offensive to people that upon hearing it most people will just shut you right off. Also, Christians should be at least wary of judging others, as per for example Matthew 7:1!

Of course, there is no reason to use such 'bad arguments' when there are so many good arguments available for the Christian faith. (See any of the sites listed in the "Links" in the sidebar.)

Today I read most of a long dialogue between Matt Slick of CARM and someone identified only as "Amigo". Matt argues for a traditional Christian Trinity, whereas Amigo argues that Jesus is a "third thing", neither God nor man, who took on a "divinized humanity" at the resurrection. I don't recommend wading through the dialogue, there is a lot of arguing over things like the proper translation of Greek vocative and nominative cases. Instead, look closely at this part of their conversation I've selected:

Matt: So, do you pray to Jesus?
Amigo: Of course
Matt: Do you worship Jesus?
Amigo: He is my Lord and Savior
Amigo: Of course

Unfortunately that's pretty much all that's said about this particular issue. I think this point is quite significant. Here's why.

Jews for centuries were told under no uncertain terms not to worship any other "god". Worship of anything or anyone else other than God Himself would be worshiping an idol. Exodus 20:5 (in the Ten Commandments that all Jews would have known well and followed explicitly) says, referring to idols, "You shall not bow down to them or worship them". Jesus says it Himself when he quotes the Old Testament (Deut 6:13) in Matthew 4:10: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." When someone tries to worship Peter in Acts 10:25,26, look at how Peter reacts: "As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. "Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself.""

Yet Jesus on many occasions accepts worship (Matthew 2:11, Matthew 14:33, John 9:38, Hebrews 1:6, etc). Jesus never corrects anyone for worshiping Him. What can we say about this? I can only conclude that since Jesus stated only God is worthy of receiving worship, and then accepted worship Himself, that Jesus believed He is God and that's why He allowed people to worship Him. Worship of Jesus is one of several reasons we know Jesus is God incarnate. Matt rightly includes it on his list too.

There's also the point of how a non-God Jesus could save us (necessary to be our "Savior") but the topic I wanted to address in this post is worship of Jesus in the New Testament and what it means. The point of this discussion of how Jesus was worshipped, as it relates to the dialogue with Amigo, is that if Jesus is not God, then Amigo should not be worshipping Him, since God should be our only object of worship.

For more discussion on the issue of whether Jesus claimed to be God, see J. P. Holding's article titled The Divine Claims of Jesus: The Assertion of Godhood, which includes answers to popular objections to whether Jesus really claimed to be God or not.

Saw this today on Engadget and just had to post it here:

Jews for Jesus tract featuring Steve Jobs

(click to enlarge & read the whole thing)

Pure awesome. Though a bit skimpy on the actual gospel message, this is definitely an innovative and witty way to reach people who are, I assume, often forgotten by evangelistic efforts.

(Update: The official page for this tract is here on the Jews for Jesus website.)