Always make it a goal to keep your conversations cordial. Sometimes that will not be possible. If a principled, charitable expression of your ideas makes someone mad, thereโs little you can do about it. Jesusโ teaching made some people furious. Just make sure itโs your ideas that offend and not you, that your beliefs cause the dispute and not your behavior.
Greg KouklTrouble, hardship, difficulty, pain, suffering, conflict, tragedy, evil - they're all part of the [Christian] Story. Indeed, the problem of evil is the reason there's any Story at all.
Greg KouklIf the Story is not accurate to reality, it's not any kind of truth at all. So it can never be 'my truth' or 'your truth,' even though we may believe it. It can only be our delusion or our mistake or our error, but it can never be our 'truth.'
Greg KouklEvery worldview has its ambiguities - debatable elements that people simply will not see to eye on. There's nothing wrong with that as long as the disagreement is principled and dignified. I actually think that arguments - as opposed to quarrels - are good things because they're the best way to figure out what's true. Share your reasons, listen carefully to each other, be nice, and may the best idea win.
Greg KouklA worldview is simply someone's relatively organized understanding of what the world is actually like.
Greg KouklAccording to "matter-ism," matter is all that exists. The only things that are real are physical things in motion governed by natural law. That story starts, "In the beginning were the particles," or, as one famous person put it, "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be." No God. No souls. No Heaven or Hell. No miracles. No transcendent morality. Just molecules in motion following the patterns of natural law. This is the story that most atheists, most "skeptics," most humanists, and most Marxists believe is true.
Greg KouklThere is no neutral ground when it comes to the tolerance question. Everybody has a point of view she thinks is right, and everybody passes judgment at some point or another. The Christian gets pigeonholed as the judgmental one, but everyone else is judging, too, even people who consider themselves relativists.
Greg Koukl