I once read with much admiration, an article in Straits Times by this Muslim-Malay politician who talked about toleration in a secular society.
I can't remember his exact words but it went something like - he would have to talk and work with and treat civily his fellow non-Muslim worker - though he knew this fellow was going to hell.
First of all I must say it took a lot of guts to write that. And even more guts to publish it.
And this absolutely slaps those relativists in the face, those who think people who hold on to absolute, exclusivist truth claims are bigots, close-minded, intolerant, arragont and all that.
I mean, that's what tolerance is in the first place right? Putting up with something in spite of not agreeing with it. If one can agree to all sorts of conflicting, mutually exclusive truth claims then he's not being tolerant - apart from a miserable lack of convictions in life - he's just spineless and holds on to nothing and expects other people to do the same.
Therefore see, how the person who disagrees with a particular truth-claim or moral belief and yet respects the other person's right to hold his view is the one who is REALLY tolerant.
I'm going to verbal smack the next atheist who goes around lamblasting us monotheistic bigots about how 'selfish' and 'unobjective' we are and how wonderfully enlightening their 'viewpoint from nowhere' and their 'value-unladen' objectivity is...
BRING IT ON!
Proclaiming Jesus in a confused, attention-span defict world.
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