Over the Christmas period (2009) on social media like Twitter, some self-proclaimed 'atheists' were mocking the idea of Jesus' virgin birth, the date on which it's celebrated, and casting doubt that Jesus lived at all. The birthday of Jesus is lovingly celebrated with much fanfare at the Ramakrishna Math and Mission Headquarters, Belur, near Kolkata in India - as it is in Ramakrishna movement centres around the world.
Swami Shivapadananda used to say to those of us who were fortunate enough to be in his circle of teaching: 'You have no right to disturb the faith of another person.' It's one thing to share information about one's particular path and discuss or even debate issues. But such discussion should always be from the perspective of respect for where the other person is and the path they follow. It's not our business to 'convert' people from anything, to anything.
Let us always remember the core teaching of Sri Ramakrishna: 'Religions are like rivers. They all flow into that one ocean called God.' God's grace and the universal divine intelligence are in charge of what path they walk and how they reach the destination. As Swami Vivekananda famously said: 'We don't move from untruth to truth - but from truth to higher truth.' The truth never changes of course, but our perspective and understanding of it changes as we grow in spirituality.
Let us always embrace the teaching of universality of religions as taught by Sri Ramakrishna. All religions are worthy. The sincere seeker can find the goal by following any one of them. This was proved by Sri Ramakrishna himself. May we be loving, uplifting and inspiring messengers of that good news.