How does one reason with the unreasonable?

When my oldest son was about 3 I started trying to reason with him about his behavior. You know, trying to help him see the logical reasons why he should obey his parents and why he should not do things like hang on the garage door while it is opening, or run across the street without looking, or diving in the shallow end, etc. I soon realized that logic was completely lost on him. Apparently three year olds just can't grasp even the simplest syllogism.

Well, I'm still working on him. I figure he will eventually start to grasp reasonable arguments. Meanwhile though, for his own good, Kris and I have to try to manage his behavior with positive and negative consequences.

It works okay on kids but what about unreasonable big people. Like, how can we convince someone who thinks they will go to heaven by flying a plane into a building full of people that this makes no sense? How can we convince someone whose mental framework has no concept of sin that they need salvation from sin? How can we convince someone who thinks that planet earth is an organism that the people who live here are actually more important than the planet?

Friends, if you are interested in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the people in your world, this is what you are up against in the 21st century.

The unreasonableness (is that a word?) prevalent in society has also lead to a lot of sad ironies in this country. More on that tomorrow...maybe