Interesting and Mature Conversation

Though I have not recently had a super heated debate about religion, I have a very close friend who recently went through an interesting conversation about faith. He is a strong follower of Christ, and one day several of his roommates approached him with a question regarding religion. They’re question was, “How can you have such strong faith? I mean with a God that’s not physically here, how do you know?”. How do you know what’s out there? And, if you do, how on earth can you place all your trust in it? These are questions that continue to haunt many people today, and they are hard to answer.

So, as you can imagine this caught my friend a little off guard, but rather than most who would tend to lead the conversation into a heated debate, he kept a very steady and informative tone. It helped I think that the friends approached him in not a confrontational, but a curious manner, so there was no need for either side to it to turn the discussion into something hostile. Attempting to answer the questions thrown at him, my friend began to talk a little bit about how he was brought up and when he accepted the faith personally and what not. His main point however, was that he places his faith in what he believes to be a great, powerful, and almighty God. The roommates’ responses of course were along the lines of, “Oh, well I’m not good enough,” or, “Well, you have to rely on yourself to get things you want done.” My friend then tried to explain that he believes that you don’t have to go through anything alone, and that God is there to help everyone, not just “good” people.

Each side laid out more ideas, and the conversation continued for awhile. What is remarkable, however, is that the talk kept a civil tone the entire time. Each side respected the other, and neither let their emotions get out of control. I think this is key when having discussions about religion. Each side must maintain a mature tone if the conversation is to remain productive. Otherwise, the discussion may turn into a heated argument that neither side wants to get into.