Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Here's a question for you.......

My closest friend here had me over for lasagna last night. As she was preparing it we were talking and somehow the subject of churches came up. She's not a Christian by the way....her parents were hippies to the T and so she was raised with little structure as far as religion/God. So she said that she can't believe that if you really and truly with your whole heart believe in something and it turns out you were wrong that you go to hell. She thinks because you made an effort to believe, that you deserve credit for that. I didn't know how to respond, I think partly because my brain was fried from work all day and partly because with her religion is just not something she wants to talk about. So it totally took me by surprise. My question is what would you have said??

1 comment:

mira said...

"do you really want to know my opinion?" (she shouldn't get offended if she was the one who asked, right? At this point I'd be praying furiously!) " My brain is kind of fried right now, so I'm not sure I can explain myself very well... Suffice to say, people believe wholeheartedly in incorrect things all the time (world is flat, sun revolves around us, people won't ever hurt them, etc), and they were/are still wrong, and have to live with the consequences once they find out the truth. I make an effort to always obey the law, but I still get a ticket if I cause an accident, no matter how hard I was trying not to. God isn't out to "get" us for not being perfect little humans, but he does need us to choose to believe Him and His word, otherwise we've chosen hell." But luckily, it's all written down in black and white, so you can read it and decide for yourself instead of just listening to me.

And then i'd try to either move on to talking about something else, or continue the conversation and maybe offer to loan her an easy-to-read Bible, based on her reaction. you don't want to totally lose her as a friend, but you do want her to keep thinking about it and hopefully asking questions, you know?