Religion - Can You Be Converted? (Not A Troll)
The topic is blunt, and intended to be so because this is often an issue that people face throughout their lives. Today, I participated in a large open discussion, roughly 150 people or so, and the 5 speakers were representing christianity. They were on a panel, but it was a completely open forum, where people could ask any question they wanted, and disagree etc. It was profoundly interesting to watch people of all denominations speak up their disagreements, agreements, and beliefs, and I believe that of all the people there, the overall goal was to walk away with an understanding.
Of course there are always some who are so consumed by their perception filters that they will not be willing to learn anything, but that is of course their fault.
My question to all of the forum members is this. Say for example, you have a set of beliefs, and you present these beliefs to say, the entire group of people, and they are not in disagreement with their beliefs, but they are not completely the same.
Lets take Taoism or Zen for example. Talking about experience of life, being oneself, doing, awareness, oneness, etc. Now, you can take these ideas and apply them to everything, and you can allow people to see a relation of what they are saying to your perspective/attitude.
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So, lets say you do this, you express your view/perspective/opinions/truth as you see it, and suddenly they agree with you, but have a motive to attempt at converting you to christianity or whatever religion it is that they are.
What approach do you take to combat that, without hurting anyones feelings, and still staying in good terms with them. A lot of people are so involved and passionate about what they believe, and fail to respect that what others believe is ok to believe, that they are consumed with the urge to try and show you how what they are seeing is the "absolute" truth of things. This is the reason I ask this question, and I would be interested to seeing what everyone's answers here are. I don't think answers to this question will be right/wrong but I am looking for different thoughts.
I had some thoughts myself on this topic. So you share your thoughts, and you really enjoyed speaking with these people, but now suddenly they want to keep talking to you, but keep pressing that you ask yourself, "What does Jesus want me to do?" and "How can I change my life by Accepting jesus christ?"
So, you might say this. You might first ask if they truly respect your beliefs and views, even if they do not agree with them. If they answer yes, then you may further say that you feel that they are being overbearing in what seems to you to be an attempt at making you believe the same thing that they believe. You can ask them to please stop that, and instead just engage in discussion and understanding.
My idea here is so that you are not pushed into doing things you do not want to do, like suddenly you wind up attending missionary meetings and bible studies without actually wanting to partake in that.
Although, one should certainly be willing to learn about those areas, and can absolutely make a decision for him/herself in regards to what they choose to take out of that.
After all the talking is said and done, I must say that how you actualize and bring what you believe into the world is more important than the beliefs themselves. The way you express yourself is far more important than just thinking about expressing yourself. Just like a person can read any spiritual document, or scripture, but that doesn't necessarily mean because they know the way, that they will act upon it.
Just some thoughts I would like to share, as it is a question I have been interested in others perspectives. In fact, I would be most grateful if some Christians would even give comments as to a way they would feel comfortable being approached and responded to if someone felt they were being pushed.
Regards -
- Nexus