Tact and Diplomacy when speaking about religious beliefs

Question

Disclaimer: I hope I am not offending anyone's religious beliefs

We all face tough times and abnormal situations.

Now, I asked God to come into our lives and fix our problems.

Really, I don't know what else to do.

My family comprise of Hindus and Sikhs, if that's relevant. Lately I have been going more towards Sikhism because they believe in one God, men and women are equal and capable (among other things)

A lady I know was very concerned about our chronic situation and she knows I am more on spiritual side.

She asked me about whether I believe in Jesus Christ and I replied that I believe he existed.

Then she recommended I check out a pastor (videos on YouTube) who tells how he was a staunch Hindu and converted to Christianity.

I understand people are touched by Christianity, and they have experienced miracles in their life.

And different people gravitate to different religions, beliefs, or non-beliefs per their comfort deep within their soul.

Similarly in my family, people were touched by Sikhism. 100 years ago when my great-grand mother's children kept dying at birth, she finally converted her newborn to Sikhism, and he lived (i.e., my Grandfather).

And now, I am always calmed and more focused when I listen to daily Sikh prayers (they live-stream from Golden Temple, and copy is kept on YouTUBE).

I don't believe in preachers. They are only human. And it is my honest belief that if they were truly divinely touched by God, or a Higher power, they won't be going out trying to make money by being preachers, having website, selling stuff, etc.

Instead they would do like Jesus Christ who went around, selflessly helping people.

My question is, if the lady brings up the topic again, how do I tactfully let her know, "Yes, this was very helpful", so that she thinks she did wonderful job in helping me, while not bringing up topic again.

Answer 1

I run into this sort of thing fairly often as an atheist and sometimes hopeful-agnostic.

People find a lot of comfort in their faith, arguably one of the better reasons to have faith, and when you talk to people of faith about your troubles they're likely to tell you what works for them. Nothing wrong with that, if someone told me about their car trouble, and I had just taken my car to a good mechanic, I'd be likely to recommend that mechanic too. (Obviously a simplification, but you get the idea)

I tend to find the simple act of talking about my troubles cathartic. Just being able to put it into words helps a great deal. For those familiar with rubber duck debugging, it's a bit like that.

Much like your situation, sometimes someone will recommend a resource. A bit of scripture, an old prayer, a meditation, a poem, or what have you. Often I find them comforting, sometimes they really do have little kernels of applicable wisdom that help me deal with the troubles at hand.

When this happens, I usually just say "Thank you" and leave it at that.

It seems that a lot of folks these days recognize that pushing the hard sell of their faith doesn't tend to work all that well. As in, they try not to push too hard because they know that may backfire.

If someone does begin to push, sometimes a simple.reminder is needed:

Thanks for the kind words and [insert thing they recommended here], but I'm happy with my faith [or lack there of]

If you're feeling up to it, sometimes exchanging ideas and talking openly with someone from a different faith tradition can both demonstrate that you have your own faith that's meaningful to you, and open the door to some interesting conversations about what your faith and this other faith might have in common. Two birds with one stone, really good stuff.

Thanks for the kind words and [insert thing they recommended here]. My faith has a similar teaching, would you like to talk about it?

This doesn't always work out, but when it does, it often leads to some really deep and interesting conversation. If they're not interested in having that discussion, you still thanked them and mentioned that you have a faith that's meaningful for you.