P.O.V.

Let's talk about a scenario...

Let's take an atheist: someone who doesn't believe in a higher power, who believes that everything is completely random, someone who doesn't believe than anything that happens is a "sign" of something other than what we can see with our eyes and comprehend with our intellect. Let's say that person's best friend is suddenly killed in a horrible and cruel way, with absolutely no time for the person to cope with the idea of someone so close to him/her would no longer be in their lives. You could say that would be something that would interrupt the way the person was conducting their life; it would be reasonable to say that that person would have to think twice about the plans they may have been making and maybe their outlook on life in general; perhaps, maybe even the beliefs they had held on to up to that point.....Perhaps...

Now, let's take a Christian: someone who believes what they have read in the Bible as scripture; someone who believes that by following the path that God has chosen for them will lead them to Heaven; someone who believes that good things will happen to those who believe and bad things, like despair, will happen to those who choose not to believe. Let's say that person's best friend is suddenly killed in a horrible and cruel way; one that is absolutely out of left field. You could say that such an event might cause them to rethink things like what they deserve and what others deserve from God...and THAT line of thinking may lead them to rethink everything they may have believed up to that point...perhaps....

Would the exact same situation, presented to two different people, produce two different results? Could the atheist become a Christian? Could the Christian become an atheist? I'm speaking in general terms, of course, but fundermentally, isn't this the base of a lot of things that we seem to come to a wall against in society?

Isn't the belief; that if "you" would just have walked in "my" shoes; if "you" have lived the life "I" have lived; is what keeps us from reaching any type of common ground?

How wrong is it for people to justify their actions, not only to other people, but to themselves, that they are only doing and believing what anyone else would in their positions?