Here’s something you might want to do:
Take your friend to a baseball game (or whatever you like to do together) have a beer together and ask him, “Dave” (assuming his name is Dave I don’t know why I’ve always liked that name) “what do you think is the reason for our existence?”
Something to help you get started:
The reason for our existence is not to figure out “how to get to heaven” and/or “how to avoid hell”. It’s just not. We aren’t to wake up every day looking to formulate a checklist of sorts of “things to do to please God” as if that alone solves the problem of our existence. Because our feeble theologies and ideas are worthless to God, not to mention our own ideas never really satisfy us anyway (if we’re really honest with ourselves) He doesn’t want everyone to be a theologian. Or even a checklist.
So given that, you might, if you engage in such a conversation, truly help your friend (and yourself). It’s something we all need to do really. Every day in fact. We all have to ask this question and seek an answer in a serious way, never settling for mere nice ideas but always crying out for the answer to the question, on a daily basis.
Otherwise we aren’t any more than a bipedal animal.
Otherwise we aren’t really human.
Thank you!
I’ll give it a try. I owe him, a lot, and it’s a great way to start the ball, maybe not rolling, but rocking a little bit.