Are you having an intellectual debate or a religious one?

Once you realize our propensity to have religious arguments disguised as intellectual ones, you start to see it everywhere around you. Take the recent Serena Williams controversy – whether you think she’s a bully or that tennis umpires are sexist and racist likely depends more on your own mental models (i.e. your “church”) than any objective facts about what really happened in that US Open Final.

I was in a similar debate recently myself. On a trip back to Harvard, I met with a friend who had left the (very successful) social enterprise he co-founded for a job in local government in Boston because he believes, very reasonably given his personal background, that government is the avenue from which changemakers must work. By contrast, my own social enterprise operates in 3 countries, all regional powerhouses, whose governments are bywords in corruption, obstruction, and incompetence.

“I’m increasingly seeing the value of libertarianism”, I told him.

“Please don’t say that”, he pleaded in horror.

Like generations before us, we debated, in a street-side Cambridge café, over pizza and beer. But we were having the wrong conversation. We belong to different faiths and so rather than argue over which faith was right, we should have discussed how both faiths can work together to make a better world. This is how Ganz and Ashoka should come together too.

Of course, these arguments happen as much, or more, in our personal lives as in the workplace.

The problem with religious arguments, as Ganz himself taught me in one of his courses, is that you can never “win” them through the use of evidence, facts or logic. The only way through is to mobilize a different set of values that the other side also believes in and find common ground that way. (At Amani Institute, we have created initial curriculum on this, but didn’t end up pursuing it further. We should.)

I’m striving to be more conscious of when I’m in a religious debate. Recently, a friend queried whether one of our programs in East Africa is consistent with our social mission. When I explained how the program does have social impact (an intellectual response) she reacted by wondering if we still believe in this form of capitalism (a religious response). Suddenly, I could hear the church bells ringing. And so I switched tack. I knew we shared a common belief: that it is vital for social enterprises to engage with the private sector and influence companies to behave more positively. I pointed out that our program has systems-thinking and values-based components to its curriculum. She accepted that, and we moved on.

It’s not easy to do, however. Only last week, the same friend and I just couldn’t agree on one aspect of the #MeToo movement. Only too late did I realize we were in a religious debate, not an intellectual one. It’s an easy trap to plunge into.

The next time you find yourself in a difference of opinion with someone and you can’t move them with data or logic, it may be that you’re in a religious disagreement. They are simply using a different set of values and logic than you. The only way through may be to explore how you can find common ground to work together.

Roshan Paul is the Co-Founder and CEO of Amani Institute, a new model of higher education that develops people who seek careers of meaning and impact. He has built a career around connecting global citizens to solve social problems across boundaries. As someone who spends his life questioning the status quo, Roshan is one of the founding participants of THNK, having participated in the very first class of the THNK Executive Leadership Program.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.