I don't have to have faith, I have experience.

Host: The morning was still young, but the air already carried the weight of memory. A thin mist hung over the cliffs, curling like ghosts above the sea. The sun had not yet broken the horizon, only hinted at its arrival through a silver haze. Jack stood near the edge, a mug of coffee in his hand, eyes fixed on the tide below — its rhythm steady, ancient, unbothered.

Jeeny approached from behind, her boots crunching on the gravel, her breath visible in the cold. She watched him for a moment, the light of dawn just catching in her eyes — tired, yet alive with something that defied reason.

Host: It was a place that invited truth — the kind that rises from the depths, unfiltered, unyielding. And so, their conversation began — not as an argument, but as a collision of worlds.

Jeeny: “You’ve been reading Campbell again.”

Jack: “I have.” (He sips, gaze unbroken from the sea.) “He said, ‘I don’t have to have faith, I have experience.’ I think that’s the truest thing I’ve ever read.”

Jeeny: “Truest?” (She smiles faintly.) “That sounds like something you’d say, Jack — experience over belief, proof over hope.”

Jack: “Because it’s the only thing that holds up. Faith asks you to believe in what you can’t see. But experience — that’s the evidence carved into your own skin. You don’t need hope when you’ve already been through the fire.”

Host: The wind rose, lifting strands of her hair across her face. She tucked them back slowly, her eyes never leaving his.

Jeeny: “But what if experience lies, Jack? What if it’s too small, too personal to hold the truth? I’ve seen people hurt, then build their faith from the ashes of that hurt — because experience alone wasn’t enough to explain why they had to suffer.”

Jack: “That’s just comfort, Jeeny. People invent faith to soothe what they can’t understand. You call it belief; I call it a bandage.”

Jeeny: “And yet, even a bandage heals, doesn’t it?”

Host: The first rays of sunlight pushed through the mist, painting the waves in amber and gold. Jack’s jaw tightened, the light cutting across his face like a dividing line — reason on one side, faith on the other.

Jack: “I’ve seen what faith does. People pray for miracles instead of moving their feet. They wait, wishing the world would change, when all along, the world only listens to those who act.”

Jeeny: “Then how do you explain what keeps them alive, Jack? The refugee who loses everything but still smiles, still believes that tomorrow might be better? Is that foolishness, or is that strength?”

Jack: “It’s delusion. A story we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face the truth — that life doesn’t owe us meaning.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But we can create it. And that act of creation — that’s faith, Jack. It’s not about waiting for miracles, it’s about believing there’s something worth building, even when the blueprint doesn’t exist.”

Host: Her voice was steady, but her eyes glimmered with a soft, dangerous fire — the kind that burns without destroying.

Jack: “I don’t need to believe in something to act. When I climbed out of my father’s house, when I built my first company from nothing, it wasn’t faith that kept me going. It was memory — the taste of failure, the proof of what hurts. That’s what teaches you.”

Jeeny: “And yet, why did you try again, Jack? Why did you keep building after the first failure? Because of experience? Or because you believed the next time could be different?”

Jack: (pauses) “Because I knew I could make it work.”

Jeeny: “No, you didn’t know. You believed. That’s the thing you can’t admit — that faith is just another form of knowledge, one that comes before the proof.”

Host: The sun had risen now, a pale disc breaking through the fog. The sea glittered like a field of shattered glass, each wave a mirror of the argument unfolding above it.

Jack: “Belief without proof is dangerous. Look at history — wars fought in the name of faith, millions dead, all because people believed more than they knew.”

Jeeny: “And yet, science itself began as faith — faith that there was order behind chaos, that reason could uncover it. Don’t tell me you don’t believe, Jack. You just worship at a different altar.”

Jack: (with a faint smile) “An altar of evidence, maybe.”

Jeeny: “And yet, even evidence demands a leap. Every experiment begins with a question, not an answer. You have to believe there’s something worth testing, something that can be found. That’s faith, whether you call it that or not.”

Host: A bird cut through the sky, its cry lost in the crash of the tide. The light had grown brighter, but so had the tension — two worldviews now clashing like waves against stone.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve just seen too much to believe in the invisible. I need to touch, to see, to know. I’ve watched people pray for healing that never came. I’ve watched men die waiting for meaning that never arrived.”

Jeeny: “And I’ve seen people survive when they shouldn’t have — because they believed they could. That’s not illusion, Jack. That’s human. Faith doesn’t promise you a result, it gives you the strength to move before there is one.”

Jack: (his voice softening) “You make it sound beautiful.”

Jeeny: “It is. Because experience can tell you what is, but faith — it reminds you what could be.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, echoing against the roar of the sea, as if the world itself were listening. Jack turned his face to the wind, his expression a mixture of stubbornness and something like surrender.

Jack: “You know what I think? Maybe faith is for those who haven’t experienced enough.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe experience is for those who have forgotten how to believe.”

Host: The words landed like stones — not cruel, but true. A long silence followed, the kind that doesn’t demand an answer, only understanding.

Jack: (quietly) “When I was sixteen, I almost drowned. The boat flipped, and I was under for what felt like a lifetime. I stopped struggling, thought that was it. But then — something in me just refused. I kicked, I fought, I rose. You’d call that faith, wouldn’t you?”

Jeeny: “No. I’d call that grace — and grace is what faith looks like when it finally meets experience.”

Host: For a moment, the two of them stood in stillness, the sea moving below like an eternal heartbeat. Jack’s eyes softened, the gray in them warming to something almost golden under the sunlight.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve been wrong about what I thought faith was. It’s not about blindness, is it?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s about vision — the kind that sees past what is, into what might be.”

Jack: “And maybe experience isn’t just evidence, but the echo of what faith once believed possible.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Now you’re starting to sound like Joseph Campbell.”

Host: They laughed, a soft, shared sound that blended with the wind. The sun had now broken free from the horizon, washing the world in gold. The mist melted, and with it, the distance between them.

Host: The sea roared, the light rose, and two voices — one of reason, one of faith — finally found their harmony.

Host: In that moment, they both understood — that experience is the body of truth, and faith is its soul.