This concept is definitely not mine, but from modern Christian thinking. However, I expanded this thought.

The original concept: The angelic ladder describes the model that every human being is on a stage in his development. The scale starts at minus 5 or so and goes up to 5. At zero are the people who have accepted the Christian God as their Savior and trust Him. The model wants to encourage not only people to convert to Christianity. But also to improve from a -5 to a -4. So from God-hostility to God-rejecting.

I hope I don’t lose all those who are not Christians. Because the concept is unconsciously applied in other places. So is environmentalism. With this one, however, perhaps the 0 is more: I am willing to personally make restrictions for the good of the planet. And again, progress has already been made when someone goes from “Environmentalism is just political propaganda to raise taxes” to “Environmentalism would be important, but we can’t do it.”

Therefore, this concept is much more generic than it seems at first glance. My suggestion is not to champion your own position in discussions or debates, but to explore the boundaries of others. Wonderful things emerge at the boundaries of knowledge. In this way, one can help the other person to further develop one’s own view. You also learn more yourself because you already know your view too well, but when you discover the thoughts of the others, worlds open up to you. Optimally, your counterpart does the same with you, and you get further with your view. You both help the other to the next rung of the angelic ladder. So make your discussions not about the core points of your differences, but about the boundaries of what you know.

In addition, this view also helps to avoid unnecessary fights. When I ask about the views of the other. An unreflective cliché answer comes, so I am free to decide to leave it at that and switch to small talk or dig deeper.