Lay Waste!?

okay, question of the day: how much do you jeopardize a friendship over a disagreement? Like one of those disagreements that you actually care about and one which you feel that the other side is being completely irrational on? How much risk do you take on before backing out, being wary of the fact that your friendship might be permanently damaged the next day?

I feel like that's a question that I have not found the answer to, even remotely at all. It's not like I want to lay waste to any friendships I have, but also at the same time I don't know where the boundary lies for the "permanent damage zone." Because after all, if your preferences state that you value what you believe in, and you value the friendship, but you value your friendship more than what you believe in, you should stand your ground until just before the point of reaching the "permanent damage zone," right?

Or should you never even remotely get close to that line? I mean after all chances are if both positions are so firmly engrained in something there's a very slim chance something will change. Should you just leave it be without a fight?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. And hell everyone else probably does, but you know what, I'm just a pretty big fuck-up in the end.

EDIT: At the request of my friend I'm going to put some sort of study on friendship/make this post intellectually intelligent somehow. So with that I would like to grace you with this link which I don't think I've read, w00t:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21well.html