How open minded are we?

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Originally Posted by isidro

I run across people, usually professors or professor wannabes that proclaim that they are absolutely open minded about life and therefore have no need to consider religion.

However, if we ignore a certain manner of thinking or persuasion based upon a negative reputation it has acquired for being narrow minded and oppressive, are we really open minded? Or are we being narrow minded in refusing to consider it?

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We seem to be talking about two different things here. People can be open-minded whether they're religious or not. However, religion itself doesn't promote open-mindedness. Faith, by definition, is believing something without regard to evidence. Such a belief can't be tested or refuted, and it isn't meant to be.

I think we all believe things we can't necessarily prove. But only religious believers consider credulity a virtue. And believing things even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is no virtue.

The OP:

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Originally Posted by isidro

I run across people, usually professors or professor wannabes that proclaim that they are absolutely open minded about life and therefore have no need to consider religion.

However, if we ignore a certain manner of thinking or persuasion based upon a negative reputation it has acquired for being narrow minded and oppressive, are we really open minded? Or are we being narrow minded in refusing to consider it?

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

There's a lot of things one can't be or do without upsetting all those open-minded people :p

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:smilielol5: Well done, Annamariah!

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Open minded is in the eye of the beholder. There are things to be open minded about and things not to be open minded.

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Yes, I think you hit it right on the button there.

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I consider myself very open minded...

As long as my belief system is not challenged.

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:smilielol5: Well done, Sher!

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Originally Posted by feignfeign

i try to be respectful to all beliefs and life styles... but as i get older, i find it harder and harder to be respectful to Christians.

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That is interesting... I find it easier, probably because I no longer feel that I need to win every discussion or argument (Oh, yes, I think I may have been a handful in my younger days :blush:).

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Originally Posted by feignfeign

i am destined for hell after all.

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You too, eh? I had this information handed to me by a bloke handing out leaflets downtown the other day. It would seem that he took exception to the fact that I questioned the logic of some of his reasoning :ihih: ).

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Originally Posted by feignfeign

i am trying to stay steady and veer away from becoming some kind of christian hater... but ITS HARDDDD

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Hate is overrated: It consumes too much energy... :chillpill:

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

But I can respect other people's views too, and like a good conversation about things we might not agree on. So what does that make me? :p

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Open minded, I guess...

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Originally Posted by Gladys

Can one really understand the views of others without believing in them?

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I would like to think so. At the very least I would interpret an honest attempt to do so as openmindedness.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

To me, having an open mind is weighing up the evidence without any pre-conceived ideas, which is what I try to do with everything.
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I think one can be open-minded about those subjects, but quickly come to the conclusion that they're wrong. It doesn't make you closed-minded, just sensible.

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I think that is a very sensible outlook.

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

I agree. Common sense should always be used.

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Yes... The problem is that common sense is not all that common.

Great discussion, everyone :thumbsup:

/Claes

A mind as open as the sky is indeed worthy of having, but not so wide that the ground is no longer a boundary. The doors of perception need to be able to close and occasionally lock, this is why I could never fall into any sort of religion, it is actually more closed-minded, IMO, to limit all the possibilities in the universe to one answer: God. Not that I have totally shut out any possibility that a god could be true, but it is really a hypothesis no longer worth investigating as it does not really explain anything. The 'higher power' worth keeping an open mind for would be truth, which no god can top.

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Originally Posted by Serena03

it is actually more closed-minded, IMO, to limit all the possibilities in the universe to one answer: God ... The 'higher power' worth keeping an open mind for would be truth, which no god can top.

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An interesting counter to such a dismissal of God is offered in Ibsen's first successful play Brand of 1865. Here the priest Brand, living in a humble manse under the overhang of a remote glacier subject to avalanches, willingly sacrifices his life to an omnipotent and unchangeable God, a God of love.

His God is fully defined by an unqualified, infinite and absolute love for the individual, a love without weakness or wavering. Brand is unreservedly a disciple and, for him, uncompromising love is the only possible truth. Human truths fade into insignificance alongside his timeless and limitless perspective. He is a man of action while other look on.

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Originally Posted by Gladys

An interesting counter to such a dismissal of God is offered in Ibsen's first successful play Brand of 1865. Here the priest Brand, living in a humble manse under the overhang of a remote glacier subject to avalanches, willingly sacrifices his life to an omnipotent and unchangeable God, a God of love.

His God is fully defined by an unqualified, infinite and absolute love for the individual, a love without weakness or wavering. Brand is unreservedly a disciple and, for him, uncompromising love is the only possible truth. Human truths fade into insignificance alongside his timeless and limitless perspective. He is a man of action while other look on.

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Thank you, but the forces of love itself is a 'human truth' hardly considered insignificant and hardly able to fully comprehend rationally. How is this any different to state that love equals God when it is essentially just another easy explanation of a complicated concept? If a perceptions of God means for one to label or credit every mysterious force or nature with God, so be it, but it does not get us any closer to the truth. Love could equal truth, but it is still irrelevant to God. Since God cannot be universally justified, the principles of logic are becoming more and more ambiguous and may just cancel out due the overbearing alternating calculations. The mind itself, really the most powerful creator, creating concepts and sensations even it cannot comprehend. But all in all, if you need this sort of system for guidance in your life, I can respect that, it just has never been very satisfactory for me. My mind has never felt more caged.

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Originally Posted by Serena03

A mind as open as the sky is indeed worthy of having, but not so wide that the ground is no longer a boundary.

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Yes. In business peope often talk about the need to have a Birds Eye view, which too often ends up as a Bird Brains view (Both head and feet in the clouds). I prefer to go for the Giraffe's view, which provides you with a good overview, and still allows you to keep your feet firmly planted on Terra Firma.

I'm not saying that this is easy, but I try... :sosp:

/Claes

Haven't posted in a really long time, but thought I would add my two cents in to this discussion. I'm not sure why religion was brought into the mix since it's faith-based and cannot be proven. Christianity, however, bases it's religion on historical facts. Jesus was a real living person as well as many of the prophets in the Bible. However, we still have to take a leap of faith that what these prophets heard was the Word of God.
In regards to the initial points...how open-minded are we? I don't think anyone mentioned Fear, as being a motivating force.
It seems when we become fearful our open-mindedness takes a back seat. Just yesterday Oprah revisited a town in West Virginia after 23 years.In 1987, one of the men in town, who had AIDS, swam in the local pool and the mayor shut it down. Oprah's initial show, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, pitted the townspeople against this one young man. I'm sure many of those people in her audience at the time would have thought they were open-minded, but all logic and compassion went out the window. Of course, as one the women said today... Knowledge is a powerful thing. So what we may or may not be open-minded about today, may change in the future, when we get more facts. Being close-minded should not prevent people from being compassionate nor respectful of other people.

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Originally Posted by Lynne50

I'm not sure why religion was brought into the mix since it's faith-based and cannot be proven. Christianity, however, bases it's religion on historical facts. Jesus was a real living person as well as many of the prophets in the Bible. However, we still have to take a leap of faith that what these prophets heard was the Word of God.

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For the priest, Brand, his desperate leap of faith had nothing to do with "historical facts" and everything to do with the absurd prospect of salvation, in the moment, through uncompromising love. An open mind?

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Originally Posted by Lynne50

So what we may or may not be open-minded about today, may change in the future, when we get more facts. Being close-minded should not prevent people from being compassionate nor respectful of other people.

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For Ibsen's Brand, being open-minded is to love and absolute love is unchangeable, dispelling all fear.

I am close minded. It takes a lot to pry it open.

I just love to argue with someone as close minded as I am...as long as we disagree.