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Stupid Definition of "Open mind"

therationaledge

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My christian fundementalist friend says he has an open mind.
His definition is "He understands that there are different views than his own."
But also says that no matter what (and keep in mind what that really means) he believes that the bible is 100% right....NO MATTER WHAT.
Ever get the feeling that if God came down and was like "Yeah, you are all wrong." Some people would argue or just straight out say "YOUR THE DEVIL!"

Basically its accepted (by alot of people, by no means all) that open mindedness is good, and some people are deluding themselves into thinking they are actually being openminded.

Anyone else heard anything like this?
 

Domino

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I think some people may mistake open-mindedness for what is actually just tolerance.
 

therationaledge

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Funny, I seem to remember hearing that that actually happened... :newwink:

Lol.

Its sad. If God did come down and was like "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH!!!!"

Some crazy guy would shoot at him and then show people all the quotes in the bible that show that what he did was right. Then a new sect of abrahamiz religion would be born, and be as ridiculous as teh rest.
 

Bubbles

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So babe, clear things up: what's an open mind, pray tell? And is it ever possible for someone of a religious slant to have one?

EDIT: This piqued my interest, so I googled. Dictionaries on the intarwebs saaay:

Adj. 1. open-minded - ready to entertain new ideas; "an open-minded curiosity"; "open-minded impartiality" 2.
broad-minded - inclined to respect views and beliefs that differ from your own; "a judge who is broad-minded but even-handed"

adj. Receptive to new and different ideas or the opinions of others.

–adjective 1. having or showing a mind receptive to new ideas or arguments.
2. unprejudiced; unbigoted; impartial.

From what I see, only the boldened disagrees with your friend being open-minded, as having your own judgment/religion/view makes it impossible to be unbiased. However, even an atheist or agnostic can have the same issue, so that's arguably irrelevant. I'm curious to hear your version of the definition. :D
 

Katsuni

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Mm it is a bit odd, sadly I know an athiest friend who's the same way. They refuse to believe anything at all, and even if they were to have a great deal of evidence before them, like if they met jesus IN PERSON, they wouldn't accept it.


Personally, I do consider myself a "practicing agnostic", which's the closest that yeu'll see to a truly religious, yet open minded individual. I'll definately go over this in detail at some time, but the short form is:

Anything is possible, we don't know all the rules of physics and the universe, things we can't even dream of may be fully possible, the best we can attempt to do is gain as much information about everything as possible, and go with an educated guess from there, and hope it's right. Any god worth worshipping would understand we did our best, and not hold it against us if we were wrong. If it really comes down to "blind faith" and randomly choosing a religion, of which even say... christianity has thousands of sub-sections to it, and only ONE of those is right (or they may ALL be wrong), and we have NO way of knowing which is right? Then yeah, playing russian roulette with faith is not a way to earn respect, and if it is, then god's a total arse anyway and I'd refuse to worship him on principle.

I could go on but it would end up taking hours to fully explain. In short though, I currently believe a mix of christianity and hinduism's probably the most accurate, but I could be wrong, and as I gain new information, I'll change my mind accordingly. As I can't proove god exists, I can't love something with all my heart that I can't even proove, either god, whotever form he/it/she/whotever takes, or I'm screwed, in which case tough, I did my best, if yeu don't like it, then too bad, yeu didn't deserve any worship in the first place.
 

therationaledge

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Mm it is a bit odd, sadly I know an athiest friend who's the same way. They refuse to believe anything at all, and even if they were to have a great deal of evidence before them, like if they met jesus IN PERSON, they wouldn't accept it.


Personally, I do consider myself a "practicing agnostic", which's the closest that yeu'll see to a truly religious, yet open minded individual. I'll definately go over this in detail at some time, but the short form is:

Anything is possible, we don't know all the rules of physics and the universe, things we can't even dream of may be fully possible, the best we can attempt to do is gain as much information about everything as possible, and go with an educated guess from there, and hope it's right. Any god worth worshipping would understand we did our best, and not hold it against us if we were wrong. If it really comes down to "blind faith" and randomly choosing a religion, of which even say... christianity has thousands of sub-sections to it, and only ONE of those is right (or they may ALL be wrong), and we have NO way of knowing which is right? Then yeah, playing russian roulette with faith is not a way to earn respect, and if it is, then god's a total arse anyway and I'd refuse to worship him on principle.

I could go on but it would end up taking hours to fully explain. In short though, I currently believe a mix of christianity and hinduism's probably the most accurate, but I could be wrong, and as I gain new information, I'll change my mind accordingly. As I can't proove god exists, I can't love something with all my heart that I can't even proove, either god, whotever form he/it/she/whotever takes, or I'm screwed, in which case tough, I did my best, if yeu don't like it, then too bad, yeu didn't deserve any worship in the first place.

Hmm. Maybe my definition is more like thinking rationally or logically, basically taking in new information.

Like if jesus popped down and all that, id probably rethink a few things lol.

If an alien dropped down and said HE was jesus, id probably rethink a few things.

Id also try to find out if im going schizo
 

r.a

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Lol.

Its sad. If God did come down and was like "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN TAMPERED WITH!!!!"

Some crazy guy would shoot at him and then show people all the quotes in the bible that show that what he did was right. Then a new sect of abrahamiz religion would be born, and be as ridiculous as teh rest.

this is all so depressingly true.
 

Quinlan

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I think when you're truly openminded you can never be certain of anything as there will always be new/unknown information to consider, the problem with being completely openminded is you can never make a decision.
 

Maxwell22290

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I'm a Christian and I consider myself open minded. I always listen and process through other people's arguments against Christianity / for their religion. Because I don't want to believe in Christianity just for the sake of believing in Christianity, I want to believe in what's true.
 

therationaledge

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I have a problem with people trying so hard to make the facts fit their beliefs, as oppossed to changing thier beliefs to fit facts.

For example, through research i dont believe that anyone can believe in the bible as 100% correct AND actually be trying to believe in the truth.
 

INTJ123

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I have a problem with people trying so hard to make the facts fit their beliefs, as oppossed to changing thier beliefs to fit facts.

For example, through research i dont believe that anyone can believe in the bible as 100% correct AND actually be trying to believe in the truth.

You are right, but I'm tired of hearing people say crap like that and then behave in totally different manners when you present the facts. It's like they logically know that they shouldn't but they can't restrain their minds from functioning in their old ways.
 

Charmed Justice

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the problem with being completely openminded is you can never make a decision.

I think being open-minded allows one the ability to change their decisions, or at least disagree with passed decisions, on the basis of new and improved information. I think decision making is largely inevitable, but being open minded allows people to be less arrogant about their decisions because they are aware that the decisions they make are largely influenced by a limitation in information at the moment in question.


A closed minded person believes: they already know enough
An open minded person believes: there is always more to know
 

sciski

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Can anyone ever be 100% open-minded?

I mean, if you're 100% open-minded, would you not also be open to the idea that being open-minded is a crap way to be, hence you should also be open to being close-minded?

Your friend is probably open-minded about other things. Like whether chocolate is the ultimate icecream flavour. If you put forward a strong argument for banana, he might change his mind. He might be just as open-minded as you are, but the things he's closed on, are the things you're still open on. So it looks as if he's more close-minded.

(PS: I may be assuming that your friend thinks he's generally open-minded, as opposed to open-minded when it comes to religions in particular.)
 

Kangol

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Can anyone ever be 100% open-minded?

I mean, if you're 100% open-minded, would you not also be open to the idea that being open-minded is a crap way to be, hence you should also be open to being close-minded?

Your friend is probably open-minded about other things. Like whether chocolate is the ultimate icecream flavour. If you put forward a strong argument for banana, he might change his mind. He might be just as open-minded as you are, but the things he's closed on, are the things you're still open on. So it looks as if he's more close-minded.

First, I highly recommend you watch the aforementioned video.

1) The goal is not to accept everything as plausible. This is discussed in the video. Accepting blindly without consideration for evidence is idiotic. Taking this into account, show some evidence that being open-mindedness is a crap way to be and perhaps there is reason to allow its plausibility. As perceivable social norms and philosophical speculations go, however, there seems to be a greater case for the positive virtues of open-mindedness weighing over its consequences.

2) Not everything needs to be completely assessed and critiqued for validity. This too is mentioned in the video. However, for the beliefs which are more at the core of one's reasoning and identity, one's philosophy and way of life, it seems very relevant to examine the credibility of statements. Ice cream flavors are like leaves on a giant tree of perspective, while the way we see the world and system of operations through which we make daily decisions is more like the trunk or roots.

One could argue that keeping their perspective is their right to do so, which is true, but when they overstep their personal boundaries into the realm of social reasoning and use words like Open-mindedness so sloppily to accuse those who actually understand and respect the rules of rationality, it is very much offensive. This is the big problem; people who actually play by the rules of reason are cheated on by those who don't, and can't retaliate with reason because it's not compatible with the offender's perspective.

I'll definitely agree that some people can be more open-minded about some things more than others, which is why we can form social groups of people agreeing on something, but don't encompass all humankind. I think the point though, is to have an open-minded approach to issues of all types, including personal ones. Again, this doesn't mean one has to validate others' perspectives, and again, I highly recommend watching the video.
 

sciski

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I think I added my PS while you were typing.

My point was to show that therationaledge's friend might have been correct in his self-assessment in the general sense, but not when it came to his religious beliefs.

In other words, I was being annoying by nitpicking and being slightly off-topic. :)

I'm in agreement on points 1 and 2 in your post. It's good to be strategically open-minded.
 
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