Open-mindedness: A Universal Virtue

[Not_Me]

Religion is based on the uncritical acceptance of dogma. This thought process tends to attract a certain demographics.

However, I agree that being religious does not necessarily mean close minded. The open minded religious people I know appear accept the same premise that I do, that we cannot prove or disprove the existence of "God", so we make a more or less arbitrary choice. They chose to follow. I chose not to. But we accept the others choice for what it is.

 

[lunalum]

^ Good thing I decided to actually read this thread... that is pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

 

[Journey]

I empathize with the OP. I think conceding that every opinion is of equal value is often confused for open-mindedness. You can believe one thing and reject another and still be open-minded. It simply means that after weighing all the opinions available to you, you've formed one of your own. This is often seen as intolerant, but it doesn't mean you don't respect other points of view, simply that you disagree with them. Too many people think open-mindedness means conceding that their opinion is as valid as yours, and that's not the case.

I thought this deserved to be posted at least twice because it is the truth in a mixed up world of non-truth.

 

[INTJ123]

It seems to me the greatest complaint heard about religious people is their lack of open-minded thinking. And I am sure we've all met the old woman muttering about how all the kids sexing up today are going to hell, or that youth group leader who was just a taaaaad overenthusiastic.

But these are not the "rule" of religious people. These are individuals who believe a faith, but are unwilling to let others believe their own beliefs.

Agnostics and atheists quite often pride themselves on not holding any such narrow-minded beliefs themselves. However, I'd like to comment that I have seen people of this belief share the same problem. "People of that one faith are always so judgmental" is, in fact, a judgment itself. It's the same thing as that God-fearing old lady saying "Those hedonistic atheists don't care about anyone but themselves!"

The fact is, people of all walks of life ought to--and often do--respect one another's beliefs. Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists: any of them can have an open mind, just as any of them can have a closed mind.

Religion, or lack of religion, has nothing to do with how open your mind is. And as I have faced that stereotype myself, I wish people would stop judging others based on that.

Thoughts?

You are right, open mindedness has more to do with your individual level of consciousness. Not the general religion/group you belong to.

In general I think most religions try to teach you to be open minded, however it is entirely up to you exactly how open you get.