Stupid Definition of "Open mind"

[stellar renegade]

What a great video.

I agree.

I think the major flaw in the thinking of many of those who believe in the supernatural and paranormal things is that they think it can never be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If that's true there would never really be any reason to believe in them in the first place.

Of course, there are some things we're better off taking a risk on with just enough evidence to justify doing it but not enough to believe they're true for sure. Wisdom is finding out when the appropriate time is for each.

 

[Wonkavision]

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.

According to The Bible, that's almost exactly what happened, over and over again.

The Old Testament prophets were executed for saying things that people thought were contradicting God's word. But, according to the Bible, God was actually speaking through them.


The Bible claims that, at one point in history, God incarnated himself in the form of a man, Jesus Christ.

Christ explained how the religious leaders had tampered with and perverted the meanings of Judaic Law, and the religious leaders tried to trip him up with clever questions, to prove he was wrong.

They tried to portray him as a crazy man, and even accused him of being possessed by the devil.

Christ used many parables and allegories to explain what Judaic Law meant, and expounded on it to include salvation through a suffering savior--himself.

According to the Bible, he never committed a single sin.

Yet, in collusion with the Roman authorities and many corrupt "witnesses", the religious authorites had him brutally executed---simply for clarifying the meaning and intent of the Scriptures.


According to the Bible, Christ's disciples and apostles, and many of the early Christians, proclaimed the word of God, and they were hunted down and exiled, and many of them brutally executed.

In many parts of the world, this still continues today--people being brutally executed for proclaiming the meaning of the Bible.

NOTE: I'm not saying the Bible is accurate, just saying that the Bible claims that God did come to this world and said his word had been tampered with--and they did brutally execute him for saying that.
And that a new sect was born out of it--a sect of Judaism which was later called "Christianity".

This does raise some provocative questions, though, and has some pretty interesting implications.


If your hypothetical scenario rings true, then does the Biblical account of why Christ was killed also ring true?

What if the Bible is accurate?
Where does that place you in relation to Christ?
One of his mockers? One of his executors? An innocent bystander? A believer? A critic?

These are only questions, and they need not be answered.

But personally, I prefer to keep an open mind.

For me, personally, that means being an agnostic.

But I know there are lots of other ways to look at the issue.

 

[Snuggletron]

The argument I'm using is similar to the one in that video, in which if you cannot explain something as to why it exists and/or produce the evidence, then how is it rational to put faith in it? This does not just occur in Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., but atheists as well, who claim something cannot exist but can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't. I've been told even this^ is close-minded. I'm really not sure how, and would love for someone to explain why it might be.

I find these topics always get closed on other message boards because people's beliefs and ideas get tread on. But I find these are the folks who do not present an objective case and resort to using their faith as some sort of protective barrier against logical argument (again, I don't just mean religious faith). People will only get insulted if they allow themselves to be insulted.

I am open to restructuring my argument as new proven data arrives, I don't feel like I am set in stone. I guess that is why I consider myself open-minded to that degree.

 

[Wonkavision]

The argument I'm using is similar to the one in that video, in which if you cannot explain something as to why it exists and/or produce the evidence, then how is it rational to put faith in it? This does not just occur in Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., but atheists as well, who claim something cannot exist but can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't. I've been told even this^ is close-minded (by a friend who believes in an abstract version of God, who is still based of the Christian God). I'm really not sure how, and would love for someone to explain that to me.

Well, I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I'd like to approach the subject this way:


I'm an agnostic, but my intuition tells me that there are things beyond scientific knowledge which explain how and why things exist.

Much of science explains what we can observe with our senses.

But, surely, intuition can perceive other things--namely useful patterns and probabilities.

For example, I don't think it's necessary to get technical in determining the probability of whether or not there is a God.

You might say the odds or for or against it, but personally, I don't think all of that matters.

I acknowledge that I really don't know, and that I may never know, but I can ponder it, and explore it, and work with what I've got to determine what I believe.

I use my intuition and feeling functions to determine what is possible and what is important--and what is possible and important to me is to have an actively spiritual life.

This means being open to spiritual things, as a general mode of existence.

It does not mean being dogmatically tied to one particular set of beliefs, but to incorporate what I perceive into a personal framework as I go through life.

It's fluid and adaptable, but it is consistently the frame I use.


Though I'm an agnostic, I'm intuitively drawn to Christ, and to the Biblical view of existence.

It makes tons of sense to me, regardless of what others think.

I don't know if the Bible is really divinely inspired, but I believe it is more consistent and logical than many people realize.

At first glance it seems a little crazy, but the more critically I look at the Bible, the more I discover its clarity.

This colors my perception of everything, and is part of my general world-view, but I do not, for one second, expect anyone else to see things the same way.



I think it's responsible and mature to have strong beliefs and opinions.

Atheists, agnostics, and spiritual and religious people have all reached their beliefs and opinions through a lifetime of exploration, regardless of what stage they are currently at.

To me, open-mindedness means accepting that others think differently than you.

It does not mean trying to avoid having a strong opinion, out of fear of being narrow-minded.

It requires healthy self-esteem to say "I strongly believe this, but I accept that there are other opinions."

You don't have to sacrifice who you are in order to respect who someone else is.


In the words of Herman Hesse:

"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is."

 

[matmos]

...but atheists as well, who claim something cannot exist but can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't..

Atheists do not claim something cannot exist. Refutation of a theory presented with no evidence can be easily dismissed.

You shouldn't find it too surprising, then, as to why they can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't. This is because they don't have to.

It's not possible to present evidence against even the most absurd theories. This inability in no way validates the theory, however; the validity of the theory remains unproven or speculative at best.

All the best.

 

[Katsuni]

Atheists do not claim something cannot exist. Refutation of a theory presented with no evidence can be easily dismissed.

You shouldn't find it too surprising, then, as to why they can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't. This is because they don't have to.

Not true; although the onus is on the one providing the theory to proove it, not on everyone else to disprove it, there are in fact atheists who DO end up just going "zomg it doesn't exist!" and then blindly believe that and ignore any evidence to the contrary. If they met god himself, they'd disbelieve it. This's still being closed minded. Sadly I've actually met people like this, they're generally not that enjoyable to be around.

The argument I'm using is similar to the one in that video, in which if you cannot explain something as to why it exists and/or produce the evidence, then how is it rational to put faith in it? This does not just occur in Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., but atheists as well, who claim something cannot exist but can't produce the explanation and/or evidence as to why it doesn't. I've been told even this^ is close-minded. I'm really not sure how, and would love for someone to explain why it might be.

I am open to restructuring my argument as new proven data arrives, I don't feel like I am set in stone. I guess that is why I consider myself open-minded to that degree.

This's more the thought process of the agnostic, who I'd consider generally to be open minded by definition, though some can go too far. The idea of agnosticism is that they generally believe 'it's likely' but can't prove it enough to truly believe whole heartedly. There are those, however, who go a bit overboard and end up believing anything's possible, or everything's possible, or just can't accept 'close enough' when it presents itself. If there's a large amount of evidence that makes sense, some just can't accept that, and will never be satisfied with the answer, always thinking of it "well that makes sense but I need 100% proof, 99% just isn't enough" kinda thing.

Some are closed minded because they accept something as valid with virtually no proof, and insist that it's true and ignore all new information. If there were conclusive evidence that god did NOT exist, alot of people would refuse to consider it, this's closed minded. Absolute 100% guaranteed proof can't be ignored. Of course, we're never going to actually GET that proof, but it's hypothetical; if we in fact had this magical proof, people STILL would believe in god anyway.

I think the most accurate definition of open minded, is to be open to the possibility of alternative answers other than the one yeu currently believe, and be open to new information and evidence as it presents itself. If yeu refuse to even acknowledge new information, then that is being closed minded.

 

[redacted]

The person with the most open mind I've ever met is the professor who runs the lab I'm working in. The first time I took a class with him, I came up to him after one of the lectures and asked whether he was a determinist (each state of the universe is a function of the previous state) and he said he doesn't take stances that can't be disproven by evidence. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, I think of an open mind as being able to listen to any perspective, not necessarily to agree with it. It's pretty much the opposite of being dismissive. But that doesn't mean you can't disagree -- you just have to provide reasoning for disagreeing.