An open mind
- Thread starter Pammy
- Start date
Yes an open mind is good,especially for me as i write science fiction/horror in my spare time (well i attempt to anyway) and for this you need a good imagination,however i do not believe what i write,i just make it up.
However in real life most activities are based on what we can see,and what is proven to work/exist,
praying to god,thinking aliens land here,thinking you go to a better place after death,
is all FICTION untill proven non-fiction:
fiction
noun
a false report or statement which you pretend is true.
Now that is pretending,but believing fiction is worse.
I would say that that person(mainly religous) is:
insane
adjective
extremely unreasonable and extreme
Fan(fanatic)
A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause.
Open minded is not something youll find in a religion fan/insane person,
nor would you find reason in these people,
open minded+religous=oxymoron.
You ask for people to be open minded,but someone who truly believes something 100% is not open minded,
therefore what you are asking is useless to all but open minded people!!
However in real life most activities are based on what we can see,and what is proven to work/exist,
praying to god,thinking aliens land here,thinking you go to a better place after death,
is all FICTION untill proven non-fiction:
fiction
noun
a false report or statement which you pretend is true.
Now that is pretending,but believing fiction is worse.
I would say that that person(mainly religous) is:
insane
adjective
extremely unreasonable and extreme
Fan(fanatic)
A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause.
Open minded is not something youll find in a religion fan/insane person,
nor would you find reason in these people,
open minded+religous=oxymoron.
You ask for people to be open minded,but someone who truly believes something 100% is not open minded,
therefore what you are asking is useless to all but open minded people!!
i used to be quite polarized when i would debate something on a forum, or in real life, but nowadays i seem to mellow out a bit (but not allways).
It's not as if you can ever convince anyone that doesn't want to be convinced and is my own viewpoint really that trustworthy? Who am I to be an authority on every subject?
Anyway, it is often interesting to find out what other people think on a matter. But parrots are not that interesting.
but you need at least two open minds for an open discussion...they are not always available in such large quantities
edit: and my apologies to doom, for copying most of his points.
It's not as if you can ever convince anyone that doesn't want to be convinced and is my own viewpoint really that trustworthy? Who am I to be an authority on every subject?
Anyway, it is often interesting to find out what other people think on a matter. But parrots are not that interesting.
but you need at least two open minds for an open discussion...they are not always available in such large quantities
edit: and my apologies to doom, for copying most of his points.
Originally posted by doom
You ask for people to be open minded,but someone who truly believes something 100% is not open minded,
therefore what you are asking is useless to all but open minded people!!
I truely believes what I believe 100%. However, having an open mind means I read carefully what others say and analyse it. If what they says makes sense, I will ponder on it and I might change my way of thinking. Not having an open means I will not care what people say and straight away find something to oppose them, or see something and not try to understand what they are saying and jump to conclusion often taking things out of context just for the sake of posting an opposition.
Excellent description of open-mindedness, oh and welcome to sci-forums.
Love
Jan Ardena.
First off, welcome to sciforums.
Just something that I would like to point out; while I agree that it is good to be open minded, posing an opposing viewpoint or challenging an assertion is not necessarily indicative of a closed mind. In fact, a well considered but challenging reply indicates that the respondent is indeed deeply considering your position. I would also say that taking things out of context is not always done deliberately; often it is simply a misunderstanding. The thing to do in such cases is to attempt to clarify and further explain your position.
Keep in mind that this forum is largely built around discussion and debate. You must expect that you will find opposition to your ideas here. Of course, that’s the fun of it. If we all sat around here agree with everything anyone said it would be rather boring, wouldn’t it?
~Raithere
Jan Ardena.. hiii.. sorry, this is a lil off topic from what is bein discussed in this thread... jenyar told me that you might be a bahai... i've posted some questions regarding the Bahai' Faith.. if you are in fact bahai', id appreciate it if you could give it a shot trynna answer my q's... thanks...
Originally posted by Raithere
First off, welcome to sciforums.
Just something that I would like to point out; while I agree that it is good to be open minded, posing an opposing viewpoint or challenging an assertion is not necessarily indicative of a closed mind. In fact, a well considered but challenging reply indicates that the respondent is indeed deeply considering your position. I would also say that taking things out of context is not always done deliberately; often it is simply a misunderstanding. The thing to do in such cases is to attempt to clarify and further explain your position.
Keep in mind that this forum is largely built around discussion and debate. You must expect that you will find opposition to your ideas here. Of course, that’s the fun of it. If we all sat around here agree with everything anyone said it would be rather boring, wouldn’t it?
~Raithere
I totally agree with with you.
The reason I signed up as a member here is that I hope to have someone challenge my ideas and post something that will cause me to pause and think because that is what I love to do. I'm sorry if I made you think that I want everyone to agree with me.
Hi!
I am not a Bahai, but point me to the thread and ask away, because the essence of God is the same, no matter what the name comes under. The divisions only come about because there are divisions within the human society.
Love
Jan Ardena.
Like I said at some point, to accept one view is to stop searching for another.
Accepting different views as possibilities is the only way that we can avoid being pulled into meaninglesness.
If there now is such a thing as 'meaning'.
Ofcourse accepting different views as possibilities doesn't mean to not argue for or against them. The only way we can get a somewhat correct view of the world is to look at all views that we come accross and anylize them each to come upon a view of the view itself.
Accepting different views as possibilities is the only way that we can avoid being pulled into meaninglesness.
If there now is such a thing as 'meaning'.
Ofcourse accepting different views as possibilities doesn't mean to not argue for or against them. The only way we can get a somewhat correct view of the world is to look at all views that we come accross and anylize them each to come upon a view of the view itself.
ConsequentAtheist
Registered Senior Member
( How is it that people can blather like this and think that they sound deep?
)If possibility were a sufficient acceptance criteria, you would necessarily find yourself awash in a world filled with utter nonsense. Unchecked by reason, "accepting different views as possibilities" is not a sign of open-mindedness, but a definition of thoughtless gullibility.
Well the thing is... I do find myself awash in a world filled with utter nonsense. Yet I don't know of any other world so I must accept it to be real, but I don't have to neccesarily accept that this is true and that there is no other possible world. If I am brought to praying to god, yet there is no god, my prayer is meaningless. If I believe the world to be the only possible world and it is not, my being in the current world is meaningless.
You should read the whole post, I'm not saying 'believe everything you hear', one should analise the presented possibility and rationalize it to the best of one's ability only then decide wether it is meaningfull or not to persue the said way of life. (Or decide an own way of life?)
Effectively I'm saying the exact opposite of being gullible.
No, I am possibly not very deep, I am vain and shallow and I resent this about myself(as well as I resent my uncertainty). I wish I didn't care for what others thought of me, I've attributed this to being a product of my society or just genral ignorance on my part. It may be that it is simply human nature to feel such needs. So it is a huge possibility that I'm not only a fool but a fool in the dark. You are quite entitled to criticize me, it may be the only way I can gain some awareness of myself if I am lost in a world of my own. I am open to this.
here is the thread... thanks for your response Jan..
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15370
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15370
ConsequentAtheist
Registered Senior Member
I did "read the whole post". Perhaps you did not understand the whole reply.
Very well: the Faerie Kingdom, the Virgin Birth, and evolution are logically possible. Using what methods would you 'analyse and rationalize' these possibilities, and on what basis would you accept some subset and reject others?
That depends entirely on what you mean by analyze and rationalize.
I don't think you understand what it is to be open-minded. If you believe somethin '100%'...well that doesn't leave much room for discussion. I mean, you can carefully read and analyse what others say but that isn't being open-minded. If you have no room to change your beliefs (ie. 100%) then you are simply studying other peoples ideas without any possibility of modifying your own.
I consider myself an atheist but I would never say I believe this '100%'. That is vain and delusional.
So I say look in the mirror before calling on others to have an open-mind.
ConsequentAtheist
Registered Senior Member
Bingo: "I'm special so there must be a Faerie Kingdom"
Well logic ofcourse
. 2+2=4 the problem is that in some cases such as in the theory of relativity and in quantum physics 2+2 does not neccesarily equal 4. I can only make a stand point from what I know (or think that I know) but I know very little and cannot assert that what I do know is a sufficient basis for a concrete opinion. For reasons of limited human inteligence, I don't think it is possible for me to have such a concrete idea of life and that it is infact foolish to believe otherwise.
We tend to think that humans are somehow very inteligent, but we cannot even define ourselves in such a way that we could all agree upon. We don't know as much as we think, we have thoeries that make sense, but even the best theories have been proven wrong over and over.
There is no such thing as conclusive truth becasue of the subjective nature of the human mind.
We can only wait untill we have computers that have higher inteligence than humans for the answeres.