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Religion closes minds?

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Does religion close peoples minds?
Yes 70%  70%  [ 51 ]
No 23%  23%  [ 17 ]
I love you Hadron. 7%  7%  [ 5 ]
Total votes : 73

Awesomelyglorious
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12 Sep 2007, 7:40 pm

The_Chosen_One wrote:
How can Christians call atheists and others close-minded when subjects like homosexuality, abortion, contraception, evolution (just a few examples) are shoved under the rug because they don't conform to your doctrines. At least non-believers and non-Christians are willing to discuss these issues more openly, instead of reeling off verses of 'it's a sin' and endless bible passages to try to refute the argument when all the time they are just ignoring the subject and hoping it will go away. Religion closes minds to anything that the people practicing that religion find negative or distasteful, and like it or not, there are more things in this world than dogma.

What is beyond dogma?



greenblue
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12 Sep 2007, 7:53 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
greenblue wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
JonnyBGoode wrote:
I find some of the non-religious in here to be some of the most closed-minded people I've ever run across. I don't think religion holds any monopoly in that regard.


If you discard the possibility of God religion becomes a game of pick-and-choose. Christianity has too many tough rules to be favorable by them. That's at least one reason why they're closed minded.

Isn't fundamentalism very close to that?


What exactly? Picking and Choosing? No.

No, lol
To be closed minded. Religious fundamentalists are very close to be like that, actually, verly likely they are.


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Last edited by greenblue on 12 Sep 2007, 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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12 Sep 2007, 7:55 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
What is beyond dogma?

God?


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Awesomelyglorious
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12 Sep 2007, 8:04 pm

greenblue wrote:
God?

Well, truth, but I don't know anyone who can prove moral truth or most other truths for that matter, including the existence of God.



Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 12 Sep 2007, 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

iamnotaparakeet
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12 Sep 2007, 8:09 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
greenblue wrote:
God?

Well, truth, but I don't know anyone who can prove moral truth or most other truths for that matter.


Dr. Irwin A. Moon has some good presentations on that type of thing.



ahayes
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12 Sep 2007, 8:10 pm

No, intelligence keeps people from opening up their minds so much that their brains fall out. But some people aren't intelligent so they are REALLY open minded.



Awesomelyglorious
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12 Sep 2007, 8:13 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Dr. Irwin A. Moon has some good presentations on that type of thing.

I haven't seen a presentation, but I tend to dislike presentations. Really though, how would he prove things like the things I speak of?



iamnotaparakeet
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12 Sep 2007, 8:19 pm

Logical arguments



Awesomelyglorious
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12 Sep 2007, 8:24 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Logical arguments

I was assuming that, but I mean that I have not heard many solid proofs about the matters that I speak of. I would assume that Christians and theologians would have all memorized the perfect proofs by now if they existed.



iamnotaparakeet
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12 Sep 2007, 8:26 pm

Any should be good.



The_Chosen_One
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12 Sep 2007, 9:43 pm

Knowledge, thought, experience, intellect, ability to reason.... These are some things which are more important than dogma, and they sare some of the things lacking in religions because of the close-mindedness of the belief system. Faith alone, in most cases drives these systems, and without any of the above, then the believers cannot argue anything openly because their system precludes it. And fundamentalist groups are more close minded than the rest, because they consider the words of their teachings to be absolute. Without dogma, then people tend to gain more knowledge etc because they are not fettered by the blind faith that stops them thinking openly.


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Awesomelyglorious
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12 Sep 2007, 11:26 pm

The_Chosen_One wrote:
Knowledge, thought, experience, intellect, ability to reason.... These are some things which are more important than dogma, and they sare some of the things lacking in religions because of the close-mindedness of the belief system. Faith alone, in most cases drives these systems, and without any of the above, then the believers cannot argue anything openly because their system precludes it. And fundamentalist groups are more close minded than the rest, because they consider the words of their teachings to be absolute. Without dogma, then people tend to gain more knowledge etc because they are not fettered by the blind faith that stops them thinking openly.

But if their beliefs are correct then lacking dogma would be a greater loss of important knowledge and some elements of their beliefs are very unfalsifiable. There is very little knowledge that lacks a dogma within it, the same with thought, experiences are blind without theories to guide them and these theories can be dogma, intellect consistently is biased towards pre-conceived premises as is reason. Actually, I live in Oklahoma where the most fundamentalist people live, some actually do have knowledge, thought, experience, intellect, and ability to reason, they often function within a Christian conservative paradigm though where certain moral values are assumed to exist and others are not. Frankly though, I have not met a person without a paradigm.



The_Chosen_One
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13 Sep 2007, 1:13 am

But it's the ones that only live with the dogma and refuse to accept any counter-argument as possibly being an alternative viewpoint that are the problem. It's sort of like a 'my way or the highway' type of philosophy, and that's where the close-mindedness comes in.


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13 Sep 2007, 3:11 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
JonnyBGoode wrote:
I find some of the non-religious in here to be some of the most closed-minded people I've ever run across. I don't think religion holds any monopoly in that regard.


If you discard the possibility of God religion becomes a game of pick-and-choose. Christianity has too many tough rules to be favorable by them. That's at least one reason why they're closed minded.

Would you say the same for someone who discounts the idea of a flying octopus orbiting the sun who created the world in 3 days ?

Because there is the same likelihood of your God as there is for the Octopus.

It is clear that your 'beliefs' - being identical to everyone else in your sect - are not really beliefs but instructions that you have chosen to fill your mind with, they are not your own.



calandale
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13 Sep 2007, 3:15 am

Not sure about minds, but it sure seems
to close some legs. :P



Awesomelyglorious
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13 Sep 2007, 7:56 am

The_Chosen_One wrote:
But it's the ones that only live with the dogma and refuse to accept any counter-argument as possibly being an alternative viewpoint that are the problem. It's sort of like a 'my way or the highway' type of philosophy, and that's where the close-mindedness comes in.

The only problem I have with this statement is that many of the philosophies that we accept are matters of dogma. Morality, a topic I think you have previously mentioned, is included in this. Not only that, but is there a such thing as the perfect, ideal epistemology?