is anyone open-minded?

I believe in true religious freedom; that each of us should be legally allowed to practice our religion or lack thereof provided we do not injure other people. So my question is: is this logically possible? I believe in God, yet evangelism is considered to be a faux-pax (excuse spelling) and the sharing of my faith is often greeted with animosity. Why is it so hard to accept that my faith in God has actually opened my mind and made me more receptive to other people and the world? I've met only some people who can intelligently and fairly engage in dialogue with me about faith, and it seems to me that very few people are as open-minded as they claim. I say this both about extreme liberals and conservatives.


How many truly open-minded folks are out there?

just musing....

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if someone had the correct religion (how they would i know for sure i dont know) i think they have the right/ obligation ot spread the word to others.

 

I'm going to guess that the faith under discussion is Christianity and point out that Jesus taught mostly by example and in response to questions asked not by getting in peoples faces with lectures they had no interest in hearing. As was pointed out to me by a serious Biblical scholar once if you look at the chapter before he gave us The Lord's Prayer he had a few words to say about not "praying' in public. acctually more than one scholar has told me the word translated as 'pray' could as easily and correctly have been rendered as 'preach'. I don't think jesus ever advocated forcing anything on another...

 

Isn't there a contradiction in saying 'Iam a christian' - ie I believe in set dogmas, and saying 'I am open minded'?

If you decide you're a christian, then surely you have made your mind up, and decided to reject other explanations of reality.

 

I guess that's why I wrote this post. I would say no to this: I am a Christian and am open-minded. After exploring many faiths, I myself have found Jesus Christ to be the manifestation of God..yet I am still intrigued by and accept people of other faiths...and atheists. I don't attack or insult them, or call them ignorant or hypocritical. In fact, I work with kids doing interfaith work.

But logically, yes, that's the problem: evangelism seems to be a logical contradiction. I guess I evangelize the way I've been doing it: lead my life and when people ask me about Jesus, I tell them my understanding of the story.

I also wrote this post to say that I find so many "non-religious" people that claim to be open-minded but definitely are not open-minded...and hence I get tired of these supposed open-minded people slamming people who believe in God (Christian, Muslim, pagan..whatever.)

 

Spoken like a true Christian and I mean that as a sincere compliment Molly...

 

Well I try to be open minded, and certainly can present an image of perfect tolerance (if not I tend to just leave well alone) should that be required. Regardless of how I may actually think/feel on the subject; if they don't ask, and clearly don't want to know, then I won't tell.

Guess that's what really counts.

I don't honestly believe you can be open minded in the utterly purest sense. Everyone has their own beliefs, agendas and quirks. That's human nature and product of a lot of experience and thought. Am not going to fight that. Just shake it up a little sometimes, we all need that.

LOL actually I totally accept that religion can open your mind. Certainly worked for me. You can understand their sense of conviction and feel an empathy, without necessarily agreeing on the particulars.
Do indeed totally agree with you, but for one teeny possible arbitary detail. I'm Pagan.

 

OK - but how about open mindedness in areas other than religion? It seems to me that identifying yourself as a christian also means you accept to some degree christian ideas about various issues - moral issues for example.
So you get some christians who disapprove of gays for instance, not because of an open minded descision, but because their church tells them to.
Same thing goes in other areas. If you accept the authority of an external instsitution, then that doesn't qualify as open mindedness in my definition. An open minded approach would be to look at the thing without any tendency to pre-judgement - but given the moralizing nature of most christians, is that really possible? I think their minds have been made up for them on a whole range of things.

 

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You seem to have a skewed concept of what a Christian is, not unlike the vast majority of those who would have you believe they are Christians, even though they believe themselves to be doesn't make them Christians in my book.
Nowhere in the Christian Bible did Christ declaim against gays nor act against them. The strictures against them you refer to are I believe in the Old Testament a book of the Hebrews not Christians.
By my lights being Christian has nothing at all to do with accepting the authority of any institution only the words and acts of Christ himself.
I speak as a Red Letter Christian Taoist. "If it aintn't in red letters it ain't Christian!' In other words if you want to know Christ study His words and actions not the books of the Hebrews nor the writings of such as Paul....

 

Probably almost no one is open minded, truly. We all have our opinions, some usually held quite strongly; plus, our general world view, which we are not usually even conscious of, influences what we are able to accept. Like, one must surely accept that a Western person sees things different from an Eastern mind, but we rarely even think about it, day to day, and many probably live their whole lives without even realizing this limitation.

Now, as far as evangelizing, I say it's cool to tell others about your faith, but only if they ask you, or it's in the conversation. If they say they're not interested, or you sense hostility, it'd be best to stop out of respect. A hostile person is not an open person anyways, so if you're trying for converts, you're wasting your time with such a person.

I see this all the time, with my dad (and mom too, I guess). He's very opinionated, and often criticizes others for their moral shortcomings or sins. The way I see it, he (and all of us) should just focus on his own life, because it's the only thing he can control. Why spend time and energy judging others, when you aren't prefect yourself? You can't make them change. So I say, be a light unto the world, through example. Find the peace inside, and live your life. You can show others the value and the honesty of your inner peace by being kind even to those you find immoral. Kindness and goodness are contagious, but you can't spread it through logical argumentation. Example and action will be your best evangelizing tool, if you ask me. This is what I (try to) do.

 

I would like a little redefinition of "open-mindedness".

Many seem to be confusing open-mindedness with accepting every available view of reality.

Open-mindedness as I would define it, is the capacity to be able to see the world from another person's viewpoint, or at least the willingness to do so. For example, you can be a die-hard Christian and still be open minded if you are willing to appriciate that an atheist believes differently to you and even to go even furthur and to see the world without a God for a second.

This wouldn't make you any less Christian would it? Maybe I'm just defining tolerance here, rather than openmindedness but they seem to be pretty damn similar.

Everything about our universe, has contradictions and much less is mutually exclusive than we think - I believe it is perfectly possible to think that Islam is a heretical teaching and even belief that all muslims are destined to hell and have a Muslim best friend.

It's called agreeing to disagree

Blessings

Sebbi

 

You're talking about relativism. open mindedness is more than that, it's like the ideal of science. always being able to change, when newer ways come along that are closer to reality. Kind of like personal growth, or the ability for it.

By the way, what kind of friendship would that be? How can there be respect for one another when you see the other guy as a sinner destined (rightfully, in your mind) to eternal torture? See, open mindedness would be not only to be "his friend" but also to say to yourself "hmm, his ideas are very different, what if they're right". Tolerance alone is relativism, because though you respect his right to have his ideas, you immediately still assume his are wrong.

 

Granted it would be a surprising one but not an impossible one. It wouldn't be too hard for someone to respect those they see as sinners. Afterall, hate the sin love the sinner.

As I was saying, things are not as mutually exclusive as we often think.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

I am sure there are a few open minds around somewhere.... we'll find them someday. Mine is pretty open about many things, but when I have made up my mind, it is a bank vault, good luck changing it. Still, if I hear something compelling, none of my beliefs are beyond changing. I like the views expressed here, and find them far more loving than the average persons take on the subject. Most folk seem to have a hard time respecting different faiths, cultures, etc. I appreciate tolerance, but prefer acceptance. I have the view that we are all equals, and can all differ, and still all be correct. Just like we all differ in location, but we are not wrong when we say we are where we say we are just because we are not all in the same place.

 

I doubt pope benedict would agree with that. By speaking as 'a red letter christian taoist' you are not representing mainstream christianity.
I think St. Paul discourages gays - doesn't he say something about 'that which is inconvenient'? But since a lot of christianity is actually based on church traditions etc and not the bible, it doesn't really matter, because it is the views of actual christians that count (by their fruits shall ye know them).
Either way, I can't see how open mindedness equates with limiting oneself to a narrow set of beliefs, whatever the source.

 

The Pope is not Christ nor was Paul. Your 'mainstream Christianity' does not appear by their actions/fruits to be more than lipservice Christians in the most part. True Christianity is based not on the church nor the Pope, but on the words and actions of Christ himself. I believe that if you take the time to look into it with an open mind you will find that the vast majority of limits within modern 'Christianity' originate from the Old Testament, Paul, and others none of whom were or are Christ. Christ said 'I bring you but one law, Love thy neighbor as thy self.' and that is the is the sole limit/restriction of the true Christian to my way of thought.

 

I was open minded until I discovered the ultimate truth.

 

OK - so your minds made up. You have the words of Jesus, and refer everything else to them - how can that be true open mindedness? Open minded would seem to imply a readiness to change one's viewpoint as new data emerge. If you already have a predetermined idea of how things are, how can one be really open to anything new?

 

I'm merely pointing out that by accepted and logical definition a Buddist follows the teachings od Buddha not Christ nor Zorasta and a Christian is one who follows the teachings of Christ not Buddha nor Paul nor the Pope. Ninety percent of the dislike of Christians by others can be laid at the door of either the Old Testament or the teachings of Paul. Nothing in my version of Christianty bars me from honoring the teachings of others in fact I'm bidden to love them as I love myself and therefore required to honor their beliefs and even in those cases I so chose believe them myself. I find this hard to do with the modern version of Christiany because if you compare their words to their actions you soon see their stated beliefs are a mere lipservice and a sham....

 

I'm not saying that identifying yourself as a Buddhist, Christian, Jew etc means you can't be tolerant of other beliefs, or accept their right to have them.

It's a question of what is meant by open mindedness. I was looking at it from the angle that open mindedness means not having any set view about reality which you're not ready to change.
Christianity, and other religions do say a lot about the basic structures of the universe for example, and how they have arisen. In Europe during the middle ages, the church dictated the 'politically correct' cosmology they believed in, supported by passages from the Bible. The flat earth at the centre of a tiny universe, orbited by the sun. Later, this was shown to be false.
Thus fixed belief in dogma sought to hold back the advance of objectively true knowledge.
And I wonder how much of an element of the same process is at work in individuals who subscribe to a set and dogmatically fixed view, as some religions prescribe.
Look at creationists for instance - they still try to seriously say that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Thus, their blief in dogma makes them closed minded to the truth.