No, people refer to you as a 'pompous ass' because you're a pompous ass who just happens to be religious.

As far as closed-mindedness:  I remember when I looked it up in the dictionary and it had a picture of the Firefox symbol.  I was a bit perplexed until I read the caption, which stated that it was the 'internet forum avatar of one erathoniel, the Closed-Minded King of Teh Intarwebz'.

Then I understood.

Right on, SanCho (btw...I love Utah...if they didn't pay teachers crap I might try to convince the husband to move someplace where there's grass and trees and a little less wind...like Logan. Or Brigham City. Do they let you in if you're not Mormon? j/k).

Era...the issue is your holier-than-thouness that you exude. You REFUSE to listen to people. You might read what people are saying, and although no one expects you to adopt every "idea thrown out there," the proper, respectful way to reply is "I understand what you're saying, but I disagree, and this is why..."

It's like you expect everyone to fit into your little Christian Jell-o mold, and 99% of the folks on JU, and in the world, don't fit that mold. I'm Christian, but I guess I see Jesus more as a lover of sinners than a "fire and brimstone with you!" kind of a dude. Although I know the options for folks who choose not to believe in Him. People don't need their actions condemned the minute you start conversing with them. People need to be loved and cared about.

Does that make me a tie-dyed hippie? Oh well, I'm on the highway to hell anyway, I guess, because I think that Jesus made gay people, too, and I sin just as much as they do.

I know, us Utah liberals have been fighting to give our teachers more dinero for years, sis. Drives me crazy that we pay the people we entrust with the bulk of our children's education spit.

And both Logan and Brigham City are berry, berry pretty. And there's mountains of non-Mormons 'round those parts.

  The sad but true fact is that as a society we don't value the people who care for and educate children. 

 

Erathoniel - close mindedness is when you absolutely have your mind made up and are not open to others input on the issue.  I have changed my mind on several issues that I used to  be strongly against.   I used to believe in handgun control, not control, I wanted an outright ban because I hated that kids were killed accidentally.  Guns don't die people do.  What good are they?  They only hurt people.  I thought if you wanted to hunt, you could use a rifle.  No one hunts with a handgun.  Reading the book "Snow over Cedars" completely changed my opinion on the issue because it was made so clear that the first thing they did before locking the Japanese Americans in interment camps was take away their weapons.  Taking away peoples right to defend themselves is taking away their power.  So you see, I was able to be open-minded. 

Well, yeah, at times.

But why beat up my keyboard typing a little more? It's not like anyone does it, and I personally find it more offensive than just continuing.

Of course I love and care about people, but I do not think online is the place to make that connection. Again, there's one person here I'd really socialize with, and that's Zoo. Or maybe Lula or KFC.

I do not believe anyone is "born" gay. They make that choice and give that reason. I'm not saying they sin any more than anyone else, though, but it is a sin.

I'm able to be open-minded if I can get something that compares to my beliefs. If I find that there is nothing that can be equal to my opinion, why should I change by throwing my opinions around like John Kerry? I'm open enough to change any of my beliefs, if they can be proven, letter for letter, to be wrong.

I know I said I would avoid commenting on your articles but I don't always stick to these goals.



A closed mind (or closed-minded) is someone unreceptive to new ideas or information.



I find it interesting how some people will take words that have specific meanings and try to change the definition when it suits them. Just a while ago I read on another article talking about CopyRight infringement when you tried to point out how easy it was to understand what copyright meant by taking the 2 words that make up copyright and showing how specific the meaning was. Now you take another word composed of 2 specific words and instead of applying the same idea as you did with copyright, you tried to change the meaning to your benefit.

Closed - as in not open.
Minded - as in your mind.

Meaning, as stated above, not that people are shoving their opinions on to you but that you are not receptive to those opinions. There's a difference between not wanting to hear it and having it shoved into you. Not everyone is trying to force you to accept their opinions, they merely want you to take them into consideration rather than trash the simply because it's not what you believe. You don't even give people the benefit of the doubt.



This here is proof of what I mean. You are not open-minded, you are "my way or the highway". Open-minded allows for other ideas to get in, giving you a chance to look at you opinions and rethink them to see if what you believe in still holds water. Your mentality is more of a "match and pair" type where you take someones ideas or opinions and put them side by side with yours and if they don't match they are automatically rejected.



LOL, I will be open-minded (as you say) and request "letter to letter" proof that you are open enough to change your beliefs. So far, I have yet to see you concede a single argument I have read where you were involved.

Just admit it like Lula did. She was honest enough to admit her opinions are absolute as seen below:



That comes close to describing you except you are absolute minded about everything even if it has nothing to do with breaking Gods laws.

Personally, I don't care anymore. I do my part to express my opinion whether its in line with someone or opposing their opinions. I do my best to back up my opinions and am willing to consider that my opinions could be wrong if enough evidence is shown against them. Whether you are willing to listen and consider anything I have to say or not is not my concern anymore. In the end we are all humans capable of making mistakes and constantly sinning so you can be absolute in your opinions all you want, you are no God or anything close to it so you have just as much of a chance of being wrong as any one of us. So if you wanna believe you are correct 100% that's your right. Just don't expect people to accept it without something to say about it. After all what did you expect would happen on a blog site after you post an article? Wasn't your intention to get feedback on the article? Or were you naive enough to believe that only positive feedback would grace your articles? I think you need to go back and have a talk with your pastor, priest or religious mentor. Or maybe even Lula. Even she seems more receptive to other peoples opinions even though her believes are absolute.

erathoniel-

Actually, no. Being close-minded means that you have reached a conclusion on a particular subject with little or no analysis of the data. Or, perhaps you performed an analysis of the data at hand and reached a conclusion, but when new data arises that warrants new analysis, you refuse to do so, sticking with your original conclusion despite contrary information that should cause you to re-evaluate your stance.

Let's look at an example:

Pretend you are a fellow living in the stone age. You have your handy spear with a sharpened rock on the end with which you kill animals for food and clothing, etc. You live in a small tribe made up of several families that has been pretty much the same for many generations, moving nomadically around the same several hundred mile radius. Because everything has been the same for such a long time, ways of doing things, lifestyle etc, your tribe has created a religion that pretty much explains how everything works.

Every night your tribe starts a fire for which they thank the Fire God for his wonderful gift, and you pay hommage to the various Spirits and Gods that you believe have provided you with the bounty of food from hunting, water for drinking etc. Life is good, and everything makes sense!

Then one day strange looking people from the next valley over arrive and they are a strange sight to behold indeed! They have strange shiny weapons that cut like no stone weapon could ever cut and they even possess a strange kind of magic that can make small spears fly through the air like birds over great distances. Here's where the distinction between closed-minded and open-minded comes into play.

A close-minded person will stick with their original beliefs despite new information, and believe that these new people are either highly favoured by the Gods in the magical tools that have been bestowed on them, or perhaps they are evil demon-spirits with equally strange magic that gives them their powers. The close minded-person will regardless fear these new people with their supposed magical powers and probably will eventually try to fight them off, or decide it's time to run away.

An open-minded person will take the new information they have been given and re-analyze the situation. They will not fear these new people right from the get-go but instead will try to understand why and how these people do the things they do. They may even come to the conclusion that these other folk are just regular people like themselves, only that they have learned about metal working and archery, which is not magic at all!

Being close-minded is to live in a self-created prison, in which you pen yourself in by beliefs that are absolute and can never, ever change regardless of what new data you may come across. In all fairness, everyone is closed-minded to some degree, just some much moreso than others.

Being open-minded means living a much more fulfilling and deep life. If you live life with an open mind you will find that you change your stance on topics many times as you learn that there is no such thing as a one-sided issue and that life very rarely boils down to "black and white, good or bad"

If you life with a closed mind, the person you hurt the most is yourself as you deprive yourself from the joy that is growth and discovery that comes through investigation and analysis!

 

Is this an attack directed towards me?

There is a difference between agreeing with everything someone says and being a total idealogical pushover like you seem to be suggesting.

Which I never recall doing. I have people saying that I am closed minded and forcing my opinions on them by commenting and writing articles. Explain to me how that is closed minded?

I listen to other people's ideas, I just don't accept them without an "insane" amount of evidence.

Of course not. Why concede when you can win? There's no such thing as losing an argument.

Fine. I have many absolute opinions. More, all of my opinions, even the non-absolute ones, are strongly held and require nothing short of a blatant disproving (for example, proving that paper can bend).

I just don't find much other than God's laws worth any debate at all. When have you heard me take up a debate on whether cats or dogs are smarter, for example? (Cats win, by the way)

If I only wanted positive feedback, I'd've gone to a religious site long ago to blog. On the contrary- I dare anyone to disprove me. When have I ever called myself perfect? Show me. People state a "holier than thou" attitude about me. I make no claims of holiness. I merely claim to have found the Truth.

I do lots of analysis. I research anything that comes along. This contrary information just doesn't seem powerful enough, or from a reliable enough source to warrant any opposition.

What does this have to do with anything? That example is pretty much nothing. I believe in the laws of the world as were set down by God, therefore I find nothing to be "magical" or "arcane" or "mystical", unless it has literally something to do with prayer or witchcraft.

This is an example of simple learning, not philosophical outlook.

Beliefs that never change are not a weakness. They are a strength. I have never found any new data to disprove God. I'll admit I'm not entirely open-minded, but until you manage to bring me God's corpse, I will not believe that "God is dead.". Therefore, I am very open-minded.

Then you are giving into compromise with every step. Instead of standing upon a firm foundation, you build your house upon a swamp or upon the swirling sands of the desert. You are weak, lack a spine, lack a moral compass, lack a spirit, lack assertiveness except that which comes from greed or fear, lack justice, lack freedom, and, above all, give up hope for a mushy brain.

I have no clue what you mean by that. I live life with plenty of investigation and analysis, despite what you seem to say about being closed-minded. How is rejecting your theological beliefs for my own "closed-mindedness"?

Where did God come into this? In my comment to you I never mentioned anything about the existence or lack of existence of God (who, for your information, I do happen to believe in) In fact, my comment to you had absolutely nothing to do with religion whatsoever, but more a mental process that is very common in humans.

 

I believe one day you might learn that there is no such thing as a 'firm foundation' other than what you decide to construct in your head. The firmest foundation that humanity has been able to construct at this point is thanks to the scientific method of producing theories and then trying our darndest to disprove those theories through experiments, or refine them.

Refusing to change your beliefs is actually the easiest thing you can do and is part of human nature. What takes courage or a spine as you say, is to admit that we really don't know or can't say and then decide to try and find out. In both classrooms and the workplace, I have seen that the most succesful people are often those who freely admit they don't have all the answers or are unsure. Those are the folks who have 'open-minds' and aren't afraid to admit that their earlier beliefs may indeed have been mistaken. These are also the folks who aren't afraid to simply say "oops, I screwed up, sorry!" and then they realize where their mistake was and move on. These are the people who can inovate and adapt, and make breakthroughs!

The close-minded folks tend to assume a lot and be of the "know it all" category who must always produce an answer that fits in their world-view. These are also the folks who can never admit a mistake and regularly must insult others!

Nowhere in this article have I stated my theological beliefs, nor have I said that rejecting them would be a closed-minded thing. What I'm saying is that if you choose to live your life with absolute beliefs that can never change, I feel very sorry for you.

I do not think that we are actually very different to be honest. Many of the things you say here, I used to say back when I was still a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (well, I was a member of one of their member churches)

Until one day I learned that much of modern life is all about the attempt to control you. I lived through years of fear-mongering scare tactics about fire and brimstone. Countless sermons about the wrath of God and his intolerance for disbelief or even questioning. And a God that doesn't want you to question or keep an open mind, is in my mind a false god not worth my time!

 

I agree. I will also add that being closed minded on a subject is not in itself bad. If someone tells you the moon is made of green cheese and you refuse to believe them even though they have a signed affidavit from the Wisonsin cheese association, that is not bad.

It is also not bad to listen to the new data, analyze it, and then stick with your prior conclusion if the new data does not prove conclusive. But most of the time, conclusions reached upon the basis of facts are re-opened when new facts are presented. And then we come to a new conclusion. Which may not be radically different from the previous one, but shows that at least the person did entertain the additional data and came to a new, albeit minorly different, conclusion.

But one area that defies the definition, because it is not a conclusion based upon facts, is faith. Hard to say when anyone is being closeminded since there is no way to prove or disprove faith.

The best I can do is point out an analogy: The far left wing Liberals hate Bush so much that no matter what he does or says they will continue to hate him with a fire and passion beyond words till the end of time, Bush could end the war with a win, capture Bin Laden, have all the terror groups surrender, have gas prices down to 50 cents a gallon, have unemployment down to 1 percent and the far left wing Liberals would still hate his guts. That is closed minded!

Hear this:

You are all fake people and you deserve to not be treated with Christian kindness from our uber-Christian! And only three of you are worth meeting and worth Era's time!

Ugh. Seriously. I give up. I want nothing to do with Christians like you. THIS is the reason why people FLEE Christianity. This attitude...

I'm giving an example, not a thing.

Have I ever called anyone fake? Have I ever said that they don't deserve kindness? Socializing with, not meeting. Everyone's worth my time to me.

And I've never seen God disproved. If we lived in a world with no God, He would be disprovable.

Technically that would not be closed minded DrGuy. You see, in the end, if the person at least listens, takes into consideration the evidence and goes back to his own opinions and rethinks them, even if the conclusion remains the same, he at least considered it with an open mind. The proof provided just wasn't enough to convince him of it. But that is not what Erath does, and I have to believe you see it as well, since so many others here do.

Here is an example conversation of a person who can be open minded but may still not have his mind changed:

Person 1: I believe God exist because of my faith.

Person 2: I read in a book that God doesn't exist.

Person 1: I have a book that tells me he does because of this and that.

Person 2: I see, but what about the research this guy did where he believes, based on these things found that your book was man made?

Person 1: Well, just because the guy believes it was man mad does not mean it was. I would need more than just "I believe" as evidence. I chose to believe he does.

Person 2: True, I won't say I believe he exist because I don't have enough evidence to say he does, but then I don't have enough to say he doesn't.

Person 1: Maybe someday the truth will be revealed and maybe he does or doesn't exist. I chose to believe he does, until then that won't change.

Now, here is a conversation example with Erath:

Erath: God exist because it's what I believe.

Person 2: But I read he does not.

Erath: God exist.

Person 2: What if I could prove he does not?

Erath: That's impossible. God exist.

Person 2: Well here is my proof.

Erath: How do I know its real and not made up? How do I know you didn't just create it? People can make anything now a days. That's impossible. I refuse to believe your proof. God exist.

See the difference?



This is all most here want. A chance to be understood rather than be condemned as sinners by their faith. Heck, neither Erath, Lula or even KFC can truly go around screaming "sinners" while also saying "Did Jesus not say - He who is free of sin cast the first stone" as if somehow they are free of sin. From my understanding we are born sinners, so technically none of us have the right to judge anyone.



Actually one can be closed minded when it comes to faith because once you try to put your faith out as fact it stops being faith.

My biggest issue here is not whether Erath's faith based opinions are right or wrong, he has the right to believe what he want,it's that he does not give that same right to everyone else. "I am right, you are wrong, end of story" is his mentality. And that is what makes most people here boil. Heck even Lula and KFC are not as stubborn. they at least con see where one if coming from, to a point anyways.

Yes, it does sound like your husband.