If I go off to a university and I join clubs that promote my faith. If I associate almost exclusively with people of my own faith. Promote and work for national conferences on my own faith. Spend a majority of my time ether promoting my own faith or denigrating all others. Live my faith openly, do it daily, with great strength. Am I religious? Devout, maybe a zealot?
I believe in all good things, peace, love, mom and apple pie. I want everyone happy, well fed, and healthy. Now those other people (we all know who they are), well they disagree with me. They do not want these things for everyone. And they do not even have the courage to look us in the eyes and say “I want everyone except myself to be unhappy, poorly fed and unhealthy. Dead might even be good.”
Is that a thoughtful political or philosophical argument. Or would you call that an a personal attack on everyone who disagrees with me?
Look around you and see how closed your mind is. Do you believe that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, therefore evil? And you certainly would never listen to someone who is evil or deluded.
Comments (30)
The ability to have a civil conversation or debate from both sides of an issue seems to have disappeared. POOF!
personal attack.
reasonable and good people can disagree on almost everything.
i think dehumanizing another person or their position(s) is a weak minded way of trivializing their points
I don’t know… I don’t think it’s really a personal attack. Sometimes, we can read between the lines and see the truth in what they are saying. It does feel like a person is lieing and trying to take advantage. Hmm, very thought provoking. I’ll have to ponder on this …
I think that you said a lot of things that I have been trying to say lately, thanks.
People are pack animals, it’s natural for us to have stronger loyalty with those we identify with…doesn’t make it right to totally disregard those who are outside of our pack though.
If Christians were actually the narrow-minded monsters they get pegged as being the Left would have to put up or shut up because a) we’d be very violent, b) we’d actually own weapons, and c) we’d actually know how to use weapons.
Good thing we’re just inbred, stupid, myopic versions of evil – evil light?
Hahaha! Having been to University, and been part of clubs (non-religious). We thought most people agreed with us, but those who didn’t were “evil”, and “shouldn’t be allowed to participate”. Then of course I joined the real world, and realized the problem was me and those who thought most like me. Glad I escaped the narrow mindedness of the “Ivory Tower” set, despite their best efforts.
Well, I don’t personally believe I’m close minded.
Judgemental, and prejudice, but as long as I recognize that and see past it I’m fine with living that way.
I have definitely had moments when I’ve thought I was the only right one and everyone else was wrong until it occured to me that the only specifications for “right” and “wrong” were the ones I had personally set, so of course everyone else was wrong, nobody else was living like me!
So taking that into mind, whenever I feel superior to someone just because of a difference of lifestyle, I try to (because I’m not perfect) remember and act on knowing that everyone lives differently and how to best suit themselves, so just because we’re different doesn’t mean either one is better.
@JJ_Ames - HAHAHA… I think I’ve pointed that out more than once to people…
“I believe in all good things, peace, love, mom and apple pie. I want everyone happy, well fed, and healthy.”
I think all people who believe in these things, regardless of what group they belong to, need to work together.
@Jedi_Master_713 - Agreed but most people do want these things. We just have been convinced by those with a talent for polarizing people against each other. That it is all good vs evil when it is really just different ideas with the same goals
So many people are incapable of opening their minds and realizing there is something out there aside from their own little corners of the world. No one is completely right, and there is always room to grow and to learn. Those who refuse to accept this are beyond my understanding, as are those who immediately jump to the offensive anytime something else offers a point of view which differs. As Irish_Russian said, what happened to being able to hold a civil discussion, disagreeing without being ugly and having the ability to view something different?
I’m very open-minded. If you don’t agree with that you’re just plain wrong.
I love being open minded, but I am fearful if I am too open, my brain might just fall out
@RdKingClassic03 - Being open minded mined about the intentions of most of our foes. That is not the the same thing as accepting their ideas as good ones.
@trunthepaige - Oh, but you forget…being open minded isn’t the same thing it was when I was a child. Being open minded when I was a child meant you listened and considered what others thought and/or felt. Being open minded today is the same as total acceptance of and full promotion of others. If you are not accepting and do not promote the ideas of those who differ in their thinking, then you are closed minded. Gotta keep up with the PC lingo!!
@trunthepaige - Well said!
Props, yo.
Also you can’t take every absolute someone makes too seriously, especially on the internet. Close-minded isn’t the same as giving up on the belief the opposing side wants to help make progress any more.
@Bobby - Oh that defines a closed mind the other side is evil and mine is good
Whoa, sudden case of déjà vu. I could have sworn I’ve been in this exact moment three, maybe four times before.
@NikBv - Three I unintentionally put it on private for a while. I am not sure how long so I hit it again
personal attack.
Sounds more like a personal attack than anything.
i’m afraid of clubs that promotes religion.
@trunthepaige - If it is closed minded to perceive one as right and the opposition as evil. Doesn’t that define a religion and anyone who is religious then as a closed-minded person? Thats quite a lot of people to condemn.
@Bobby - Could be though my faith does not consider none Christians evil or any people to be of a lessor sort. Things can be evil paths can be evil actions evil. But indentions I can’t know them. There may be a faith like that, I just do not know it for a fact.
@trunthepaige - Hmm, false. Christianity says only Christians can get into Heaven. That makes everyone else lesser by saying they for whatever reason aren’t good enough. That is quite the lesser sort. Unless you are of a universalist religion, you’re right and everyone else is wrong.. and hence, closed minded as you said.
I’d prefer someone be pretty sure they’re right before they do anything. I don’t want my doctor to dose me up with some meds if he believes he could be wrong about the diagnosis. If a priest was preaching me the gospel, I’d better hope he was certain it was true. In both cases, per your logic, that makes the doctor and the priest closed-minded.
You mean only people who want to be with God for eternity get to do so. It’s called unmerited grace. It has nothing to do with superiority.
Sure you are right is not the same as assuming those who disagree are evil.
Cheers, ty for posting this;)