Having an open mind doesn't mean thinking all possibilities are equally likely. It means being willing to consider new ideas if the evidence supports them.... and to give up old ideas if the evidence is against them. And that's just as true for atheists as it is for anyone else. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across. ~ Greta Christia's Blog
When I discover a problem that I feel is important enough to make a decision about I enter into with an open mind. I try hard to find all the information about this problem and weigh the pros with the cons. Sometimes I change my mind and sometimes I don't. The point where I get to where I've made a decision with some degree of certainty my mind is made up, closed if you will. That doesn't mean I won't change my mind if new evidence is revealed, it simply means that I'm prepared to argue my side and stand my ground. I feel this way about gay rights, women's rights, human rights, death penalty, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.
2 comments:
There are some open and close-minded atheists and some open and some closed-minded religious people.
Examples of each can be found.
If you look at some of the comments here they display anti-religious bias. Such as the people telling a student to watch out for religious people trying to kill him because he is an atheist after he pointed out how open and welcoming the people on his campus are.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ac5gv/hey_ratheism_what_advice_would_you_give_a/?sort=controversial
Anonymous:
While I agree with your opening statement 100% that is not what this post is about. Religious people (in my experience) tend to dismiss us as closed minded because they assume that we came to our worldview because we don't want to be moral. This is simply not the case as most of us struggled with the existence of god for years before we decided on our atheism.
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