To be Open Minded

What is exactly opening your mind to new thoughts? Some say certain people are very open while others are closed, some believe a person's thoughts will change or not depending on how they live, what they choose and their beliefs (be it religious or not).

But is this true? Can someone be closed minded by just believing certain things? Or could people who believed earth was plain still have wide open thoughts? Let's analyze this, consider all of this my thoughts on this subject.

As a God-devoted person, I've been through so much debate and witnessed many clashed between believers and non-believers, sometimes there were great questions to be asked, other times... Just a bunch of radical idiots that would death-threat each other, but in every single case there was this problem that bothered me: why do non-believers and atheist in general call believers "closed minded people"?

It was not too hard to figure, through the passage of time I did understand that many radical Christians would mess it up and say things that were either too harsh or too absurd, like the classic "you'll go to hell" argument-period, these things would make everyone else think believers do nothing but scold other people and follow a bunch of strict rules that wouldn't let you do things like hanging out with friends unless they were believers or even listen to rock music, if you really think about this, it's not only going too far strict, but also ironically promoting a way of racism.

I do not blame them all though, they've been taught these things by some church leaders, leaders that were also taught the same thing by who-knows-who (because God didn't say "do not listen to rock or hang out with non-believers") and since people nowadays in religion just blindly believe what others say and never really wonder "is this guy sure what he's sayin'?" then in general they just don't act the way a Christian is often supposed to, especially when so much people out there manipulate the crowds via religion.

And this is how they call us closed minded, but wait... Isn't blind faith what's supposed to define a believer? Who and what are we supposed to believe then to stop being fooled by centuries of misguided tradition? What am I implying? Simple: question your knowledge.

When I was a non-believer, I had a burning, scientist spirit; I would ask myself about everything, from simple things like why the sky is blue, to wonders like the meaning of existence itself, and when I was asked to tell if religion and creationism had more logic than science, I obviously embraced science. I watched countless documentaries and read about so many scientists books and articles that I was in love and even decided to study biology...

And then one day I became a believer, I just can't explain how or what happened after what I went through, but my perspective of everything changed, yet it didn't really take away my love for science, actually I started to mix everything I knew, wonder about everything I'd know about God and science and often ask myself “what is true anymore?" because everyone would warn me that science and religion would never team work, and they weren't obviously team working in my head at the moment.

But with the time and teachings I grew to love God and its ways so much that, whenever I would question everything I knew, I wouldn't just throw the absurd away without investigation first; I became a researcher, a student of God and nature, for many years, until I figured out many fascinating theories and things science hardly thinks about and most believers would skin me alive if I said.

But this fact leaded me to a sad conclusion... That Christians know little about their past and original culture, and that non-believers only know what these Christians know, what do they know? God will punish you; devil is a red monster with a trident and spiky tail; heaven is in the sky; God hates homosexual people; bad people go to hell... And because of this, scientists often battle them with phrases like science proves there is no God; creationism is impossible in 7 days; God is not observable therefore he doesn't exist... when these are actually statements that also lack of evidence.

We're both lost in a sea of deaf arguments that are not willing to listen to each other.

Who's the closed minded individual? Neither scientists nor believers; each person decides what and how they believe, it depends of what you're willing to accept that defines if you're an open book or a locked door; you can be a scientist and believe in God, and I personally think it's an open minded attitude since it takes guts to mix creationism with scientist theories, which creates new possibilities we must consider, even going around and not being ashamed of what you believe, since if you're not an atheist or a traditional believer, both sides will want to kill you.

Being open minded, in my opinion, is being willing to consider other words and not just yours; if you're a Christian or else, I'm not saying you should question God, I'm saying question what you KNOW about God, as long as you have perseverance and enough faith, there's nothing wrong in questioning things like "why does God allow suffering?" "why do people die if God is good?" and such, if you're willing enough to know and you don't just say "I suppose God must not exist because of that" I guarantee you, you will find good answers that will show you we're not thinking enough out of the box. Same goes to non-believers, since Christians most of times fail to correctly represent God's thoughts, sometimes doing research yourself, willing to find more answers instead of doing it for your own's belief justification.

To finish up with, let's remember that being open minded doesn't mean that if someone tells you flying pigs exist you're going to believe it instantly; each person and belief has barriers and basic standards that let you define who you are; if you know tomatoes exist, you have no reason to question tomatoes, but you can question if all tomatoes are red and round. It's like saying that if your faith makes sure God exists, you have no reason to question its existence, but you can question your knowledge about God, it's important to have standards as they build up our character, believer or non-believer, parameters don’t make you closed minded, believer or not... My thought.

Non-believers must remember that even though we, humans, have managed to start understanding the universe, we still know almost nothing about it, and all we know are the things we have discovered, while all of the things that remain unproven are often thrown away or attacked because they break not the laws of nature, but the laws that we, humans, made.

Believers must remember that God is not understandable, therefore we can't limit him to the bible, even if the bible describes what God is, it's nothing but the surface of a deep ocean; there are infinite things yet to know that science can help to understand, and there are still so many moral situations, dilemmas and mysteries that we can't always judge if something is wrong or right even when it's apparently clear; is killing bad when you do it to save a life? Is giving money away good when you're just doing it to get something back?