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You cannot be a scientist without being open-minded about the world.

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I'm not going to pretend I understand why he diverged, but I'm sure he either had reasons to believe his model better predicted and explained the universe, or he was biased and there for non-scientific in his beliefs.

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But he was a scientist and he was not open to accepting that the big bang fit the evidence better than his theory. So don't flat out state that "scientists can't be close minded".

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That doesn't mean he was closed-minded...It just means he really thought his model fit better.  

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

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Yeah you're just not getting it are you?

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"Which means that you will listen to anything that has reasonable evidence and accept it as truth"

Post edited at 5:49 pm on July 8, 2009 by Forever Angel

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"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 7:45 pm on July 8, 2009

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But he was a scientist and he was not open to accepting that the big bang fit the evidence better than his theory. So don't flat out state that "scientists can't be close minded".

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That doesn't mean he was closed-minded...It just means he really thought his model fit better.

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Quote: from Praise the Lard at 6:50 pm on July 8, 2009

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Yeah you're just not getting it are you?

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Getting what? That you're a close minded anti-theist?

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Did you watch the video?  

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 8:47 pm on July 8, 2009

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Quote: from Praise the Lard at 6:50 pm on July 8, 2009

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Yeah you're just not getting it are you?

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Getting what? That you're a close minded anti-theist?

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Did you watch the video?

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If you consider a possibility then you are open minded. you needn't necessarily accept that it is plausible. One can deny that something is valid, and still be called open-mined.

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

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Just wondering, because you seem to still be misusing closed-minded...

If you consider a possibility then you are open minded. you needn't necessarily accept that it is plausible. One can deny that something is valid, and still be called open-mined.

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It is not closed minded to accept something without evidence, IMO. It is, however, closed minded to reject scientific truth claims on faulty premises.

That is to say:

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If I reject that God exists, it is because the lack of evidence leads me to believe that no such being exists; not only that, but several logical arguments seem to show that the idea is in itself flawed. Thus, I decide that god probably doesn't exist. I am open to the idea that at some point a whole mess of evidence will fall from the heavens and convince me otherwise; but as it stands, I feel justified in my claims.

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however:

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I hold the belief that God exists, without evidence [**note: this is ok, so far**] I reject X scientific claims because they seem to conflict with my unsupported beliefs. I do not find a flaw in the claims themselves, or in the supportive evidence; but on the grounds that if they are the case then something is amiss with my beliefs, and I believe that that is not the case

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Close minded: Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas.

Open minded: Receptive to new and different ideas or the opinions of others.

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"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

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I think some people are ignorant of the actual meanings of these terms...  

Close minded: Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas.  

Open minded: Receptive to new and different ideas or the opinions of others.

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those are not the definitions. Open mindedness is the willingness to consider new ideas. You can wind up rejecting them after some study. It only says that you can't reject them outright. refer to my last post.

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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.It's the transition
that's troublesome.   --Isaac Asimov

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No. Rejection of truth claims after consideration of evidence is open minded.  

It is not closed minded to accept something without evidence, IMO. It is, however, closed minded to reject scientific truth claims on faulty premises.  

That is to say:  

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If I reject that God exists, it is because the lack of evidence leads me to believe that no such being exists; not only that, but several logical arguments seem to show that the idea is in itself flawed. Thus, I decide that god probably doesn't exist. I am open to the idea that at some point a whole mess of evidence will fall from the heavens and convince me otherwise; but as it stands, I feel justified in my claims.

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is a very open-minded position

however:

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I hold the belief that God exists, without evidence [**note: this is ok, so far**] I reject X scientific claims because they seem to conflict with my unsupported beliefs. I do not find a flaw in the claims themselves, or in the supportive evidence; but on the grounds that if they are the case then something is amiss with my beliefs, and I believe that that is not the case

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IS closed minded.

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