Mayonaise wrote:
I'd be willing to say that this closedmindedness is a direct result of religion, mainly because you're taught that your views are right and everyone else is going to hell.
My belief is that those who honestly search for, and arrive at, a personal truth and spirituality are all right. Buddhists? Yep. Muslims? You bet. Christians? Check. Hindus and Jews and Mormons, oh my. And, if you've given yourself a chance to open up to these things, and found that none of them sway you, then believing in none of them is fine, and a kind of spirituality, imo. Closedmindedness is dismissing something as untrue because it differs from what you think, especially when you don't even know what it is, for certain. The biggest problem with most religions are the loud-mouths, the violent and, yes, the closedminded among them who get the most press, and make people hate them. But loud-mouths, violence and closedmindedness aren't restricted to the religious. I kind of follow the thinking of Gandhi on this subject:
“For me, the different religions
are beautiful flowers from the same garden,
or they are branches of the same majestic tree.
Therefore, they are equally true,
though being received and interpreted
through human instruments equally imperfect.”