[Frooxius]

Hello! I would like to share with you another article I wrote and hope for some intelligent debate :-) This time it's on atheists/science being called close-minded.

Are atheists and the scientific method really close minded? (click to read on my blog!)

One of the common retort of believers of various unsupported claims is that science or atheists are close minded and should open their mind. I would like to demonstrate that it’s actually the opposite.

“You need to open your mind to other things”, “Science just blinds you to all the other possibilities” or “You need to have open mind in order to accept god” are some of the things you can hear from many people who are proponents of various religious or supernatural ideas when countered with questioning or rejection of their claims.

They attempt to stick “close-minded” label on people who don't believe in what they do without sufficient evidence and claim that rationality and science close people’s eyes to all the other stuff that’s out there.

But is it really the case? Does science make you blind? Is being rational, logical and seeking for evidence really closing your mind? I say no and I would like to explain why. In fact, I would actually go as far as push the “close-minded” label on the people who spout it out so fervently when their supernatural beliefs are criticized.

Science isn't a closed thing that determined the nature of reality and closed to anything else. It’s a method of examining and understanding the world we live in with many properties that make it very reliable: it gives us results and understanding of various phenomena that we can use to build technology, medicines, cures and many other advances of our society that just work, which should be a testament to how great is the grasp of the science on reality.

But, as many other people argue, it doesn’t know everything. It’s humble enough to admit that. And from that stems its open-mindedness. It continuously seeks for new answers, ways to improve the existing ones or in some cases even replace with much better and more precise answers supported by evidence. It evaluates the world from all angles and searches for the best explanation available, if any and if it can’t find any, it’s honest about it and says “I don't know”, often adding hopeful “yet”.

And that’s what’s being open-minded is about: You have to be open to all the options and all the answers. However open-mindedness alone isn't enough. We also need critical examination, logic and careful reasoning, to examine and experimentally test the answers. The truth is singular, anything else is mistruth to various degree from mild incorrectness to blatant falsehoods.

And that singular truth is what science seeks, it tries to get as close to it as possible and eliminate all the falsehoods and as many incorrect things as possible. Science and scientists need to be open-minded enough to the various answers, but also rational enough to analyze how truthful they are and how well they explain what is really happening.

If they were really close-minded, science wouldn’t work well. The search for new answers would be difficult and progress very slow. Things wouldn't work and we wouldn’t advance technologically, medically and so on.

And that’s exactly what happens with the proponents of supernatural phenomena. They find an answer they like and they stick with it, no matter what. They close their minds to all the other possible answers, maybe because they aren't pleasant and comforting as they would wish them to be, which of course has no bearing on their truthfulness.

These people reject any naturalistic explanations of things they deem supernatural, even if these answers are clearly demonstrated and experimentally verified. They close their minds to anything that doesn't fit in their world. They become close-minded themselves to the point, where when they can't counter any arguments against their answers they start throwing “close-minded” labels at the people, just to stop the criticism or perhaps just queries for any actual evidence.

If you're being rational and use science and scientific method to examine the world, you have no need to use such labels to “win” an argument. You have a reason to believe something. You are open-minded to consider the possibilities, but also think critically enough to eliminate ones that have little reason believing in.

The point is, you're not closed to these reasons in believing in given answer, you're just waiting for the other side to actually provide them.

[Nailo]

What has provoke you to become a more open atheist? i do recall you being a bit more close about this.

[xevenofhearts]

I'm a Christian myself, and I used to question God like you cannot imagine, there's not a damn bit of proof for his existence, but in the end, I just had faith that's all. Recently I've been spending less time on forums, less time on the internet, less time texting people, and even changed a lot of my beliefs and I guess philosophies in which I live by to a more old school style. Much more conservative I guess. Simple but straight up true beliefs. Here's the thing about science that I've noticed; it gives people some sort of insignificant proof to grasp and use for themselves (not saying Atheists do this specifically). For people who support abortion (completely disagree) , they've looked to science to tell them that yeah the baby isn't technically born, so you're not technically killing it. But here's the thing, take a step back; if you didn't kill the child it might do something great. The closer you look, the less you see. Not to say you shouldn't go into detail and learn, but you've got to get the whole picture first. Science pretty much goes into so much detail that they often miss the point. Scientists finding that at a certain age the baby ain't alive, is pretty much useless information. I don't care if the heart's beatin' or not, at one point it could've been, and they could've done something great. But the scientist said it wasn't technically alive...

The field of science practically has an entire community trying to disprove that there was ever a God. Faith is believing even though you have no reason to.

To apply faith to something I know quite well... Faith is like losing a football (american) 21-0 in the 4th quarter, going 3 and out every drive, but still believing that you can do something with the ball with 2 minutes left. You have no reason to believe that you can do anything, but you've got faith. If you sat there and looked at the stats and decided it was "simply impossible" you're pretty much just giving up. You've missed the point and by now you've lost the game.

[Frooxius]

@FueledByRamen: Because Idiots. Idiots everywhere!

On more serious note it's not just about atheism (there are some atheists that are absolute lunatics and crazy people), but reason, rationalism, skepticism and other things that have to do with science and rational thinking.

As my interest in various fields of science grew and I began searching for various resources - books, lectures, podcast and learning more, my appreciation of it grew. I also found many Richard Dawkins' videos and documents and found about his "Out campaign", which encourages atheists to become more open and help promoting reason, science and rational thought.

And that's exactly what I want to do :-)

Also one of the reasons is actually related to what I said at the beginning: Very ignorant and uninformed people, or people who use logical fallacies and various dirty tricks to manipulate others. Irrational thought often leads to irrational behavior which can (and in many cases has) bad consequences.

One of the things I want to do then is to promote reason and encourage/teach people to be as reasonable as possible (of course people are always going to be stupid about something, but the idea is to reduce that to minimum), make better decisions and lead to well functioning society.

Also decrease the risk of being manipulated by other people, since the dirty tricks and logical fallacies they use can often sound very compelling to uninformed people.

[unnamed]

What does the word "atheist" even mean?
I'm just a normal person who didn't choose to believe in something imaginary people or groups of people created.

[unnamed]

Here's the thing about science that I've noticed; it gives people some sort of insignificant proof to grasp and use for themselves (not saying Atheists do this specifically).

It's not proof, it's evidence.

For people who support abortion (completely disagree)

To avoid any confusion atheists isn't a group that always shares the same views.In fact it isn't a group at all.

The field of science practically has an entire community trying to disprove that there was ever a God

This is completely wrong, science happens to contradict with God, nobody is trying to disprove God.

If you sat there and looked at the stats and decided it was "simply impossible" you're pretty much just giving up.

The difference in your example is that the game is up to you to win or not.

Scientists finding that at a certain age the baby ain't alive, is pretty much useless information.

That's stating a fact, they never said we should abort.




And my question to you, why do you need to be in an organized religion to believe in God?

[Coder-san]

Perhaps it has little in relation to the topic, but I'd take this opportunity to say something about agnostics.
I'm an agnostic. I'm all ears.

While I don't believe religion or Gods or things those books tell me, believing in a greater good (faith) helps calm your mind. It's not something to rely on imo, but I believe in truth because it helps me be good and do good regardless of anything which may come.
The idea of a supreme being doesn't matter to me because it shouldn't.
For me if there is a God he would never help you, because then you'll stop relying on self.
He couldn't care less if he is being prayed to or not, if he is really good then he won't like the attention.
If there is a God he would never let the world know of his existence, so it doesn't really matter there is one or not.

Finally, consider your life a job and do it honestly. Don't worry about supervision.

[unnamed]

Finally, consider your life a job and do it honestly. Don't worry about supervision.

I completely disagree with this.
We need to question things, doesn't matter if it's politics/religion/life/etc .Getting sucked into it and forgetting about your life is different.

[Coder-san]

Finally, consider your life a job and do it honestly. Don't worry about supervision.

I completely disagree with this.
We need to question things, doesn't matter if it's politics/religion/life/etc .Getting sucked into it and forgetting about your life is different.

Yes, knowledge is important. But this is like Egg first or Chicken. You are welcome to disagree with it.

Much like the ending of Inception the movie.

Spoiler:

It isn't shown if the top falls or not, and the camera moves to the happy family reunion. Nor was Leonardo interested in knowing, because it didn't matter if it was real or not.

[unnamed]

Finally, consider your life a job and do it honestly. Don't worry about supervision.

I completely disagree with this.
We need to question things, doesn't matter if it's politics/religion/life/etc .Getting sucked into it and forgetting about your life is different.

Yes, knowledge is important. But this is like Egg first or Chicken. You are welcome to disagree with it.

Much like the ending of Inception the movie.

Spoiler:

It isn't shown if the top falls or not, and the camera moves to the happy family reunion. Nor was Leonardo interested in knowing, because it didn't matter if it was real or not.

Wait I now can't agree or disagree with your post, I haven't watched Inception yet...