In terms of spirtuality, why do people jump to the opposite ends of the spectrum? ?

Question

There are some seriously fundamentalist religion zealots, and there are some evolution (na-na-na-i'm not listening!) protagonists. At what point do you see the validity of the other side of the argument?

Answer 1

If you're open mined enough, you can see any subject from the opposite point of view, even if you don't agree with it.  Those who jump sides either see the light, or were never very commited in their belief in the first place.

Answer 2

When they are expressed in a manner that makes abstract concepts easily understandable. Language is so often the block to understanding and it often just requires the willingness to see multiple perspectives without becoming defensive.

Answer 3

I don't really understand your question, but I think that MOST people don't just jump to opposite ends - most people are in the middle somewhere. The religious nutters are relatively rare (compared to the entire population) and there will always be people with the opposite opinion - it's the way humans are. Everyone will never agree on one thing and there will always be opinions across a whole spectrum with some people believing the opposite of what others believe.

I think if people are certain enough that they are right then they will never see that the opposite argument holds some validity. You can't get a complete athiest to admit that there may be some truth in the existance of God, because that isn't what they believe. And you can't get an insane christian who takes the story of creation literally to admit that evolution makes a lot of sense.

People are stubborn and they always think they're right.

Answer 4

When talking about the very foundation of beliefs, for a great many it has to be an all or nothing proposition.  What good is believing if you do not believe that yours is the RIGHT one?

Answer 5

Knowledge leads to understanding just why Deity from time to time gives man an up dated knowledge. Such an event was the life of Jesus, a new Revelation to mankind. As with all information it can be used and assimilated or it can be rejected.

Do not overlook the value of your spiritual heritage, the river of truth running down through the centuries, even to the barren times of a materialistic and secular age. In all your worthy efforts to rid yourselves of the superstitious creeds of past ages, make sure that you hold fast the eternal truth. But be patient! when the present superstition revolt is over, the truths of Jesus' gospel will persist gloriously to illuminate a new and better way.

As with the life of Jesus there is another attempt at Revelation. The Urantia Papers. The papers, of which this is one, constitute the most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia. These papers differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings. But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia. http://www.urantia.org/papers/paper92.ht...

Note: Urantia an ancient name for Earth..

Answer 6

It's due to the fundamental split in the mind of mankind.  The two aspects of the mind, the logical, differentiating, masculine side and the emotional, relating, feminine side, have become split off from one another.  So we have become severely polarized in all aspects of our thought.  Like politically: every person has an innate orientation--some are progressive, some conservative.  Both orientations have their function.  Society requires both moving forward and the maintenance of the working parts of what already exists; this is the natural order of things.  And in a balanced society, everyone has some of both functions; most will just naturally favor one or the other.   But because our minds our split, we have become severely polarized into right and left, and the two sides are at war with each other.  We're severely unbalanced.  And each side sees the unbalanced position of the other side and reacts by becoming more extreme in its own position.  It's an attempt to create a balance, but it just makes things more unbalanced.  It's the same in the spiritual sphere.

So it's not just the fundamentalist religious zealots who have become extreme; their counterparts, the atheistic/scientific-types, have also.  

We see the validity of the other side of the argument only by healing the split in the mind, which allows us to access those parts of ourselves that we have pushed away.  Because when we polarize, we actually disown parts of ourselves that are opposite to the positions that we identify as ours.  The liberal shuts out the aspects of himself that are conservative.  That ends up being an awful lot of oneself that gets disowned.  When the split is healed, one sees the positive side of the opposite viewpoint, the good intention behind it, and not just the negative side of it.  Then it seems quite obvious what the others were about.  I mean, imagine the fundamentalists actually understanding where the atheists are coming from and not just having a knee-jerk reaction of making them wrong--seeing that the atheists' extreme position is partly a function of the extremity of the fundamentalists' own position.  And vice-versa.