One of my first reasons for quitting JW, was the notion that you should only 'research' within the appropriate literature, and not listen to opposing views. I thought "If what I've got is the Truth, shouldn't it hold up to any scrutiny?" Of course, I was aware that I couldn't possibly know everything there was to know within my religion or about the universe, so there was a possibility that I could be influenced by 'bad thoughts', but on the other hand I knew that if I had the Truth, at least I should be able to examine the Bible and our own literature afterwords and find the correct answers to those 'bad thoughts' that had influenced me, if that happened.
If we all sit in our own little bubbles with no outside views coming in, we're just patting each other on the back and won't learn anything. This goes for believers and atheists/agnostics alike. I consider myself an atheist, but if someone could convince me otherwise, that would be great. I'm not easy to convince though, I'll admit that.
I've seen some threads lately by Christians here, but I've decided not to 'interfere' in them (I have read them, though), because I remember how much my faith used to mean to me. I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, but I don't want to always have to be the "cold, hard, heartless" atheist trying to destroy other people's faith. Not that I would succeed in doing so, but you know - it's no fun always "having" to attack other's belief because I disagree. I'm really mostly a nice guy. And even an atheist can see and appreciate beauty in nature, btw. :-)
Usually, I would say that people won't change their views because of discussions on internet forums, and for the most part this is true, but I think we all have to be open to the possibility that that might happen. It happened to me (not solely by what others said on forums of course, but the research that the discussions resulted in). If we're literally afraid that our views might change because of the influence of others, maybe we need to think long and hard about our beliefs.
