Old Navy - Beliefs are personal and only we ourselves can decide when we will modify them or change them. Efforts by others to change minds are an exercise in futility.
But some things aren't just beliefs. Evolution contains evidence. That evidence contradicts the Biblical account of creation, the flood, etc., which requires little more than belief to hold to.
I also disagree with the part in bold above. Efforts by others to change minds are not futile if one is open minded and searching for truth and the other comes with factual evidence. I'm trying to be open minded here and to understand evolution. Many here have brought evidence for me to look at and to think about. The reason I'm asking questions in the first place is because efforts by others to change minds has finally got through to me.
I do agree with the assertion in bold in one respect though. Most aren't actually open minded. Look at Fisherman above. He's been here for well over a decade getting shut down over and over with facts, at times even his own arguments, and yet he's still here peddling much of the same stuff. Maybe he's changed in ways, I don't know, but if you can ultimately come here day in and day out and get into arguments from a pro-JW stance and on the same things over and over, and never think that there might just be a chance that you're dead wrong with so many great arguments being thrust at you, then what are you doing? If you can be in an environment like this very site and you come out the end like you entered in the beginning, something is wrong with you. People here are constantly challenging and questioning long held beliefs of others, but most others aren't willing to set aside their emotions and to do the hard work of challenging where they stand. It hurts to do so.
I couldn't stand Cofty (sorry Cofty, my apologies) when I came here. I found him abrasive and disagreed vehemently with him on a few subjects. I literally just asked him for his input on this subject. Why? Because I've changed over time on here. I've come to have great respect for him. I also think he's mellowed out a bit in ways, or maybe I'm just not as fragile as I was when I first came here. I don't know. Either way I like Cofty a lot and appreciate his posts. Maybe we both changed over time. People that are looking for the best explanations of things, the best ways of doing things to be effective, typically do. Others just stick to their guns and do the same things over and over again expecting different results this time (like going into a person's post about evolution while espousing their god stuff for some odd reason), and we all know what that's the definition of according to some.
My wife was going through my Facebook profile today and stumbled upon one of the first posts that I ever made on there. It was this pro-creationism rant. I thought I knew it all. There was one video in this very thread that I have seen before that I got to see this time with open eyes. I wasn't ready for it when I saw it before and criticized it because I wasn't honest enough and open enough to grasp what it was saying. I was still holding on to long held beliefs that I needed to hold on to at the time. Now I'm strong enough not to need those things anymore.
