開放的心態是學習的前提
 

安逸性與開放思想之間的差異就像是懦弱與真實之間的差異。開放心態就是坦誠面對真實，而封閉的心靈使得無論什么真理都行不通，因此它也可能堅持錯見。去真實地開放心態，我們必須放棄我們父母的宗教，拒絕我們的寶貴信仰。舒適和安逸是誘惑，好過是受不確定性的苦痛以及失去身份的瘋狂。所以我們要對堅實的基礎和深刻的真理抱著開放的心態。封閉狹隘的心靈懼怕現實，可我們需要現實，因此，狹隘的心靈也是崇拜死亡的另一種形式，它否定了我們的需要，開放的心靈讓我們接納外星人，使得我們發現其他人發現不了的東西，這就是恐懼與愛，生與死的區別。
 

封閉的心靈并不是對知識淵博的人的一種標簽，那是我們所謂的無知，封閉的心靈就是的有意的無知，不愿看到什么擺在他們面前和不愿看到他是什么。
 

An Open Mind is a Prerequisite for Learning 

 

The difference between comfort and open-mindedness is the difference between cowardliness and truthfulness. The mind that is open is open to the truth, whereas the close mind invents whatever truth it is comfortable with, so that it may persist in its delusions. To be truly open-minded, we must renounce the religion of our parents, and deny our cherished beliefs. Comfort is seduction. Better it is to suffer the pains of uncertainty, and the insanity of lost identity, so that we might open our minds to a firmer foundation, a deeper truth. Close-mindedness is afraid of reality. We need reality. Therefore, close-mindedness is a form of death worship. It denies our needs. Open-mindedness allows us to embrace the alien and discover what others will not discover. The distinction is between fear and love; life and death. 

 

Close mindedness is not a label for people who are not knowledgeable. That is what we call ignorance. Close-mindedness is willful ignorance, the unwillingness to see what is before them, and the unwillingness to see it for what it is. Close-mindedness is a form of dishonesty and fear. So yes, the position of the open minded is so right, for they are also open to criticism, and so they will have the greatest chance of being right. Any evidence they can get, they do get. Wisdom rejoices in rebuke. So to do the open minded consider insults, criticisms, and rejoinders very carefully. A close-minded person will consider an insult. He will not entertain the notion that he is wrong. Given that we are all wrong on some issue at all times, the close-minded man makes this chronic. He is stuck in infancy. 

 

As for your argument that close-minded people are better able to act, because they are sure, you are making the assumption that open-minded people are paralyzed by their acknowledgement of uncertainty. Far from it. Where the close-minded are comfortable with self-certainty, the open-minded are comfortable with uncertainty. They enjoy the instability of growth, which gives greater stability as they mature. You said there is no greater benefit then life then to be sure of your position. This is only true if your position is correct. If you are sure there is no hell, but there is one, your so-called benefit is your doom. Only the open minded have the right to be sure about any matter, for their knowledge is based on critical thinking, vigorous analysis, thorough questioning, and the consideration of positive and negative evidence. Now if the open minded do not have enough information, but have to make a decision, they will make the best decision they can. They are not paralyzed. Merely because open-minded people prefer to know as much as possible before making a decision does not, as you say, make them just like close-minded people. In fact, it makes them completely unlike close-minded people. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

What bizarre extremes you propose: the insanity of open-mindedness on one end, and the hate of close-mindedness on the. Yet open-minded people may hate, when hate is called for, and close-minded people may be insane. What is open-mindedness? Open-minded people are open to new information, and close-minded are closed off to new information. Open-mindedness and close-mindedness are two choices that only an adult can make. Children are necessarily open-minded so that they can learn and mature. As we become adults, we have already adapted our main habits and personality traits, our thinking habits and belief habits. Here comes the crux. The moment we value a comfortable lie over the painful truth, we commit the intellectual sin that corrupts reason and common sense. It is against common sense. 

 

The close-minded man lives by his unchanging habits, and forces all new information and new situations to conform to his ideals and images of the world. He will not and cannot fundamentally change. Sometimes a new situation demands that he changes at least superficially, and at such times he does so, with much pain and anguish. A close-minded democrat may admit to the fallibility of his party if the democratic politician were to denounce his pastor. Here he must change his habits of belief regarding either his church or his political party. You see now that close-mindedness is parasite to open-mindedness, for to remain closed off to new information, we must change enough to live. Yet even here, the close-minded man may lie about the problem, and spend as little time thinking about it as possible. No, close-minded people do not have common sense, and for them it is impossible. They can only use common sense when common sense agrees with their opinions and preconceived beliefs. If commons sense prodded them to change, grow, renounce, or sacrifice, they would declare it folly, and not see it as common sense. Close-mindedness itself is a denial of common sense; for it is obvious that openness to new ideas is good. Only the open-minded are capable of common sense, when it suits their preconceived ideas, and when it refutes their preconceived ideas. The reason that close-minded people are prone to hate is because they are afraid of innovation and change, and these fears lead to anger, and this anger leads to hate. You see then how unreasonableness leads to wrongful hate. 

 

As your other dangerous extreme, you say that open-minded people go off into bizarre thinking directions beyond reason. To go beyond what I now think is reasonable is to dare for new truths. Your dangerous extreme sounds appealing. It is by no means insanity. For we must assume that just as the open-minded man is open to experimental ideas, he is also open to common sense and sensibility, and will live by common sense. Since he is wise, he will choose the reasonable, but first he experiments to see all the options, deciding from all the data what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. It is commons sense that we grow through experimentation. It is also commons sense that we protect ourselves from dangerous experimentation. Since the open-minded man is open to common sense as well as experimentation, he will put everything into context. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

Therefore, a man cannot be too open-minded, for the more open-minded he is, the more he will be open-minded to common sense. The close-minded man, who sees the world as comfortable as possible, will use common sense when it fits him, and will deny that common sense is common sense when it does not fit him. He will not admit to error or change his fundamental flaws. A man cannot be too open-minded, but if he is too close-minded, he will be blinded to life, and will thus kill himself.