Has your opinion ever changed?

El_Presidente

I have been reading and posting to these boards for a very long time now and have been thinking...

Has anyone here ever joined a (serious) thread with a partucular opinion or point of view and been presented with an arguement which caused them to rethink their position on the issue?

It struck me today when I read that post on drugs. I was wondering if one side was really reading the others posts or just looking for something to fling back at each other?

I dont want to drag up that debate again, I am just asking did anyone go into the thread with an open enough mind to change their opinions or did you all just go into thinking "I'm RIGHT! and THIS is why..."

If you dont learn anything or aren't even open to learning anything why would spend all that time reading and replying to posts?

Ok, rant over.

//A humble quake nerd.

Blitzkrieger

Dunno

I know on some issues that I wasn't too well informed on I formed my opinion on the arguments posted.

Take it

nah never changed my opinion but it has opened my eyes to how other peoiple view it and how they come to there views.

Paladin

Well, it has in the technology and quake forums. On the more political/philosophical debates in humanities, no, I cant say that any thread has ever changed my mind. Enlightened me in some cases, but I dont recall a drastic change of opinion.

TwoShedsJackson

One thing recently on which my general opinion changed was the thread about the Moon landing.

I never used give so much as a nanosecond's thought to doubting that man landed on the Moon.

Having seen the photos and so on there and at various other sources I am now firmly in the 'can't be sure but definitely on the Didn't Land' side.

Changing peoples opinions on issues of morals and so on is nigh on impossible in debate. Change in such areas usually only comes about through life experience.

Clintons Cat

well i found out americans are better informed than the european press would have us believe.
I cant...think of a situation where my opinion has changed but posting on forums helps me to draw from what i have learnt from various sources to either reinforce my opinion or moderate it in someway.

neuro-praxis

*an irrelevant sidenote on satanism* (sorry andy )

It is not widely accepted because it was set up as a mockery of Christianity - we all know it has nothing to do with sacrificing goats. But, it is *not* a faith - it is a system. There is no leap of faith required to be a Satanist, as all it entails is belief in nothing but the self, and self-indulgence. The fact that they named themselves after the personification of evil in the world seems like a bad move to me...? They are also big into revenge, a bad natural impulse in people.

So anyway, I just wanted to mention that, carry on here.

---

Give me back my towel. I'll sue.

Excelsior

i thought this would be a much more interesting topic if it concerned itself, as i first thought it did, with whether some people ever changed their opinions.

my opinions have never been changed on boards.ie
but they are regularly challenged and have sometimes been changed on other bulletin boards like chickclick.com

Hobbes

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Clintons Cat:
well i found out americans are better informed than the european press would have us believe.</font>

ROFLMAO

El_Presidente

Phil (Gerry) no I think my opinions have never really been changed, which shows that I am just as guilty as everyone else of this.

That was the question I was asking, I was only useing the drugs thread as an example.

My personal opinion (not that it matters to this thread) is that in any kind of long term situation drugs (to varying degrees) will mess you up. This would include alcohol although I will be the first to admit that I drink just as much as anyone.

The point I was trying to make though is that if you do just come to a discussion (in the "real" world or on these boards) and aren't open to change then all you will ever get out of them is a big ego trip.

Clintons Cat

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Hobbes:
ROFLMAO</font>

Hmmm....LAIABDBH.

azezil

well i for 1 am always open to change, eg. a few weeks ago i had a conversation about religion wit a girl who had total 'blind faith' couldn't be convinced otherwise, a satanist!! n myself who doesn't believe in ne thing!

i must say i had alot of misconceptions about satanism, its a bit (bit!!) rough n different, but its truer to life.! (probably cause its continually changeing) but after that conversation i open my mind to other opions, it didn't convert me but i now see that sadists are not all evil...they hav some good commandments, but as i said it seems a bit too rough for me. n i didn't like the whole survivel of the fitest bit, although good in theory their belief is that the weak should be destroyed!

i didn't go for that but they do say alot for respect for ppl n their property... its worth readin about if ya hav the chance, who knows if it were called ne thing else it may hav been more widely excepted!

Gerry

Well reading that drugs thread was enlightening for me, to the point where it would lead me to change my opinions about drugs, as to how many perfectly normal people use them on a regular or even occasional basis. I didn't post, because I didnt have anything to offer in that thread, but it was informative and instructive to read it. How about you andy? did it change your opinion?

It also reinforced my opinion, that people pretending to be tolerant of others opinions, doesnt really happen when people feel strongly about a subject. Then its "oh, you are entitled to your opinion alright, as long as it doesnt contrast with mine very much" . Just my $0.02

Blitzkrieger

wtf?

the fnj

Before reading the man on the moon thread I would have thought that America did land on the moon. Now I'm not so sure. Also all my opinions are right so I'm not going to be changed

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Clan Acid

Manach

Facts are by their nature always subject to change, opinions/beliefs however tend to rather irrational,(that is the truth).
I have learnt that a majority of people who do hold differing views to mine are sincere and just as commited to them as I am to my own.
Finally, if anyone does believe that the Americans faked the moon landings I have some genuine high quality internet-stocks for sale

Lucy_la_morte

I think the fact that if an arguement is on a 'serious mattter', then the only people responding with an argument will have a strong belief. It's nearly impossible to alter this developed ideal for the person, especially since alot of people on these boards are adult. Adult's tend to be very stubborn on such views.

---

J'ai dormi sous l'eau.

Lucy la morte.

Clintons Cat

i change my opinions as often as i change my underpants

Paladin

Twice a month whether you need to or not eh?

darthmise

I used to believe whole-hearted in the moon landing, never doubted it for a second.

Then a couple of years back I heard that it could be fake and changed my mind a bit.
But yesterday, looking at some of the pictures, I think it seems like clutching at straws, Someone said to me yesterday (and I think it holds true): "Sometimes the simplest answer is usually the truth."

Trojan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Manach:
Facts are by their nature always subject to change</font>

Facts by their nature are never subject to change.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Fact:

Information presented as objectively real.
A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the accident.

Something having real, demonstrable existence: Genetic engineering is now a fact.
The quality of being real or actual: a blur of fact and fancy.
A thing that has been done, especially a crime: an accessory before the fact.
Law. The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence: The jury made a finding of fact.
</font>

Now what shares were you talking about?

Al.

PS Dictionary.com :

Usage Note: Fact has a long history of usage in the sense “allegation of fact,” as in “This tract was distributed to thousands of American teachers, but the facts and the reasoning are wrong” (Albert Shanker). This practice has led inevitably to the introduction of the phrases true facts and real facts, as in The true facts of the case may never be known. These usages may occasion qualms among critics who hold that facts cannot be other than true, but they often serve a useful purpose.


Hehe, I'm a critic with qualms

Manach

Hi Trojan,
What I meant was that a fact (or a scientific theory) is something that is known to be true until something truer comes along and supercedes it.
ie Once it was a fact that the world was flat and now it is a fact its a sphere.

As for net stocks, try to buy ones with the prettiest colours, they'd make great wallpaper

--Kaiser--

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by darthmise:
I used to believe whole-hearted in the moon landing, never doubted it for a second.

Then a couple of years back I heard that it could be fake and changed my mind a bit.
But yesterday, looking at some of the pictures, I think it seems like clutching at straws, Someone said to me yesterday (and I think it holds true): "Sometimes the simplest answer is usually the truth." </font>

Occams Razor
All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the right one

Excelsior

after the medieval english philosopher, William of Occam.

and manach, i understand what you are trying to say about fact.

what we understand to be fact today is not universal. it is merely so likely as to be useful to regard it as universal.

--Kaiser--

I think i understand what he means as well.
It makes me laugh when a newspaper gets hand on some interesting scientific report and immediatly presents it as fact.

Scientific reports are not all 'facts', biased evidence can be used, incorrect lab procedures etc..

Believe none of what you hear and only a fraction of what you read....

Son of Blam

"The facts may have changed, but not my opinion that I am right."

I forget who said that....

-Son of Blam

Clintons Cat

"The facts may have changed, but not my opinion that I am right."
Mark Twain,probally ...or Oscar Wilde

Lucy_la_morte

The only universal truth is that there is no universal truth.

---

J'ai dormi sous l'eau.

Lucy la morte.

neuro-praxis

If there were no universal truth, we would not be here. Everything would become null.

Lucy_la_morte

Is that true?

---

J'ai dormi sous l'eau.

Lucy la morte.

neuro-praxis

Explore the idea.

If there was not a universal truth, how could anything be real? Or anything be true or defined?

This is a massive philosophical question. I'm not saying that I know what the universal truth is - I think I have a grasp of the idea but my little human mind could never grasp the ultimate everything.

Clintons Cat

"I'm not saying that I know what the universal truth is "
i did,but then i forgot,but what ever it was i knew it it will come back,if someone would just remind me what it was...