Wow, this is a great discussion!

And so helpful!

Honestly, I was a little desperate when I started this thread and now I have a very different perspective.

Is part of the question here the "closed" mind versus the "open" mind.

I feel like I'm "open-minded" because I have no choice. I constantly ask questions in my head whether I want to or not - every waking minute of every day.

But I'm taking medication for that :-|

When I run into a mind that I feel is "closed," I go nuts.

Yeah, you're right. I have really found a weakness in myself here.

I just see red and get intolerant.

Point well taken.

When in your mind does an attitude become so offensive to you that you can't feel empathy?

Possibly I'm too upset.

Nice answer

I think this is where we move from morals to ethics - with ethics informing the better choice.

If we bring in the question of right or wrong, we forget the purpose of the apology, which is to show both sympathy and empathy. Best case, this undoes the wrong if it leads to a corrected misunderstanding - always a possibility. Worst case, someone apologizes to a selfish person to whom one has committed no real offense and the offense is confirmed in that person's mind.

But then again that was probably going to happen anyway.

The only reason I see not to err on the side of apology is when you feel you're being manipulated more than once into apologizing to a person who is trying to use conflict to raise status.

Well, let's be careful about what we mean when we say "judge".

To me, being "judgmental" means that to some extent you are immune to further evidence and you've taken empathy out of the picture.

I'm trying to be empathetic, but I'm frustrated and confused.

Thank you, this was very interesting.

I'm an atheist who LOVES theology.

What can I do?

Also, I may have over-emphasized Calvinism somehow.

I was using "Neo-Calvinist" as a shorthand.

I think the problem for me is that when people are judgmental, they have (in my view) chosen ignorance over open-mindedness and I can't abide that. It just makes me so crazy I can't think through my objections because why am i making them in the first place?

The second aspect is a little cynical, I admit, but I have never found any judgmental person who is willing to dismiss themselves or people who have real power over them with the same disregard as they dismiss people who don't impact them directly, so I tend to assume that judging people is a gateway to moral bankruptcy.

Honestly, I don't know where to start.

I'm not being facetious.

I feel like Calvinism starts out as a misguided attempt to solve a conundrum that doesn't need solving and then blossoms into destructive nonsense that ultimately leads to Rand and the Alt-Right.

It's kind of like a foil to my beliefs.

Huh.

So did this feeling of certainty help when they confronted a new problem?

For me, feelings of certainty began to dissolve early in life, as I learned how much I didn't know.

I also learned the value of looking at a problem from a "devil's advocate" position.

Does none of that ring true for Calvinists?

Theism is LIKE a mental illness insofar as it is technically a delusion, but in reality it's a metaphor.

To me, the key to the analysis is that if you start from the Atheist perspective and move towards understanding religion, you get to more right answers than if you come from religion and move towards Science.

But that's not universally true. A lot of useful metaphors that inspired scientists came from religion.

Thanks for your response.

So when I'm dealing with humans, I really feel I'm dealing with evolved animals who took on the habits of a social species, succeeded to an an extent unprecedented in Evolution, and are still working out the kinks.

How does it FEEL to be a Calvinist? Do you walk around thinking you really know the truth about people - just you and God? I can't imagine that.