What issues have you changed your opinion on and why?

Well, yeah. God.

Abortion. You jellies helped me see it is not a choice I can make for other women. It was hard with my upbringing.

God and abortion. And now….my comment on cough suppressants would be WAY out of line!

I used to think that given the same information and circumstances, the majority of people would make the same choices. So as a consequence thought most disagreements were really just a matter of not having all the facts or not being able to understand the other person’s perspective.

Hours and hours of fruitlessly trying to explain other people’s point of view taught me that we all have things we tie large portions of our identity to, and that can’t be discounted or known in advance. Many people make their choices based on who they are rather than anything external and in those cases there’s no amount of explanation or reason that will change their choice. Only time or reflection can do that.

As an example, I’m sure someone relayed this fact to me in various ways dozens of times, but it didn’t sink in until I experienced and thought it through for myself.

The majority of issues that I have changed my opinion on are ones that my parents instilled in me when I was a child that, upon learning new information, I abandoned.

Both of my parents are ardent supporters of the death penalty; as I came into my pacifistic ideals, however, I stand far apart from them on this issue. I was also raised to have faith in a god and prayer, but grew out of in third grade.

I cannot pinpoint how my view of the death penalty changed; it was gradual, I suppose. I always had this sinking feeling that maybe it was wrong, but still continued to wrestle with how the prison system could be handled better. As for my religious beliefs, I can pinpoint specific moments that had a heavy influence on my spiritual development, or lackthereof, but I have posted about this elsewhere on the site.

Outside of my parents inherent influence, my understanding of gender—not necessarily my opinion per se—has changed over the years.

Less about worldviews, my opinion on the option of becoming an instructor has drastically changed over the past couple of years. I had always maintained that this was a path that I never ever wanted, but now I cannot imagine pursuing anything else. This opinion has been shaped by a few of my professors, one wonderful colleague, and my experience as a Teaching Associate during my last year of graduate school.

Aesthetic appreciation. I used to think that art and things like that were just a hobby. You like art? That’s great. I like computers.
Then I played a video game called Okami where you create beauty as main part of the mechanic. It moved me to tears. I found it was the act of creating it that made it so special to me. Now when ever I see art, I think “What was it like for the artist to make it?” And I feel something.

I used to think Butch Cassidy, played by Paul Newman, was the cooler of the two “yankee bandidos” in the movie. This is of course entirely inaccurate, because as any right minded person knows, Sundance, Robert Redford, was the daddy of coolness in the film.

@ucme but Paul Newman gets the coolness in Cool Hand Luke.

@Dutchess_III Absolutely, an egg cellent performance.

Eh. Now I want to frow up!

I’ll also admit that my stance on SSM changed, and now I’m an ardent supporter, but it came from hearing personal stories from my gay friends and sharing their pain.

Also, many of us, including hubs (which is amazing), have changed our stance on gun control. We will never give up our guns for hunting and target practice, but we will never own guns that can take out a bunch of people, and we think those should be limited to law enforcement and military who are evaluated and trained. Too many innocent people have died to deny that the general public cannot be trusted to own wmd’s.

I used to be for the death penalty as a punishment for certain crimes but I changed my mind a few years ago. I believe a debate on here may have helped me change my mind.

Religion and immigration are two that come to mind.

I spend a long time being somewhat disdainful of gay people. When my daughter came out, my opinion totally changed. I’ve joined those who know it shouldn’t make a difference to anyone. She’s a wonderful person and I’ve become comfortable with her and her life.

Empiricism.

I was one, an empiricist, until I studied evolutionary theory.

@Neodarwinian wait how did evolution stop and your empiricism? And what do you consider yourself now?

@drhat77

Because I learned all organisms on earth are the product of natural selection and that natural selection does not stop at humans, or has stopped in humans. Our minds are shaped just as much by evolutionary processes as environmental/nurture processes.

I consider myself evolutionarily informed.

@Neodarwinian whoa. mind-blown. no weed required.

@drhat That’s just common sense, you two are funny though!

But….evolution can be empirically proven @Neodarwinian.

I used to be a diehard libertarian type, and not too long ago either. I feel these days that libertarianism is not the freedom many think it is, but I’ve always been socially liberal though.

The one social issue that I have changed my mind on is the death penalty. I use to support the death penalty, but now I vividly oppose it.

Can we discuss the death penalty? I’ve never formed an a opinion about it one way or the other.

Well, I used to be 100% against the death penalty, but I now am only really against it in practice. I firmly believe that some people deserve to die for their crimes.

Other than that, most of my views have just been “clarified” more than they have completely changed. I was raised with Christianity, but I don’t think I ever really committed to theism. I was just going along with what was expected of me.

@Dutchess_III

Empirical and empiricist are used in two different senses here.

An empiricists will tell you nothing is in the mind that was not in the senses first.

Something, a scientific concept, is empirically supported by the evidence, experiential/experimentally supported. The words are close but not exact in sense.

PS: Not proven. Nothing is proven in science.

I believed in Christianity, then Scientology, then another pass at Christianity. All that time, I believed in dualism. I believed in free will. Now I believe in none of the above. I evolved into free thought, rational analysis, and reliance on the scientific method and evidence.

Currently, I am so close to 100% certain that Scientology is a ridiculous cult scam set up to make first L. Ron Hubbard and now David Miscavige filthy rich that we might as well call it absolute certainty. I’m agnostic as to the possibility of a creator, dualism and fee-will. But I am about as sure that the current creator gods worshipped by mainstream religions are human creations as I am that Santa Claus is the same.

Well, I used to think that cough suppressants were evil. Thanks to a conversation with another Jelly today me thinks that perhaps they are not. Jesus! Heading it off at the pass….I hope…

I really enjoyed all the answers! I had no idea this Q would wind up to be so interesting, I love when that happens.

@Sunny2 I’m curious, since you had a change of heart about gay people because it affected your family, now when you look at issues are you more likely to think, what if that was happening to me or my children? Before making an opinion? I’m kind of hard on people who change their minds once the situation happens to them. Although, I do appreciate how difficult it probably was for you to change your mind on the topic. I don’t really understand feeling immune to being gay, needing an abortion, being poor, being a minority, and some other big topics. I am not making any assumptions about where you stand n those topics, nor am I prompting to discuss them, I am just naming some random toics. I like to think when something does happen that they change their mind; that it changes them forever on how they see the world.

@Dutchess_III Next coughing illness try the DM and let me know what you think. You should do a Q about the death penalty.

@drhat77 As I get older I appreciate creating things with my hands and other people’s creations more and more. Not only art but anything of beauty, anything that affects the senses. I feel like I have more moments of joy being more observant of what is around me. Time slows down.

Don’t laugh, I used to trust the government.
Then, with Watergate and the Vietnam war, I wasn’t so sure about it.
Then, we saw the Supreme Court illegally elect the president in 2000 (they had zero right or jurisdiction to keep Florida from conducting the recount) ... eye-opener.

@dabbler Amen to that. Daniel Ellsberg just penned an editorial for Huffington Post warning that the US is becoming a Police State under Obama.

@Neodarwinian Small font is for joking or tossing in off-topic comments.

Oh, people care, and it’s been discussed elsewhere. :)

@ETpro wow that’s scary.

WTF?? Lets get the discussion back on topic, people! We were discussing cough suppressants. I think….

Aside from the beliefs of childhood that changed as I aged, I can’t think of any fundamental belief/idea/truth that has changed during my adult years.

I never liked vanilla ice cream, but now I love a good vanilla bean.

Well, I think I am becoming more and more damning of religion. The fanaticism I see increasing is frightening. And I have a more rational view of science, though it’s always teetering on the edge of of truth and fallacy, as far as I’m concerned.

I was raised Christian, but instantly gave up on religion when I read the bible cover-to-cover in sixth grade. I still believed in God at the time (and for a long time after) but concluded that religion was a man-made artifice. My agnostic and then atheist conversions came about much more gradually.

For most other things I’ve ‘evolved’ on, I’d say it wasn’t a change in opinion so much as forming an opinion when I previously hadn’t had one at all. Just through exposure to different issues over my lifetime, things that made me think and examine all sides, and form an actual opinion on the matter at hand.

The change for me has mostly been in softening my opinions, holding them more lightly, and not wrapping my identity up in them. Opinions too easily become fortresses that you wall yourself up in and spend energy defending against attack. They make your world unnecessarily small. We need fewer fortresses and more tents to shelter people from storms.

Excellent.

@thorninmud Really good.

I was born in a right wing family, with a colonial background, growing up with a very right wing, entitled mindset.

I saw that was wrong, when I was in my teens and turned left wing. anti-establishment by defintion.

Now, I see the use for authorities and institutions, and I’m lost outside both definitions.

Why? Because the world is a whole lot of different shades of grey, rarely, if ever, black or white.

I needed to grow up to see and grasp that.

I forgot to add that my dislike of most religions, especially the ones that emphasize faith over works along with proclaiming their supreme authority, has grown with age. Despite the fact that I think we likely survive physical death, and that I believe there’s a higher power of some sort (with a purpose), most Christians that I know consider me to be an atheist.

I agree with others above too, that religious extremism and intolerance is something to be concerned about because it is a very serious problem. I’m not going to back down from this issue when many dogmatic religionists have caused me misery throughout my life, just to avoid conflict or hurting others feelings. I wish it was as simple as people doing their own thing and leaving others alone, but in the real world many people who practice dogmatic faiths rarely do this.