My older sister died yesterday. She was 85. She was suffering with shortness of breath, panic disorder, and bouts of pneumonia.

She was afraid to die. That added to her panic disorder. Add to that panic disorder, she was self centered. She lived in a form of cognitive dissonance. She believed she was kind and thoughtful but she seldom acted on those beliefs if it did not serve her interests.

Shifting gears, but still staying on the topic of beliefs, I asked my wife if she thought she(my wife) was opened minded. She said no and added because she firmly believed in Jesus and the Bible. I asked my friend that question and he said he was open minded so long as you proved to him with scientific facts what you believed. Needless to say my wife could never prove to him with scientific facts what he demanded. But my friend could find essentially nothing factual outside of his beliefs.

My point is the open minded declaration is scientifically supported that the majority of those who claim to be open minded in fact are not.

This train of thought has led me introspection of self. On the one hand I have a person who blindly accepts Jesus and another who believes in nothing. I am in between the two. My previous barage of posts show how frequently I change my opionion. So let me begin this conversation with a first step in searching for a belief.

I was raised Catholic with a Catholic grammar school education. By any measure I was indoctrinated. Throughout the indoctrination I resisted because what I was being taught did not make sense to what I could see in the world.

I went through the stages of life changing my beliefs constantly. I was a paramedic who saw death daily, I experienced death in my family, and I wondered what happens when you die. The term consciousness was in my background as a neuropsychologist. So I decided to explore consciousness as I read the Bible.

Having been raised Catholic the New Testament was the focus. I wondered why we always said Judeo Christian. The NT and the OT are not sequential. So I started reading more about the translation and origins of the BibleS. I read Mauro Bignino’s and Paul Wallis. There translations made sense.

In a nutshell, these are two different books with two different God’s. In the NT, Jesus preaches love and forgiveness. The OT preaches war and death. In the NT it says you cannot go to heaven UNLESS you believe in Jesus. This is frightening and compelling.

I challenged all my beliefs. I found many anecdotal experiences that could not be verified except the large number of near death experiences. (NDEs)

One of the anecdotal experiences was described to me by a woman who describes herself as a Messianic Jew. She was being attacked by several men on her property and begged them not to kill her. As they approached her, she said they looked up behind her, showed fear and ran away. I have seen similar anecdotal stories but with no details or history

Stay connected as I explore further in my introspections.

I recently was confronted with the question “Do you consider yourself open minded?”

Recent surveys suggest that people think they are open minded by self report. But when these claims were put through behavioral measures, the behavior did not manage the claim of open mindedness.

The measure of open mindedness is one’s ability to change position when confronted with evidence to the contrary of one’s held belief. I contend this concept of open mindedness is at the root of today’s current problem in the United States, possibly other countries.

As I started to pose a question, I realized that my question would sound like a “got you question.” Like an attorney would ask “just answer yes or no.”

Do you believe that laws should be obeyed?

An alternative might be, Do you believe disobeying the law should have consequences? The word believe is troublesome because your belief and another’s belief might conflict before you answer the question. For example, one cultural belief is to cut off your hand if you steal while another culture might believe in restitution. So your cultural belief will influence your response to the question. So I think one can safely say the question must be reworded to eliminate your cultural or religious belief. But can one adequately eliminate this bias.

It is a bias because your belief will bring a host of issues that is not intended in a question about open mindedness. The intent in the question is can you accept that the opinion of another may be correct when compared to your opinion. One would have to eliminate an alternative narrative and accept the question as is, without debate, if the facts are correct.

Asking if you believe in God is the type of question that does not bode well to showing open mindedness. I suppose one could respond with I hear your belief, I am open minded to it, but I don’t agree.

So my question is, do you believe that if one disobeys the law, that person should face consequences established for the act?