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What Has Influenced Your Views?

What Has Influenced Your Thinking?


  • Total voters
    58

repeter

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I was just wondering why everyone thinks specifically what they think. Have recent events changed your thinking? Have your parents influenced you? Did a defining childhood event change you? Or have you just thought about your views as you've gone along?

What do you think the way you do?
 
Rational thought, only.
Of course, even irrational people would say that.
 
I think that "all the above" is the obvious answer for almost everyone.

Under normal circumstances, everyone is influenced to some degree by everyone they have significant and substantial involvement with; every event that either captivates the mind or strikes at the heart; and intellectual processes are hopefully involved at some point as well.
 
I think that "all the above" is the obvious answer for almost everyone.

Under normal circumstances, everyone is influenced to some degree by everyone they have significant and substantial involvement with; every event that either captivates the mind or strikes at the heart; and intellectual processes are hopefully involved at some point as well.

Actually, I think you are incapable of rational thought, Goshin. I don't mean to be insulting, but look at the facts. You are friendly. There's no room for that on a political debate forum. You also have a Vin Diesel avatar. These two things combined tell me all I need to know about you; namely that you are only influenced by simple respect for other's opinions, and "B-grade" actors!

PS: Happy day-after-the-fourth, brother! ;)
 
I basically have kept the views of my parents and siblings with some minor tweeks based on childhood experiences.

Rational thought plays very little role in shaping anyone's views at all.
 
Rational thought plays very little role in shaping anyone's views at all.
Indeed.
But that doesn't stop us from claiming that it does play a big role.
 
I think the best way to describe it is "All of the above mitigated by rational thought".

To imply that any of those things have not had some degree of influence is absurd. Btu I like to think that I have rationally thought out my positions so that they are not dictated by those events alone.
 
I don't believe my parents have had any influence over my political views or tragic events but i do notice my views change and adapt as i increase my understanding of issues and problems.
 
I basically have kept the views of my parents and siblings with some minor tweeks based on childhood experiences.

Rational thought plays very little role in shaping anyone's views at all.

Ever heard this saying?

"5% of people really think. 25% of people think that they think. The rest would rather die than think." :mrgreen:
 
IF my parents did it, I go the opposite direction. So much for getting my views from my parents....:lol:
I get my views from personal experience, listening to others, college classes, reading (big on history and science, even have a decent library on those topics), and even here. Some DP members can be so off the wall on so many topics, but then come up with a memorable statement that redeems them. I do have a short ignore list of posters, tho, who are irredeemable...:2razz:
 
As has been said 'all of the above' but, i would add different things, at different junctures in our lives influence a person differently, at different stages in our life:lol:

Paul
 
All of the above and many of the teachers that I have had. Even the ones who I disagree influence me because they make me think over what I believe and make me tweak what I don't like based on what I know. But most people I would guess would vote for all of the above.
 
Who the heck put nothing??? It doesn't show up when you click for voters...
 
Debating my views has had more influence on them, more than any life event. Sometimes the debate hardens my positions and/or affirms my experiences, other times it has softened or altered my opinion.
 
Who the heck put nothing??? It doesn't show up when you click for voters...

Guests can see and vote in the poll section of our forum. They will not show up on a public poll.
 
For me several things stand out.

I was very fortunate, though I didn't think so at the time, to have limited contact with other kids my age growing up. This wasn't a planned thing, just a matter of the neighborhood we lived in. The result of this was that I realized something that I don't think a lot of my peers did. That is, the older people weren't stupid -- stupidity was a luxury most of them couldn't have afforded in the 1930's and 40's, and youth, being perforce inexperienced, was more likely to be in error.

That led to the conclusion that Conservatism, being based on ideas that had been tried over many generations would usually present more functional solutions than Liberalism, with its embrace of "new," or more often, new-seeming ideas.

I also take pains to consider the opposite poles as it were, of Human Nature. So when a political or social approach is suggested to me, I carefully consider not only how it might operate for the ennobled members of Society, but what opportunities it presents for the debased.

Experience has taught me that nobility in each individual fails at one time or another, but debasement is tireless.

Another thing that has shaped my views is a revulsion with moral stands that cost the one who espouses them little or nothing, but create detrimental results that will fall on others.

An example of this is the oh-so-grand position taken by certain people that persons known to be withholding information about planned terrorist attacks should not be forcefully interrogated. Such people hold a position that they think virtuous, in the near certainty that if someone dies in the planned attack, it won't be themselves.


There is more of course, much more really. But I think I've given the flavor of the process that led to my political beliefs.
 
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While I'm tempted to put "all of the above", it has to be Rational Thought.

Using logic and reason naturally leads one towards being more liberal, so that's where I ended up.

Although, even in my youth when I accepted religion as rational, the teachings of Jesus also pointed me towards liberalism.

Honestly, the only things I can fathom that would lead one to America's current version of conservatism is fear, greed, or a twisted religious dogma.
 
While I'm tempted to put "all of the above", it has to be Rational Thought.

Using logic and reason naturally leads one towards being more liberal, so that's where I ended up.

Although, even in my youth when I accepted religion as rational, the teachings of Jesus also pointed me towards liberalism.

Honestly, the only things I can fathom that would lead one to America's current version of conservatism is fear, greed, or a twisted religious dogma.

Oh puh-leeze. You don't think that two people can try to use reason and still come to two completely different conclusions?
 
What influences my views? Hmmm, I'd have to say copious amounts of marijuana.
 
Oh puh-leeze. You don't think that two people can try to use reason and still come to two completely different conclusions?
Good grief! One person can use reason and come to two completely different conclusions!

I do so all the time. And so do I!
 
While I'm tempted to put "all of the above", it has to be Rational Thought.

Using logic and reason naturally leads one towards being more liberal, so that's where I ended up.

Although, even in my youth when I accepted religion as rational, the teachings of Jesus also pointed me towards liberalism.

Honestly, the only things I can fathom that would lead one to America's current version of conservatism is fear, greed, or a twisted religious dogma.

Ultra-partisan-hack troll. In brief, ignore.
 
Ultra-partisan-hack troll. In brief, ignore.

Funny how a right-winger can say any stupid thing they want and nobody says ****.
A liberal with balls shows up and everybody gets their panties in a wad.
 
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