Times you have changed your mind on an issue

[melty]

What is an issue you have changed your mind on, and what caused you to rethink it?
I have changed my mind on a few issues, most recently, I've been questioning my beliefs on gun control.
I suppose a lot of people change their beliefs from childhood, but then again a lot don't.
What are some issues you have changed your mind on, and why?

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I used to be a christian but then I decided that there wasn't enough evidence for belief so I became an atheist and then I decided that practicing religion is the most healthy thing to do even if you don't believe so I became an extremely christian neopagan

 

[Vitriol]

Touchy subject but i changed my mind on abortion when i heard someone suggest that
the real arguement in that debate is 'what counts as a full human', not whether the mothers right to her body trumps that of the fetus to life or vice versa.

I don't actually have an answer to it but the difficulties in answering that question ended my previously over simple opinion.

 

[melty]

I used to be a christian but then I decided that there wasn't enough evidence for belief so I became an atheist and then I decided that practicing religion is the most healthy thing to do even if you don't believe so I became an extremely christian neopagan

I am an atheist but I know practicing religion is a pretty healthy thing to do. However I don't think I could ever make myself believe again. How do you do something like that? Did you just realize your atheism wasn't as conclusive as you thought? Sometimes I dabble in neopaganism but deep down I know I don't really believe any of it.

 

[Mulligan]

Back in the day I used to be super homophobic, like I regularly cursed out people for being gay. I used to think that all gay people were degenerate fucks who deserved a beating. Then I found out my brother was gay. He's my best friend so I couldn't shun him, but I was I couldn't understand why he would do this. Ultimately I learned to accept gay people and now a supporter of gay rights.

 

[Overcast]

I used to be an atheist at one point. At the time, it made the most sense to me, and I couldn't understand why other people believed in a God. Now that I'm older, I realize now that as humans, there is still a lot of stuff we don't completely understand yet, and I think, perhaps there could be some sort of higher power that could be controlling things. The world works in mysterious ways.

So now I'm just agnostic. At least until there's genuine proof one way or the other.

On a lesser not, I used to be completely fine with Day 1 DLC in games. I couldn't understand why so many people were against it. But later on, I thought, yeah, it doesn't make too much sense to lock content behind a pay wall on the very same day the game is released. I'm fine with DLC months and years after a game comes out. But on the first day? I can't support that.

 

[DNJACK]

I am an atheist but I know practicing religion is a pretty healthy thing to do. However I don't think I could ever make myself believe again. How do you do something like that? Did you just realize your atheism wasn't as conclusive as you thought? Sometimes I dabble in neopaganism but deep down I know I don't really believe any of it.

If you really want to believe you can make yourself do it, but why would you?

Meditate, focus on what you want, give your life the purpose you want it to have.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I am an atheist but I know practicing religion is a pretty healthy thing to do. However I don't think I could ever make myself believe again. How do you do something like that? Did you just realize your atheism wasn't as conclusive as you thought? Sometimes I dabble in neopaganism but deep down I know I don't really believe any of it.

My neopaganism isn't a belief in the way that many religions are. I see it entirely as metaphors so when praying to Thoth I am really simply praying towards the wise part of myself, towards Odin the strong part of myself, etc. Its a pure mental focusing mechanism

 

[DuskEngine]

Back in the day I used to be super homophobic, like I regularly cursed out people for being gay. I used to think that all gay people were degenerate fucks who deserved a beating. Then I found out my brother was gay. He's my best friend so I couldn't shun him, but I was I couldn't understand why he would do this. Ultimately I learned to accept gay people and now a supporter of gay rights.

I used to be moderately homophobic because it was the cool thing to do in school. When I was about 15 or 16 I stopped and wondered why and I couldn't come up with a solid answer. So I stopped being homophobic.

 

[melty]

I used to be moderately homophobic because it was the cool thing to do in school. When I was about 15 or 16 I stopped and wondered why and I couldn't come up with a solid answer. So I stopped being homophobic.

I had a similar experience, when I was growing up it wasn't really an accepted thing (probably still isn't in my hometown) and it was very popular to make fun of people by spreading rumors that they were gay. I don't know what exactly changed my mind, probably just seeing more mainstream acceptance and growing older and thinking about it critically.

 

[BuckMatic]

I used to be anti message board. Fan websites are so negative, there are people constantly trying to be as shit as possible without technically breaking the rules. It ruins it for everyone sometimes.

What the hell is it about a site for making fun of autists that it's the only one I feel like posting to? I'd rather see the occasional distasteful comment or opinion than a lot of thought policing bs, but don't want a bunch of edge lords or 'ha I'm raining on the parade as much as I can without getting banned' horseshit either.

This place has the best balance I've seen. Kudos.

 

[meatslab]

I used to be against drugs and legalization of all of them would hurt society. But after reading more about other countries legalizing all drugs has actually been beneficial for people I've changed my mind.

 

[Asuka]

I think the biggest issue that I changed my stance on was gay marriage. I remember during my "teen angst" years that I thought it was going against science and that people only "got gay" just to gain attention for themselves. And while some of them go that route, I've learned that most of them have a genuine feeling of having same sex attraction. I learned to just accept it after a close friend of mine came to me and told me he was gay, and I was the first he let it out to. I cried with him because he was so nervous of my reaction, and that was the spark that really made me change my thinking.

 

[Hat]

About five years ago, my views on LGBT-related topics were pretty much the exact opposite of what they are now.

 

[Mourning Dove]

In high school I thought the solution to our fossil fuel shortages and pollution would be corn ethanol. It's not as "dirty" as fossil fuels and you could always just grow more corn to get more fuel, right?

As I continued to study environmental studies, I realized that the issue of the most ideal fuel source for humans to use indefinitely became more complex. Using corn to produce ethanol would take away potential food away from humans and livestock, and more agricultural land would have to be made available to grow more corn. Corn is just a resource-hungry crop in general; it requires a lot of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and land to be successful. And even if there were enough corn ethanol successfully produced, would it be as efficient as traditional fossil fuels in our current transportation infrastructure?

So, what is the "best" energy source for humans to use sustainably and efficiently? That is a difficult question to answer, for every energy source has its pros and cons, even if they aren't immediately apparent. Wind and solar are also touted as "clean" energy sources, but are they truly? Setting up these energy sources require emission-emitting construction equipment and materials that have to be outsourced and mined from faraway places. There is no free lunch.

 

[Marvin]

So, what is the "best" energy source for humans to use sustainably and efficiently? That is a difficult question to answer, for every energy source has its pros and cons, even if they aren't immediately apparent. Wind and solar are also touted as "clean" energy sources, but are they truly? Setting up these energy sources require emission-emitting construction equipment and materials that have to be outsourced and mined from faraway places. There is no free lunch.

Establishing those sources are fixed costs, not long term costs. Whether or not an energy source is considered clean is mostly a function of its long term costs, unless the fixed costs are really, really huge. And building a windmill isn't a huge cost. It's not more expensive than building comparably sized cell tower, which we do anyway.

 

[DNJACK]

Solar panels leak toxic materials and do not last very long.
Windmills produce unreliable and costly electricity. They can only be use as backup//secondary sources.

 

[SU 390]

I used to think(or conditioned to think) that suicide wasn't the answer, things will get better and it's cowardly but now I think it takes more courage to commit rather than it's cowardly. If you have no other options left and you don't have a plan for the future, why bother to live and see what happens? It's stupid and wrong to call people who want to commit suicide cowards if they tried all they could to improve their life. With the way the world is today, it's not going to get better for anyone. I just think that people who want to commit suicide should go for it, but unless someone truly guides them and ensure things will get better, then they should be talked out of it.

Other than that, we're all born to die. Why prevent someone who wants to take their life be shunned or stopped for it? It doesn't make sense to me.

 

[SP 199]

Being from the North of Ireland I was kinda brought up in an social environment that bred a lot of religious and political bigotry. So As a grew up and especially during my teenage years I was really hateful towards the 'Others' just because they where a different religion. Then As I got older I started to care less and less about religion and started making friends with people from varying religions (I went to a catholic unisex grammar school so my chances to make friends outside my 'community' was really hard) So really now I only make my opinions on whether or not they're a dick rather than what they believe

 

[AnOminous]

As I continued to study environmental studies, I realized that the issue of the most ideal fuel source for humans to use indefinitely became more complex. Using corn to produce ethanol would take away potential food away from humans and livestock, and more agricultural land would have to be made available to grow more corn. Corn is just a resource-hungry crop in general; it requires a lot of water, fertilizer, pesticides, and land to be successful. And even if there were enough corn ethanol successfully produced, would it be as efficient as traditional fossil fuels in our current transportation infrastructure?

These bad effects have already happened, as the demand for corn north of the border caused corn prices in Mexico to skyrocket, rendering many basic staple foods increasingly expensive for people who were already having trouble making ends meet.

There is also the fact that there is no substantial carbon or energy advantage to using corn for ethanol, as it generally consumes petroleum and other resources to grow the corn in the first place.

Throw in that it is basically highly morally questionable even to be burning food in the first place, and it is a bad idea.

I think it is basically an enormous scam to benefit the Corn Lobby, which basically owns the Ag Committee that drafts the Farm Bill every year or so.

I do think cellulosic ethanol shows promise, as it would be derived from sources like switchgrass and other non-food crops that consume little energy to produce. However, I don't think they've reached the break-even point where it is efficient to do this on a large scale.