Having your opinion changed

[Someone Depressing]

I want all evidence that I existed before the age of 17 to be fucking destroyed. I was the most close-minded, self righteous little bastard there ever could be.

And I tried, ever so in vain, to convince myself I was straight. I eventually accepted that if you need to convince yourself or your sexuality for 2 hours every morning, you're probably wrong.

 

[springheeljack]

I used to feel extremely impassioned about things like politics during those fun Bush years(sarcasm obviously)
I wanted to get into law and become a public defender as well because I was really impassioned about helping people

But I became pretty cynical about certain things like politics
I still have some strong beliefs about things but I don't feel the necessity of arguing about it online with people I will never meet like I used to(Which wasn't even that much)

 

[freaper]

I like to believe that the shit I'm confident in today will make me piss myself with laughter five years from now, except the sanctity of human life. Even if I don't believe any more, I hope I'll never become so bitter to lose that part of faith.

 

[bat32391]

I used to be a hardcore Sonic fan. I was so batshit I managed to beat Sonic 06 and somehow managed convince myself it was a great game.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Honestly, a lot of my political or spiritual beliefs have stayed the same for as long as I can remember. Interestingly a lot of people seem to be lapsed Christians, but even as a kid I thought it was an odd concept (my parents never once brought up the subject, I suspect you're all from Christian backgrounds?). If anything I'm less atheist having read some pretty far-out theories on the universe possibly being a simulation and whatnot.

One thing in particular though is that I used to be very uncomfortable with the idea of organ donation. I thought it was logical, sure, but I was against it out of some misplaced attachment to my lifeless corpse. I didn't think about it for a long time until I was prompted when applying for a driving license, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. I guess even if it still made me uncomfortable I would still opt in, the lives you could save are surely worth more than feeling a bit uncomfortable about an event you won't be around to experience.

Oh, and electronic music.

Spoiler: How could anyone possibly think this isn't real music?

 

[Phlap]

I used to be a hardcore Sonic fan. I was so batshit I managed to beat Sonic 06 and somehow managed convince myself it was a great game.

Bloody hell.

The only reason I chugged through that monstrosity was because it was the only Xbox 360 game I owned at the time.

 

[bat32391]

I used to be a hardcore Sonic fan. I was so batshit I managed to beat Sonic 06 and somehow managed convince myself it was a great game.

Bloody hell.

The only reason I chugged through that monstrosity was because it was the only Xbox 360 game I owned at the time.

Yep 11 year old me was a bit of a retard.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

I used to be a staunch atheist and anti-military. Now I am a Chaplain's Assistant in the Air National Guard, teach youth group and sing in my churches worship band.

Funny how life can change a person 180 degrees.

 

[chiggerwood]

I see a few former Christians on here and really, I used to believe in %100 of the bible, but as I meditated on it and learned of the lost gospels, and how the canonical Bible came to be I came to believe that the Bible as we know it know was never supposed to be, was most likely never supposed to be finished, and that a lot of the bible conflicted with Christianity as a whole. Still believing in Christ and Yahweh I figured, and still do to this day, that much of of what God intended was misinterpreted, mistranslated, and corrupted by the hands of man, so I simply took the the teachings of Christ as a baseline and compared them to the rest of the bible and disregarded that which was not in line with the teachings of Christ, began to see many stories as allegorical rather than literal, stopped viewing the righteous men and women as infallible, and kept in the forefront of my mind that even Christ A. was not good on his own admission, B. could be questioned, and finally C. Changed his mind; and all of that, I believe, has actually made me a better Christian and brought me closer to God than I was before.

 

[chiggerwood]

I used to be a staunch atheist and anti-military. Now I am a Chaplain's Assistant in the Air National Guard, teach youth group and sing in my churches worship band.

Funny how life can change a person 180 degrees.

I understand keeping a long story short, but there's a story here that needs to be told. Also, just curious, does your worship band ever sing Tom Wait's "Come On Up to the House"?

 

[Treeinthewoods]

I used to be a staunch atheist and anti-military. Now I am a Chaplain's Assistant in the Air National Guard, teach youth group and sing in my churches worship band.

Funny how life can change a person 180 degrees.

I understand keeping a long story short, but there's a story here that needs to be told. Also, just curious, does your worship band ever sing Tom Wait's "Come On Up to the House"?

Well brace up because this is long...

Okay. Through highschool and college I was a pretty typical nerd, very strong academic and even though I did sports I never did the cool ones so it didn't help. I was confident that I could deal with all of lifes issues on my own, that religion was a strictly a man created device to control the masses, and that military service was for people way dumber than me. America was an evil occupier and anyone who enlisted was giving their approval to attrocities. I was way to smart for any of that garbage, I was destined for greatness.

While finishing college I met the woman who would eventually be my wife. After three years we got married and got our first house together. I had a good paying job with a big bank, life was good. We partied and traveled a lot, we had lots of friends and fun toys to play with.

My wife and I had our daughter after two years, when she was born my wife decided to stay home and let me worry about the income, which I thought was the perfect idea for our family. What I never really admitted was how unhappy I was at my job. It was why we always partied so hard every weekend, to help me unwind from the shit I went through during my 9-5. I explained to people with nothing that they no longer owned their homes, I charged people ridiculous fees because it was the policy from the big bosses. I went to lunches with peoe talking about how being profit focused was a great thing, how we had a responsibility to make as much money as possible. I saw people fired for making choices that I believed were right for the customer, I fired three people for failing to meet sales goals that were set by my bosses bosses boss, goals I believed were ridiculous.

As a parents we were no longer able to party ourselves blind every weekend with reckless abandon. Kids are a joy but they also provide a lot of work and stress. I became withdrawn, I was isolating myself at home, leaving the house and the baby to my wife as I played video games or watched TV. This went on for two years when it all snapped.

My wife came to me crying, asking why I stopped loving her, why she was alone all the time, why I barely interacted with Cassie. I finally confessed it was misery and depression from a soul sucking job that consumed my life. I had everything I wanted as a kid and none of it was worth it. We attended marriage counseling for six months and started making pLans to change some things.

The big thing I noticed was that I had no support system to fall back on. As smart, wealthy and smooth as I was I was spiritually starving. I realized I had a hole in my heart and I had been filling it with parties, booze and fun. I needed something real and concrete to base myself on, something that would not change. My wife was kind blown, the staunch atheist who loved mocking Christmas as a pagan ritual, who refused to donate to any religious charity was having a spiritual crisis. At the suggestion of our counselor we began looking for a way to be fed spiritually. We tried six different churches over the next six months, Mormon, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Lutheran and a non-denominational Christian church. It ended up being the non-denominational church that we fell in love with.

I started attending regular bible study groups, reading the New Testament and trying to apply it to my daily life. I attended workshops on being a better husband, a better parent and a better man altogether. I made some of the best friends I have ever known and I found what I was missing for those years before.

A large number of the men in my men's group were former or current military. I researched the Guard carefully and looked into what they do. I realized that my assumptions about the military where largely inaccurate, just like my assumptons about God had been. I decided it was time to give some of myself in service, to work to pay back what I had taken over the years. Also, having benefits through the Guard would allow me to eave the bank and find a better path without risking my families health. I saw it as a way to pursue a new path, to pursue personal growth and a new outlook on life and to stop chasing nothing but the next paycheck.

Lo and behold, I enlisted. And of all the crazy stuff I tested as having the highest affinity for working with my hands as a maintaner, a total change from what I had been doing all those years. So after six months away from my family I came home as an Airman. I was so able to get a full time position on my base which meant I quit the bank (Hallelujah!) and began searching for more.ways to give back, to show my thanks for all that I have been given.

Singing was first, my brothers at Basic liked my voice and asked me to sing during dorm details every Sunday. They loved it, at tech school I found the worship band had lost their singer so I volunteered. So naturally I auditioned for the worship band at my home church once I got back. Then I was asked to escort a few youth group outings. I thought the kids were.super awesome so my wife and I started to volunteer regularly and we still do.

Since I am a maintaner full time I was able to make a.change to my drill weekend duties. There was an opening, so now one weekend a month I assist the Chaplain and also work his security detail. Deployment can mean I go as a maintainer or as Chaplain security now but either one is okay. Four months in the desert every few years is a small price to pay for what I have been given.

Essentially, doing the two things I used to be the most against ended up opening more doors then I could have imagined. God and the US Air Force saved my family and my life, all I had to do was come to them.

Lastly, no I am not familiar with that song. My personal favorites st this time are Hosanna in the Highest, Forever and Your Love Never Changes.

Hope that answers your question, sorry this was so crazy long. It just isn't a simple story which is why I abbreviated it so much initially.

 

[Scarecrow1001]

As I'm still pretty young, I'm almost certain that my views are still changing. But, back when I was younger still, I believed wholly in the military, that Australia was the best place ever, and some other.... opinions... I don't want to discuss (let's just say, I feel bad for what younger me said about Aborigines). Now however, I believe that the military needs more monitoring, and the public needs less. My views, which are still being finalised, currently lay just a bit before Marxism. Oh, and I don't believe in guns. Still sort of religious though, but not enough to really argue for it, because I know it's a personal thing. So yeah, going from right wing to left wing was fun, mainly due to study of history, and finding political talk shows.

Oh, and even more embarrassingly, I used to think that George W. Bush was a good President. That's one I'm kind of ashamed of now.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

I was one of those people who wondered why there wasn't a "White History Month" or whatever and echoed the political sentiments of my parents. I love them, but uh...I'm probably pretty far to the left from them as far as social and economic politics go by now.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

It may surprise people. I have never had an opinion that I fought to the death for. I have never been arrogant enough to believe that my opinions were above reproach.

I have always been open to other people take on the issues regardless of how unpopular it was. Some of them included: Moon landing was fake, women should not have the right to vote, and various racist diatribes. I don't agree with them. I felt listening to them did help me better understand people who have opinions that most people don't agree with.

Pretty much this. Most of my opinions and beliefs aren't rigid and unbending, its the nice thing about being open-minded to possibilities. I'm well aware that I don't know everything and don't want to even feel like I'm that arrogant.
Its sometimes tough to sway my opinion on certain things, like games. I'll usually either like a game or dislike it and there's little anyone can do to change that opinion but I'm also not one to hate a game without at least giving it a chance unless its way outside my sphere of interest.
Beyond that I'm not obsessed with being right all the time, I love to learn new things and will listen to pretty much any reasonable argument or stance.
In politics, my personal views aren't exactly clearly defined by a party line. I'm at best a moderate and most of my views are based on life experience and such, and the more I experience in life the more defined my views become. I'm willing to admit that its a real gray area.

All in all I'm fair minded and give most things a chance, even if I don't agree with them. Its nice to be able to listen to an opposing viewpoint, even if I'm not inclined to be swayed toward it, its still interesting to see or hear another POV on a subject. Its also nice to not be susceptible to confirmation bias as I'm reasonably sure that personal opinions are tough to say someone else believes the same thing you do exactly, or for the same reasons. One can have totally different reasons for believing something than the next person who believes the same thing.
My one take on life is that as we learn and grow both as individuals and a collective species is that whatever we think we know is a drop in a bucket floating in an ocean of information and fact that we'll never really fully understand and thats OK. Its a challenge to learn and grow and not end up being set on a certain view, stubbornly clinging to it despite evidence to the contrary.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Hey 2000s gave us Avatar TLA and that was awesome

It's more of an identity thing than a superiority thing. The 90's were such a weird decade to grow up in, given that they formed the transition between the flashiness of the 80's and the cool digital tech of the millennials, that only someone who actually lived through it can appreciate how endearingly bizarre it was. It's something you look back on and don't know if you should cringe or sigh with nostalgia.

 

[happyninja42]

When I was younger I had some intensely patriotic beliefs, particularly in regards to the military.

Now I really, really don't. To the point where my old mindset is downright embarrassing to remember and I'm infinitely glad that I was never all that vocal about it.

Hard to say exactly when and how those beliefs changed though. Actually meeting a large numbers of soldiers was a big part of it. I guess the rest was just down to learning more of the world and its workings, as one does as one gets older.

Yeah, working with veterans is a great way to lose any jingoistic thoughts about the military or country. While I was never a "Murica Fuck Yeah!" kind of guy, working with the VA in my state for the last 7 years has opened my eyes to the reality of your average military service-person.

OT: Hmmm, I can't say religion, because I've never really believed in any god, and still don't. I guess perhaps spiritualism stuff maybe? Like the idea of a collective unconscious, universal thought, the mind allowing the body to break the laws of physics. Stuff like The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and the 9th...shit there was another book that was popular back in the 90's, about thought = reality, can't remember the name of it. It was these levels of understanding, and they were numbered. And I'm pretty sure there were 9 of them. I thought that stuff had some weight and merit to it for a long time.

Beyond that, no I can't really think of any significant thing that I held fast to, and was later proven to be wrong. Plenty of little things of course, but no fundamental, bedrock stance that was shaken to it's core kind of thing.