Last night, I was thinking, for no particularly good reason, about Aztec infant sacrifice. And I thought to myself, “Now, there’s a mindset I just don’t get. How can anybody have been okay with that?” To hell with cultural relativism – I don’t get it, and I don’t want to get it.
So what mindsets do you find yourself unable to fathom?
Not eating bacon with your fingers.
The idea that people are going to hell for no reason than because you say so. “Love the sinner and hate the sin” is so foreign.
Oh, and the people who go to my extremely expensive liberal arts college and claim that they’re being oppressed.
If you don’t worship your god this way, you are bound for hell. Y’know, we’re right and everyone else is doomed.
Drug addict mindset
Criminal mindset
Hiphop mindset
Democrats’.
Aztec sacrifice was typically older folk, not kids. One interesting explanation was offered by Michael Hartner and Marvin Harris and others – see Harris’ books, especially Cannibals and Kings
Carthaginians and various opponents of the Hebrews were said to sacrifice their children, for reasons that seem to be other than those Hartner and Harris suggest. I haven’t been much satisfied with the explanations that have been given.
People who are cruel to animals. Well, cruel in general. But especially to animals.
A friend of mine used to have a horrible uncle whose pastime as a teen was to put on heavy boots and stomp on baby chicks at his parent’s farm. 
One day their plough horse came up to him while he was doing this and bit the guy’s nipple off. Yay horse!
Child molestors.
For me, it’s the mindset of a devout follower of one religion, converting to become a devout follower of another. It just seems completely loony to me. Say you’ve believed 'til your mid-twenties that the creator of the universe incarnated itself two thousand years ago as a man called Jesus and he died for our sins etc etc. Then someone tells you that God has never been humaniform, but he spoke to a guy named Mohammed some six hundred years later. After careful soul-searching you conclude that the first belief is just not tenable but the second makes perfect sense? WTF? 
And as someone who plays computer games incessantly til the wee hours, most nights of the week, then feels tired at work and wonders why, I can very much understand the mindset of the drug addict 
.
Most of the SDMB denizens 
Smokers.
Can you all really not understand these mindsets, or do you just not want to admit that you can…?
There is one that I really can’t understand–people who are sure that everything will come out okay no matter what they do. I spend most of my life scared that armageddon will come despite my best efforts to keep everything together.
The whole “Fuck the poor” and “every man for himself” mindset that seems to dominate most conservative/republican thinking. I just can’t comprehend feeling that way toward my fellow citizen when any of us are one or two strokes of bad luck away from being in that same position. I don’t understand how they don’t realize that fucking the poor ultimately hurts everyone.
This is a species of mindset:
Me to student: You’ve only earned a fourth of possible class points and it’s finals week. As I’ve told you five times before, it is not possible to pass this course.
Student: What if I do really, really well on the final?
Me: It’s only worth 50 points, so even if you aced it you’d still be in F territory.
Student: Can I do an extra credit assignment?
Me: No.
Student: So, do you think I’ll pass the class if I ace the final?
Me: Sigh
I have this mindset…
Seriously, if I worry, doomsday is already here, isn’t it?
<AOL>
Me too!
</AOL>
I find it doubly perplexing when most conservatives/Republicans declare themselves to be God-fearing Christians, since (if you go by the Bible) most of the stuff Jesus did while on Earth was definitely of a selfless, empathic, bleedin’-heart liberal nature. The conservative/Republican viewpoint seems closer to Supply-Side Jesus than anything else.
People who are against using birth control. “I was horny” is one of the worst reasons to become a parent that I can think of.
People who are proud of being jerks toward others. Yeah, you can’t always be nice, but it’s not something to be proud of.
People who enjoy controlling others in some small, petty, way, like making them wait when they’re trying to get a parking space, for no reason other than that they can.
People who would care about using the right fork, even if no one else was looking.
People who have one religion all their lives just because that’s what they grew up as, and who never think about what parts of it they personally do and don’t believe.
People who are too unintelligent to be reasonable, skeptical, or analytical when encountering something they can’t explain and are quick to jump to the “supernatural” conclusion.
i.e. co-workers who like to believe they and others have psychic abilities and see auras, predict events, read minds, etc. “Ooo, I sense a dark aura around you today”. No dumbshit, when I don’t say good morning, slam my phone down, and sigh heavily, it’s called a visual clue!
Right-wing politics, and religion in general.
But one form of religion in particular: Seeing every aspect of life, no matter how neutral, no matter how inconsequential, as being a moral issue. For example, trick-or-treating must either praise God or be Satan’s Own Candy-Grab. That it might be morally neutral is not even an option. Another example is that it doesn’t matter what the facts indicate, believing in evolution is morally repugnant, and must be rejected on that basis.
It’s very strange yardstick with which to measure the world.