the idea of open-mindedness intrigues me.  it also escapes my grasp.  people say it is ok to accept other points of view which is very true, depending on how much you know.  i say what is more important than accepting other points of view is realizing how much you really know about any topic.  obviously if someone said pigs can fly you would not accept their point of view, you would be very "close-minded" and tell them they are wrong.  how people go from that to saying you must accept other opinions eludes me.  it is necessary to reject other opinions in order to hold opinions.  obviously you will not be correct about everything you believe and that is when open-mindedness is necessary and the realization of how much you know about something. a fine line indeed.  things is we can not reject close-mindedness, unless we are sure we know more than the person who is being close minded and disagree.  open-mindedness is simply an admittance that we don't know enough to form an accurate opinion.  it should be referred to as that instead of having this stigma of being the ultimate achievement in thought.  "i admit i do not know enough to form an accurate opinion so tell me what you think" that is all.  when we know enough it is ok to say "you are wrong".  and we shouldn't be ashamed of being able to tell people they are wrong.  we should know ourselves and be proud that we do know enough to say "you are wrong".  for i am as sure as sure gets that pigs can not fly, and i will tell someone who thinks otherwise just that.  i have more doubt in my belief that pigs can fly than in my belief that mr bush has been a terrible president and the quote "if you aren't completely disgusted then you haven't been paying enough attention" comes to mind.  it is unfathomable that people can think that he has been anything else to me,  and it is unfathomable that people will dismiss this belief.  i can't understand.  i can understand a lot of disagreements but this is one that has continually stumped me.  it is similar to when i was rejecting religion.  for a long time religion was what occupied my thoughts.  i could not determine how people could be religious.  it stumped me that people would believe in anything out of pure faith.  so i rejected religion.  the dogma i found disgusting and it confounded me that people could not see outside of it.  that they could not be "open-minded".  but as i have gotten older i no longer believe it is about being open minded.  the decision was not made with logic or reason, it was faith.  understanding requires logic and reason therefore faith can not be understood, it is merely felt.  this intrigued me that so many people could just feel something and thus i began to understand spirituality.  this also resulted in my further rejection of religion, further acceptance of being able to feel something in the universe beyond logic and reason.  i don't know what it is but i'm open to a number of explanations.  i'm not sure what the feeling is even.  perhaps looking up at the sky at night or riding in your car on a nice summer's day.  but it is not religion.  so i have excercised my close-mindedness and rejected religion as fully as i have rejected that pigs can fly.  i don't know if this is making sense or even tying all together,  but i think in order to truly be open-minded we have to be close-minded sometimes.   for example,  i think it is ok to be totally intolerant of intolerant people.  racist  are wrong, end of discussion.  i do not have to be open-minded to their opinions and will not be. and things progress from their.  i find it totally disgusting that politicians tried to pass the FMA.  close-mindedness at it's best i believe.  although i can understand that the real discussion is one of definitions the whole thing disgusts me because i don't believe those are their true motives. i could go on and on about it and thus i reach the conclusion that it is bad after considering it for enough time.  thus i have come to my conclusion about mr bush.  i have considered enough to reject him as being even an "ok" president and i have been thorough enough that i can't understand how other people can think otherwise.  so i come back to the dillemna of those same people saying that i need to be more open minded.... but i can't , i can't understand when open-mindedness must be used and close-mindedness must be used if this is not a situtation that i must be open-minded and not close-minded.....where do we draw the line?