How open minded are you?

I’m open to evidence, but my mind is not so open my brains will fall out.

@Seek As an atheist, are you open towards people who are part of a theistic religion? Not in the sense that you accept their beliefs as your own but understand why they choose to believe what they believe?
The reason I ask is that I often see people criticising and bashing the people who are part of a religion, as if they are somehow “better” or more intelligent.
I’m an atheist but I don’t go around hating religious people, I simply try and understand why they believe what they believe and accept it. Unless of course they’re harming others. They have a right to believe what they do, just as we do. So you go your way and I go my way, does that make sense? Open mindedness is about being able to see things from different points of views right?

Most people, myself included live in a very small world that is exclusive to them. It is then very easy to draw very safe secure conclusions on what is best for them and their family as that is how they have lived there entire life. My life I don’t have to assume is very different from yours or most of the other Jeliies here and visa versa. So we instinctively will formulate opions base on this comfort zone we live in. It takes great insight and cognitive effort to step outside this comfort zone to then factor in and process what the rest of the world is truly experiencing. Simply claiming you have an open mind will more often than not fall woefully short of the metric for what having an open mind truly means.

I consider myslef to be pretty open minded but…while I can have an “each to his own” attitude this doesn’t mean that certain situations or experiences are for me and some things, like poop fetishes are just plain wrong. Poop on me I will gouge your eyeballs out with a pencil. lol

@MilkyWay – I have a very convoluted history with religion. I was once an extremely devout evangelical Christian, from a very strict denomination. I am intimately familiar with cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. I have no problem with what people believe, until those beliefs start affecting people that didn’t make the choice to allow those beliefs to affect them.

Their right to swing their fists ends where the next man’s nose begins.

I am quite closed minded, and proud of it. I try to stay rigorous in my thinking and only accept ideas that make intuitive sense or are backed up by good data.

I’m not sure. Can one be open minded yet opinionated?

I used to think I was open-minded before I joined this site. Now my mind opens much more wider but I still think I haven’t reached that point yet. I guess sometimes we are just the total opposite of what we think we are.

As per my opinion everyone has a right to practice his / her own religion as long as it doesn’t harm others. I’m quite open to suggestions that come my way if they are helpful in improving who I am.

I am completely evidence driven.

Yes, but your evidence is generated in some dimension beyond common understanding.

I’m open-minded to other ideas and philosophies, but I am rational and intelligent enough to be able to evaluate them and make judgments about them.

Being open to an idea does not necessarily mean that I embrace it.

I always consider the possibility that someone else knows more about a subject than I do, or at least has a point of view that simply had not occurred to me.

Open minded? I am essentially impossible to shock and understand that the condition of being offended is emotion based.

Probably not very. I’m not easily influenced. Luckily, my circle tends to be pretty open-minded, and I’ve been able to practice that skill. Also, I like to think. Many of the exceptionally closed-minded people I’ve gotten to know appear to dislike all thinking. I believe that is often a defense mechanism.

What does “open minded” even mean really?

Well, I’m open minded when it comes to evidence.

When it comes to emotions and psychology, sociology, I admit, I struggle what that.

@flo it means you are willing to change your mind if necessary. It means it’s not always “My way or the highway,” and refusal to listen to others or accept what they say.

I’m completely open minded until my mind is made up, then I’m closed minded unless something can invalidate what made my mind up.

Opened at both ends. I’m also balanced with a hint of prudence.

@elbanditoroso Absolutely yes, accepting something is not the same as embracing it. Open mindedness is about being able to understand why, through a different view.

@flo It means an ability to look at a certain topic or idea through a number of different angles, and realising that you may be wrong, or that there is no clear answer, or no right answer. Simply that you think outside the box of norms. Normality is subjective, open minded people will be willing to accept that.

So-so.

I’m certainly more open minded than average.
I tend to try to empathize with everyone, about everything. I can’t walk a mile in their shoes, but I can walk beside them and try to understand why limp or skip the way they do.
I miss my friend @KNOWITALL here on Fluther. She a practical minded and funny devout Christian to my agnostic. I defend her right to believe in God and his Son.

I admit to a rural Midwestern tendency toward race, sex and weight prejudice, but I internalize that (don’t speak it) and work against it constantly. I become a little more liberal every week, and I credit Fluther for a lot of that. Giving voice and exposure to people I just otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to interact with.

I love learning new things, and if that challenges a preconception, even better!

(The one absolute that I won’t allow challenged is sexual abuse of a child. I do not want to understand on a deeper level. I can even empathize to a degree with physical abuse, but no, not sexual abuse. And as far as I know, I was not abused.)

Open-minded, yes. However, that does not mean that simply because I can understand someone’s way of thinking that I will necessarily accept it. Especially when people’s beliefs start harming other people. Which is precisely why I hate organized religion. It damages people and the world beyond belief. Personal relationships with your god/s/ess/esses are your own business, and you’re free to believe what you want. I will respect that freedom of choice as long as you don’t start trying to control other people.

Like @ibstubro points out, however, there is absolutely no room for me to be open-minded when it comes to abuse of children and/or animals. I’m extremely rigid in that regard and always will be.

@Seek

My brain fell out once’t . . . but I didn’t mind.

The way I define open minded is that I’m willing to consider all evidence. That certainly doesn’t guarantee that I’m going to agree with your position, and great claims require proportionately large evidence to support them, but I’m not closed off to ideas on principle.

When you have the benefit of knowing you’re right then you don’t have to be open-minded.

By trying to qualify what it means to be open-minded you aren’t you attempting to narrowly define it by your own standards? Being open minded never meant that you have to agree with everything. Then you are a hypocrite or a simpleminded follower with no beliefs of your own. You must take certain views that you know as your own personal truths or simply follow those of others.

People are a culmination of personality, life experiences, personal beliefs and health and enviroment and even genetics. All these things make us the individuals that we are. It is possible to fit into more than one category. No human being is just one thing.

You can be conservative and open minded. It just means that you are a conservative who doesn’t rule everything out. But some things that you feel you know through the culmination of things may lead you to lean one way or another.

For instance. Some may say I am conservative because I don’t believe in abortion. But at the same time, I am sure that I cannot put upon other people my morals. Especially since I cannot with 100 percent conviction claim to know when life begins morally speaking. For myself I rather never do it and I wish no one ever had to do it. But I wouldn’t say this makes me liberal. Just not willing to back this dog in the fight. Now of a newborn to adult is much clearer to me.
People will also say someone is open minded when they are willing to hear both sides of a story and then make a decision on where they stand. It does not and should not mean that they have to agree with you or they are not open minded. It also does not mean that they may reach a conclusion on bias. Sometimes things just make better sense.

If you told to buy a ticket for the lottery because I will win. I may buy it. But it won’t mean that I don’t believe that the odds may be against me. Knowledge of the statistics tell me you are more than likely wrong. It’s not through bias. It is a numerical statistical fact. I may hope to win but I could chose not to play. Doesn’t mean I’m close minded. I just don’t want to flush that dollar down the drain.
If we didn’t set certain standards for ourselves then we would be like children raised without morals or values. We would believe every argument ever made. We would never come to any conclusion.
What you should be asking is, why do we insist on labeling everyone? Sure it makes it easier to figure out who is more like ourselves, but it can also limit our knowledge.

You’re all talking about what open minded means on paper.
In practice, (edit to add: generally) it’s a whole other story isn’t it? Open minded is the person who agrees with us (whoever we are) or is willing to agree with our position at least at some point in the future.

Maybe that’s what you think, @flo…

Now tell me, who is going to say I am open minded enough to accept x,y,z (including “sexual abuse of a child”?

@ibstubro “The one absolute that I won’t allow challenged is sexual abuse of a child. I do not want to understand on a deeper level. I can even empathize to a degree with physical abuse, but no, not sexual abuse. And as far as I know, I was not abused.)”
So, of all the gizzilion things that people should fight against, (never mind not be open minded about) that’s the only thing that you can’t be open minded about? That can’t be that’s what you mean.

@Pandora “Some may say I am conservative because I don’t believe in abortion. But at the same time, I am sure that I cannot put upon other people my morals. Especially since I cannot with 100 percent conviction claim to know when life begins morally speaking. For myself I rather never do it and I wish no one ever had to do it.” Maybe you’re too open minded if you’re not sure when life begins?
The time of conception is when life begins, the same way that a 1 minute old baby is as much a person as any person older than that don’t you think?

@flo Maybe you’re too close-minded if you’re positive when life begins? The moment of conception is a form of life, yes. But not a thinking, feeling, or conscious form of life. The difference matters and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Life is irrelevant. A cancer cell is life. The bacteria that thrive in an infected wound is life. A virus is life. We have no qualms whatsoever about destroying these things, so no, life doesn’t matter. What matters is personhood. And to my view personhood begins at the moment of birth, not conception.

@DrasticDreamer Maybe you’re too close minded to think that you have to be a thinking feeling entity to be considered a person?

@flo being open minded doesn’t mean you agree with the other person. It just means you’re will to the hear them out instead of just shutting them down right away.

Is that an original post, @Darth_Algar, or a quote?

I am quite open minded as I am consider ideas, opinions and arguments purely on their merit.

I love to here others perspective and kind of live through them through their experiences. It’s like reading a book, or watching a movie. Really old people have especially interesting points of view because it was so different. Some peoples stories tell valuable lessons. Seeing the patterns,and twists of fate help you really know what some one went through. What if that happened to you, wo. On the other hand, I recently had a good friend of mine try to turn me into a libertarian. Yah no. I tried to understand, and I respect his freedom to be a libertarian, but i think it’s kind of mean. By the way,26 weeks is when neuro connections are formed in the brain of a fetus, i.e. when they can feel pain.