Open-mindedness is always a good thing

You seem to have misunderstood the agreed upon definition of open-mindedness, "willing to consider different ideas or opinions, the opposite of closed-minded". The definition of "willing" is: "ready, eager, or prepared to do something", this excludes the idea that one must always consider other opinions or ideas like you imply, it simply means that one is prepared to take different viewpoints into account. But I will excuse this as it is a rather petty argument, I only wanted to point it out to you for future reference. There is a problem with your story-the man did not lose his donkey because he was too open-minded, he lost his donkey because he tried to make everyone happy (""Please all, and you will please none. "") without thinking about how he wanted to travel with his donkey. The man in the story was a victim of valuing others opinions over his own, that may be considered to be overly open-minded, but I think the story above would be better used in a con position in a debate titled "Selflessness is always a good thing". My opponent had a different take on the moral of the story: "In the above story, as you see, the man was constantly sacrificing his idea of the correct configuration to accommodate the new ideas constantly hurtling towards him. ". I agree completely, but once again, I believe the man was not being too open-minded, but undervaluing his own opinion. As for your three points: 1. I don't understand how being religiously closed-minded is a good thing. I do know, however, how being religiously closed-minded is a bad thing, the Spanish Inquisition (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition! ) being the premier example. You don't need religion to be the chair that is your fixed point of reference, personally, I use my younger self (or as visualized in the realm of the dark room, my footsteps, lit up by memory and journals containing memory) since only I know what my convictions truly were at what point, while any number of people could move your chair either when you're not looking or before you enter the room while you were told it was in another place. I would say that my footsteps were more reliable than the chair. You seem to confuse the fact that listening to other ideas doesn't equate to changing your opinion to fit other ideas. What is wrong with 'right' and 'wrong' not being absolute? Things aren't as simple as black and white you know, there are many gray areas and no absolutes. When we choose to be open-minded, it doesn't mean we surrender our beliefs about that subject. You are open-minded on some subjects to be sure, do you still have your own beliefs regarding that subject that are different from some that you've heard? If so, you have just disproved your theory that being open-minded means changing your opinion to encompass all other opinions on that subject. 2. I do think one should stick to their convictions in most situations, but one usually changes their convictions from the time they're born till the time they die, not for the sake of changing, but because they feel they were wrong about something and want to correct it. I'm not saying that people should change their beliefs all the time, but it is equally illogical to stick to your beliefs for your whole life no matter what, you don't get everything right on the first try. And just because you're open-minded doesn't mean you have to change your beliefs all the time, it just means you are open to changing your opinion, instead of being an inflexible stick-in-the-mud (no offense intended). 3. As the agreed upon definition for closed-minded stated: "unreceptive to new ideas or information, the opposite of open-minded. ". Being closed-minded on anything would certainly act as a filter for that subject-by filtering out any words that didn't agree with your opinion. If you do that, no new information will come to you and you couldn't learn about that subject and grow as an individual. Humans learn about their world like no other, it's what makes us who we are. If we can't do that, then what makes us any different from any other animal? No, being closed-minded about something doesn't determine what you are open-minded about. I do not understand how you came to that conclusion, please elaborate, who knows, you may convince me. For your last point, that is our fundamental disagreement, you think being closed-minded in some situations is good, I think being open-minded is always the better choice. That is why we are having this debate. I really hope you weren't offended this time, I think I went a little too far in some places. By the way, if you didn't already know, in this round you are responding only to my argument from the second round. You respond to this post in the fourth round. It really was an excellent argument you made, and I await an equally excellent rebuttal.