Your Mind Is A Closed Book

closed-mind·ed (adj) - Intolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas.

“A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood.” (Chinese proverb)

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How are we supposed to be in an age of enlightenment and information, yet there are so many closed-minded, intolerant and ignorant people?

You know them. Everyone has one. It might be your best friend, your girlfriend, or your neighbor. It's just like the saying goes: “There's always one.”

You want to avoid them like the flu, but you can't. They will draw you into the stupidest of arguments. What's worse is that these are arguments you cannot win, because they are so closed-minded that logic is unable to gain a foothold in their minds. They cannot accept the possibility that there is something more than what they think. To them, they are right and their way of thinking is the only way of thinking. You, sir or lady, are the one with the problem. Not them.

How can you convince a person who thinks they're right all the time? You can't. Banging your head against the wall would get better results, plus the headache's not as bad.

If you look at the world, anyone with half-a-brain could see that our progress was only possible when people looked beyond what was there and asked themselves an important question: “What if?”

Where would we be if early man had not designed tools to make his life easier? Who among you is glad that someone thought that computing power, which would easily fill a large room from wall-to-wall, could be miniaturized, leading to cell phones, PDAs and Playstations? Hell, everyone who caught an STD should be on their knees thanking Alexander Fleming for discovering penicillin from (of all things) mold.

I could go on and on about it, but closed-minded people would never get the point. So, here's a list of people that I consider to be very closed-minded. If you're open-minded, you'll agree with the list and could probably add in some names of your own. If you're closed-minded, you're in great company.

• The people who are protesting the building of a Islamic prayer center two blocks from Ground Zero in New York
• Religious bigots
• The Birthers, who are still convinced that President Barack Obama is not an American citizen
• The majority of commentators on Fox News
• The preacher in Gainesville who wants to host an “International Burn a Koran Day” on September 11th
  
• Skinheads
• Racists and bigots, period
• Sharron Angle, GOP challenger for Senator in Nevada, who believes that a woman should not have an abortion even if she was raped
• Sarah Palin (does this really need an explanation?)
• The Vatican, who recently listed the ordination of women as a grave crime and who still drag their feet when it comes to their priests sexually abusing little boys
• The idiots in MTV who decided that the “M” no longer stood for “Music”
• The idiots in MTV who came up with The Jersey Shore (no, scratch that. They're not closed-minded, but they have committed a crime against humanity and should be punished accordingly)
• The people in the state of Florida who wrote the law that allows homosexuals to be foster parents, but won't let them adopt
• The Pentagon officials who refuse to budge on banning gays in the military
• The people who once thought the Earth was flat
• The people who once thought the Earth was the center of the universe
• People who do not believe in evolution
• People who still think slavery was a good thing
• People who stick with a brand and won't even consider buying another brand that might be better
• The idiots who burned construction equipment at a future Islamic center in Tennessee
• Anyone who admires the Nazis
• Anyone who denies that the Holocaust happened
• The idiot who decided to put live action shows on Cartoon Network (it's called Cartoon Network, dammit! However, Adult Swim is excluded from this)
  
• The music industry, for not giving artists what they really deserve
• The movie industry, for not giving more major roles to people of other ethnicities (i.e., The Last Airbender) because they think it won't sell

I'm sure I've missed quite a bit of people on this list, but common sense tells me that those that get it will have people of their own who they can add to the list and those that don't will be in denial anyway.

Common sense advice: Open your mind to the possibilities out there. You can't know everything. Even if you're convinced you do.