Thanks to BerkeleyPC for allowing me to write for this blog.
I’d like to discuss the topic of open-minded-ness. Is that a word? Anyway, do you consider yourself 
open minded? What do you say to someone who brings up topics that you’ve long ago dismissed as believed by the ‘lunatic fringe’ or ‘conspiracy theorists’? We certainly all have lines that we won’t cross when it comes to believability of new ideas or theories don’t we.
If someone brought up the subject of UFO’s for instance would you immediately think ‘whacko’? Most people would, but its what you do next that determines if you are open-minded or not. So, do you listen with the idea that your immediate snap judgement ‘could’ be wrong or do you just politely nod your head while you wait for the lunatic to stop rambling? If you do the latter, that’s fine, just know that you are close minded. That is not to say that at some point you didn’t really delve into the whole thing and determine that there was nothing to it. If that is the case though I would think you would engage the person and let them know what you found out and why you don’t believe it.
Of course that is not what normally happens. Most people simply shut off their brains with their ‘conspiracy nut’ shutoff sequence and become smug about their superior mind. How did we get here?
Most people are sheep. Most just go along to get along. If the majority thinks the world is flat then the sheep believe the world is flat and take steps to ensure they don’t fall of the edge. When someone comes along and tells them the world is not flat, they ignore, laugh and/or fight them to keep their beliefs exactly as they are.
And slowly, people who are willing to challenge their beliefs, start to look at the evidence and one by one their beliefs change. This happens until we reach what Malcolm Gladwell termed as ‘The Tipping Point’. The point where enough people believe it, that the sheep are able to grasp onto a new concept, and many are converted almost instantly. Very similar to the 100th monkey scenario.
I’ve been open to alternative theories on many things since very young. After spending 8 years in catholic school I found myself in public school on the 9th year and willing to join the evolution part of a debate team rather than the creationist side? Why? I had no idea if evolution was right but I had felt throughout my religious upbringing that what my instructors and pastors were espousing didn’t hold water.
I think back to responses like “Well the bible is not a history book!” to the question; “If Adam and Eve only had 2 sons, how did the rest of us get here?” and other such questions. After getting the history book lecture we usually got the “…you gotta have faith…” lecture and then the ultimate was the ”You’ll burn up in hell if you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior!”
And then of course the next question that we didn’t bother to ask for fear of nuckle thrashing is: “If God is all forgiving then wouldn’t he forgive us for not believing in him?”
So, when I reached the 9th grade and evolution was brought up I immediately volunteered for the evolution side of the debate. Not because I was sure that evolution was right, but because I wanted to research a different perspective. And partly because I like winning, and my years of watching the nuns fall all over themselves trying to make me a believer, brought me to the realization that creationism was a losing argument.
I remember constantly hearing: “You’re not worthy of the love of God but he loves you anyway!” It’s quite funny when you think about it. Imagine me a 6 year old kid arriving for my first day of catholic school. We had hunch-backed, crotchety Sr. Pancratius dressed in black flowing robes and wearing a beaded necklace depicting a man with a bloody head due to thorns being embedded in his skull and hanging on a wooden cross with railroad spikes driven 
through his hands and feet.
To complete the picture of horror was Sister Pancratius herself. All of 5’2″ tall, hunched over and scowling constantly. Disapproval was her constant demeanor. We knew we were not worthy of this purveyor of God’s love and God’s word, and at least one of us was reminded of this daily with a solid whack across the nuckles with a primary pencil.
It was always terrifying to see her walk down your aisle. If she walked down the aisle to the right of you, you were safe. But when she walked down the aisle on the left you would see all hands from potential marks in front of you become hidden from view. Some under the desk, some in pants pockets, some would sit on them. Seeming to say, hands? What hands? I don’t have any hands.
It never worked though. Sr. Pancratius always seemed to know that the ’perp’ had not lost his hands, he was simply hiding them and she would sternly demand they be produced and laid on the desk in front of him. With that we would all watch as the primary pencil came slashing down with a perfect blow every time. She was quite the marskman. The public punishment was usually enough to keep the room quiet for another day.
With that shit, the getup and the constant disaproval it’s no wonder I wet my pants on my first day and managed to be sick for 28 days of 1 semester. From a 6 year old’s perspective, that shit was scarier than The Wizard of Oz’s flying monkeys. Sister Pancratius….even her name was scary…. and did they just make those pencils extra thick so that the pain would be extra unbearable?
But I digress, while it may seem my decision to argue on behalf of evolution was in some way to punish Sister Pancratius and Catholicism, I assure you it was not. My reasons were simply because I wasn’t satisfied that the Catholics had made their case.
So in closing I can’t be sure if my early doubts based on my religious upbringing have caused my open mind or if my mind was already open and the lack of concrete answers to my questions only served to assure me that questioning perceived reality was the only sane way to live life. And questioning perceived reality has opened my eyes and mind to a lot of things I might have otherwise been blind to.
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R
Is this really a picture of Sister Pancratius? If it is (and maybe even if it isn’t) You win the scary first grade prize. My teacher was Mrs. Clark. She had been at Washington School since the dawn of mankind (be it creation OR evolution) and had worn herself into a deep groove of complacent superiority and short temperedness. On the first day of school we got the tour of those dark halls that were so frighteningly full of hysterical children that the black polished floors had to have a yellow stripe down the middle so we could avoid collision. “The Tour” included complete instructions on lunch time procedures and much more, and for a wee person to comprehend all of this while pondering the various scenes of horror that must have occurred in this ancient temple of doom, would have challenged the steeliest of six year old minds! Well, somehow, the other children must have been considerably more capable than myself, or they didn’t have their imaginations taking total control of their brains like I did! At lunch time I accomplished the task of returning to my classroom sixteen miles away from the window where they doled out the rations, balancing a large tray full of various industrial dishes, utensils, unknown edible(?) matter and a carton of milk. After consuming what I could of the unfamiliar cuisine, I somehow managed to get my tray to the correct place (which I no longer remember)and when I returned to the classroom, all eyes were fixed upon me. There was Mrs. Clark, looming over my desk like a vulture. With her hands on her hips, her stare alternated from my face to the stray milk carton on my desk. She ordered me to “take care of it at once” and as I reached out to get it my mind raced through the list of rules trying to find the one titled Empty Milk Cartons. No luck. I rushed out of the room and down the dark, empty hall, my footsteps echoing so loudly that only my beating heart could drown them out. Much to my mortification, when I got to the lunch window, where I’d hoped to see a helpful, friendly face, there was a closed sliding door. I felt like a mouse desperate to escape the jaws of an evil cat! What if someone saw me and asked what I was doing? I ducked quickly into the bathroom, dropped the carton into the trash can and covered it with a generous layer of those brown paper towels that I meticulously crumpled to get the most natural effect. All the way back to the classroom I imagined the janitor finding the carton in the trash and knowing it was mine! I could hear my Bible quoting mother’s voice in my ear: “Surely your sins will find you out!” I was doomed! When I opened the door Mrs. Clark was writing on the blackboard with her back toward me and I proceeded with high hopes of not being noticed, to my desk, when Mrs. Clark twirled around and glared at me. (I swear, that woman could put dread and fear into a twirl!) “Where did you put it?” She challenged. “Where it belongs.” I heard myself say confidently. I thought at that moment that with a little luck, I might just survive this Jungle!