MARCH 26th - Not Critical Thinkers



On this day in 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult were found eternally sleeping in a mansion in San Diego. Or perhaps their mass suicide allowed them to reach the alien spacecraft that was hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet. I’m certainly not going to perform the experiment that would give me a definitive answer on the mystery. I’m not one to exclude possibilities, but I tend to think that maybe Marshall Applewhite just brainwashed a bunch of people rather than that aliens told 39 people to take a crapload of phenobarbital pudding and vodka to hitch a ride on their hidden spaceship. It makes me wonder what exactly is the balance between the sayings--”Two minds are better than one,” and “A person is smart, but people are stupid.” Not one of these 39 people thought that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea? Why exactly would you want to go live on a spaceship with no earthly idea of what the conditions were like anyway? What if the aliens were recruiting you because they needed human souls to power their alien spaceships? Nobody thought of that, did they? Of course, judging by the end result, the Heaven’s Gate people weren’t what I would call critical thinkers. They were dreamers. And there is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. I would classify myself as a dreamer. However, if someone told me that my dreams would come true if I just drank some kool-aid or ate some pudding spiked with poison, I’d tell them "Thanks, but I’m gonna roll the dice on making my dreams happen without having to stop my brain activity." Dreaming is fine. Lethal doses of phenobarbital? Not so much.

This day has been Marked.

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