My Father-in-law is one of the kookiest people I know. He believes everything - pretty much on the basis that everything has "some basis of truth in it", and he likes to be "open-minded". He has paid (among other things) to do Reiki courses, and used to insist on using acu-pressure on me (pressing the palm of my hand when I had stomache pains). Pretty much any snake-oil remedy that cures everything is tried by him, without him seeing the irony. He has sent money to obvious (to me, and I warned him so) scammers - just in case. Then sent them letters to say how dissapointed he was, after his money vanished. He thinks that my atheism is my "path to God" and when he said I "prayed to the big bang" I don't think he meant it as a metaphor.

He got to be so annoying I basically ended up avoiding him.

Now, a lot of his attitudes have rubbed off on my wife. She used to do TM (and took our Daughter there, once), sometimes buys homeopathic remedies, and has paid for iridology sessions and astrological charts. (And various other "medicines too").

Somehow though, we get along fine - I hassle her for being a kook and she hassles me for my own mental flaws. It all balances out.

Over time we affect each other, she is now more skeptical, less likely to be fooled by scammers and spends way less on junk. In turn I now tend to be nicer to and more accepting of people, and sometimes I am actually found in social situations with people I don't know.

So I get to this line, and I've forgotten what my point was.

I had thought that it would be that we should all just accept each other as we are; except I just described how my wife and I affect and change each other.

Still, if you are skeptical, then skeptical is part of who you are. Be you.

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