So-called skeptics.

There aren't too many people that, as a group, irritate me.

One group that often does: so-called skeptics.

Skepticism in and of itself is a perfectly reasonable behavior; one shouldn't simply believe everything that comes along, but if you are going to call yourself a skeptic, then you need to be skeptical about every point of view until it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. Anything less is intellectually dishonest.

Here’s a partial list of things that most skeptics don’t believe in:

UFO’s, crypto-zoology, psychic powers, ghosts, reincarnation, an afterlife, holistic/natural medicine, and of course, conspiracies, including, but not limited to: chemtrails, Morgellon’s, secret societies and plots by corporations, religious groups and government agencies to control information, population and finances in self-serving and destructive manners.

With a few exceptions, almost every skeptic takes the exact same stance on these things every time. He claims his incredulity is because he only believes in things that have evidence-but of course he gives no conclusive evidence to disprove these things. He simply cites a lack of conclusive evidence that such things exist, and that, in his mind, is the same as proving their non-existence.

Of course, the skeptic says the burden of proof rests upon the person claiming that such things exist-but rather than say, “We don’t know if these things exist,” he rushes ahead to the conclusion that they absolutely do not.

Present him some evidence, and he waves it away. You have a video of a UFO? It’s a fake until it lands on the White House lawn. He wants easy, accessible facts that he can verify by picking up a newspaper. While the believer actually investigates phenomenon, the skeptic sits back making sarcastic comments, waiting with crossed arms until what the believer believes becomes common knowledge.

The skeptic is almost never skeptical about the mainstream view on these subjects. He swallows whatever the media, the government or corporations tell the public, with an almost child-like faith in the inherent goodness of the system. If he does any work to debunk anything at all, it usually consists of calling upon an expert who works for that same system to reinforce what he, the skeptic, already believes. If there's a debunking show like Myth Busters or Penn & Teller, it will stick to something safe.

All of this wouldn't be so irritating, if it wasn't for the fact that skeptics are always claiming they hold some kind of intellectual high ground. They’re smarter than the stupid masses that get hooked in by this tabloid stuff. They don’t buy the snake oil. They’re not a retard, like you, the believer. And they never miss the opportunity to point this out from whatever platform they can. They call you a crank and a nut and that’s the extent of their “intellectual” discourse on such matters. And somehow, it works. The public doesn't want to believe something that is different than what they’re told, and so they look to someone to reinforce the beliefs they already hold. When you mention something that’s out of the ordinary, the average person gets scared and uncomfortable. So the “skeptic” steps in with an insult, calling the conspiracy theorist crazy, and with a big sigh of relief, the average person smiles and nods and says, “yeah, crazy.” A crisis is averted. But it’s not an act of mercy; it’s an act of codependent enabling between two groups of people addicted to not thinking, because they’re afraid.

What’s funny about conspiracies is that they are probably the most ridiculed on this list of things, yet the existence of conspiracies themselves is the most easily provable on the list.

The United States government charges people with conspiracies every day-conspiracy to commit murder, fraud terrorism-you name it.

But the skeptic refuses to believe in large conspiracies. He claims that if such things existed, that some whistle-blower would come forward or that some mistake would be made, exposing everything. He is sure that a conspiracy is too big and too complex and people are too incompetent to pull off a complicated plot, and would never do so, because they’re just not that evil.

I have one word for skeptics:

Cigarettes.

More specifically, cigarette companies. Cigarette companies knew that cigarettes were both addictive and deadly for 50 years, and hid this fact. What’s more, they hired their own doctors to give cigarettes the seal of medical approval. These doctors went home to their families every night knowing that they had betrayed their oath, lied, and sent millions of people to an early grave. And they did it for money. Not a single doctor came forward. Not a single employee of the cigarette companies blew the whistle. All the major tobacco companies conspired together to do this. Nobody slipped up and gave the game away for fifty years. Now you may say, aha, they were eventually exposed, but that didn't happen until long after the guilty parties were beyond punishment. The tobacco companies were sued in a historical case, but it certainly did not put them out of business. The point remains. Conspiracies are real.

Now if corporations are willing to do that for money, what are governments willing to do for power? Or for what they think is best for their citizens? What do the spy agencies from around the world do, when there is no one to monitor them? And these people are a lot better at hiding secrets than cigarette makers, because deception is what they do for a living.

Not believing in conspiracy theories doesn't make you smarter, saner, or better than the average person. It just makes you complicit in the cover-up.

As I sit here smoking my cigarette, I have to say I am a bit skeptical of your premise.

~Heff

as far as i can see, alot of sceptics are just trolling.

they look for threads they can derail with their superior knowledge of where you are wrong.

if you believe something, and you investigate it to the point where you are confident, who gives a flying rats patootie what anyone else says.

most sceptics are just in that camp because it makes them feel safe and secure in their world

I find it hard to believe that these "skeptics" exist.

Can you prove your assertions?

I thought so, just another lens flare...

reply to post by okamitengu


Now for my serious answer:

Skeptics provide context. Anyone with personal opinion and the ability to discern appreciates very much having several POVs to work with on any given issue.

All we can do as people searching for truths and answers is to access all relevant data, pro and con, and then allow ourselves to form our own opinions.

If nothing else... skeptics provide the believers with strategic information. For example, how many UFO forum posters have, quite by accident and out of necessity, become Photoshop experts as a side effect from debating skeptics.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


I'm skeptical about smokin players,whilst thinking about camels......op,I thought skeptics made their own rules..eh

reply to post by Snsoc


I believe I am a believer yet am skeptical of the skeptics.

I think therefore I am
I am a believer therefore I am a thinker.
I am a skeptic therefore I think I believe....... I think!

Originally posted by Snsoc
...but rather than say, “We don’t know if these things exist,” he rushes ahead to the conclusion that they absolutely do not.

Give me an example of such all encompassing absolutism, where uncertainty exists.
All I see here is a (rather lengthy) straw man argument.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by Snsoc
...but rather than say, “We don’t know if these things exist,” he rushes ahead to the conclusion that they absolutely do not.

Give me an example of such all encompassing absolutism, where uncertainty exists.
All I see here is a (rather lengthy) straw man argument.

You see what I did there.

reply to post by alfa1


Very witty - very well done.........

Already people misunderstand... unavoidable but always... curious to see it in action.

OP is talking about skeptics who are little more than parrots of the mainstream authority POV on issues... only really accepting something once the "mainstream" "authority" regarding said issue has said it is verified.

Thus the modern skeptic, would have at one time discounted evolution, meteors, atoms, etc.

It's a fine line to walk... but it's pretty easy to identify the skeptic who is really simply a follower of the Church of the Mainstream versus a skeptic who is skeptical even of their own skepticism.

Namaste... and said with meaning.

i love the skeptic.why?cause they say this and that isn,t possible but even the greatest minds on earth are being proved wrong with stuff in space......typical humans.....if to us its impossible then its fact until otherwise proven......to me just cause we can,t travel through space doesn,t mean someone else can,t.......just over a 100 years ago we coudn,t even fly,look where we are now.......people need to get a grip and stop thinking we,r superior to everything in the whole universe.

Originally posted by Sublimecraft
reply to post by Snsoc

 

I believe I am a believer yet am skeptical of the skeptics.

I think therefore I am
I am a believer therefore I am a thinker.
I am a skeptic therefore I think I believe....... I think!

That would make you an intelligent believer then. you cant just go believing conspiracies becase someone said its so. But people do it all the time.

I also cant believe mainstream science just because they say its so. Like all this quantum mechanics stuff, for example, i couldnt possibly prove these things to myself. And the recent space discoveries? Know what i mean? And archaeology?

I feel like half the time sciencr pulls facte out its ass to look smarter.

reply to post by phroziac


Lucky I love you like a brother.............brother.
2nd

reply to post by sparky31

to me just cause we can,t travel through space doesn,t mean someone else can,t

But, it works both ways...

"just cause we can travel through space, dosn't mean someone else can".



Skeptic's are healthy, we can't live without them in here.

Originally posted by ErgoTheConclusion
Already people misunderstand... unavoidable but always... curious to see it in action.

OP is talking about skeptics who are little more than parrots of the mainstream authority POV on issues... only really accepting something once the "mainstream" "authority" regarding said issue has said it is verified.

Thus the modern skeptic, would have at one time discounted evolution, meteors, atoms, etc.

It's a fine line to walk... but it's pretty easy to identify the skeptic who is really simply a follower of the Church of the Mainstream versus a skeptic who is skeptical even of their own skepticism.

Namaste... and said with meaning.

This!

As a skeptic I will say that we are invaluable to the process of discovering the truth. When the true believers are allowed to run roughshod the truth just gets muddied. Let's take ufology as an example. The second the ET hypothesis became a foregone conclusion to most "researchers" is the second ufology lost any legitimacy. The proof that connects UFOs to ETs is lacking at best. Yet most books published on the topic start with the premise that UFO=ET. Because of this we have now presented with this long and winding mythology based on nothing. If we had continued to follow the research methods employed by the likes of J. Allen Hynek we might actually have some tangible facts but instead we are left with the beginnings of a modern religion that has left us knowing less than we began.

That's why us skeptics are necessary. We temper the enthusiasm of the true believers and ask the tough questions. We ask for hard evidence because we have seen what can happen when people just run with their feelings and hearsay.

What an irrational rant. At least you chose the correct forum, I guess.

Originally posted by Snsoc
With a few exceptions, almost every skeptic takes the exact same stance on these things every time. He claims his incredulity is because he only believes in things that have evidence-but of course he gives no conclusive evidence to disprove these things. He simply cites a lack of conclusive evidence that such things exist, and that, in his mind, is the same as proving their non-existence.

Skeptics take the same position on those subjects because they are all implausible and unsupported by sound evidence. No surprise that skeptics agree and share the same stance, then.

Skepticism can be summed up simply by the statement: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or, more simply, if you're going to make an outlandish claim you'd better have the goods.

Originally posted by Snsoc
Of course, the skeptic says the burden of proof rests upon the person claiming that such things exist-but rather than say, “We don’t know if these things exist,” he rushes ahead to the conclusion that they absolutely do not.

That's where you're wrong. I know the skeptics you're talking about, I consider myself one of them, and very rarely do they claim absolute knowledge on a position. It's clear you're misrepresenting skeptics to make them look unreasonable.

Originally posted by Snsoc
Present him some evidence, and he waves it away. You have a video of a UFO? It’s a fake until it lands on the White House lawn. He wants easy, accessible facts that he can verify by picking up a newspaper. While the believer actually investigates phenomenon, the skeptic sits back making sarcastic comments, waiting with crossed arms until what the believer believes becomes common knowledge.

Now you're into the realm of pure fantasy. Skeptics do not simply look to the newspaper to tell them what to think, that's absolute rubbish. Skepticism includes being skeptical of the media, for sure, I know of no one who calls himself a "skeptic" who just waits for newspapers to tell him what to believe. The reason your evidence is being waved away is because it's garbage. You want to believe that fuzzy, inconclusive footage of objects that cannot be readily identified are evidence of aliens, that's what the skeptic takes issue with, and rightly so.

Originally posted by Snsoc
The skeptic is almost never skeptical about the mainstream view on these subjects. He swallows whatever the media, the government or corporations tell the public, with an almost child-like faith in the inherent goodness of the system. If he does any work to debunk anything at all, it usually consists of calling upon an expert who works for that same system to reinforce what he, the skeptic, already believes. If there's a debunking show like Myth Busters or Penn & Teller, it will stick to something safe.

Utter rubbish.

I stopped reading here, I can't even get through the rest of your rant. I think skeptics irritate you because they show your beliefs for the delusions that they are, and ruin the fun for you. Life is just like professional wrestling to you and your ilk.

Originally posted by Snsoc
I have one word for skeptics:

Cigarettes.

Cigarettes.

Therefore, Aliens!

Just about sums up the believer movement in one syllogism.

Wow, I finished your post. It took two goes at it but I made it through. I feel less intelligent for it, though.

reply to post by Snsoc

He claims his incredulity is because he only believes in things that have evidence-but of course he gives no conclusive evidence to disprove these things. He simply cites a lack of conclusive evidence that such things exist, and that, in his mind, is the same as proving their non-existence.

Pink unicorns are real because I can't fully and utterly prove they don't exist somewhere in the galaxy?



You are playing with teapots.

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell's teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the existence of God.

en.wikipedia.org...'s_teapot