Stop bashing us skeptics/debunkers and learn to think logically and with reason!

I'm new here and this is probably the most fueled thread on ATS. The OP struck a nerve and it brought out a diversity of opinions, mostly from those who don't like to be criticised. Frankly, reading some of the replies made me think that the repliers did not believe in freedom of speech since a lot of you either wanted the thread ended because of your biases, or the OP was called a troll because he saw something wrong and decided to let you know.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. No one had to open this thread and if you did, you didn't have to reply. But you did, good and bad. Isn't free speech great? So, if you think you have the right to express yourself, even negatively, allow it for others.

I don't know how to give stars but if I could I'd give the OP 5 stars. Well done!

If you dont beleive in much of anything, fine. (you cant see air, therefore....)
If you won't help us uncover the real truths of life, fine again.

Just don't slam the door on us, call us names and stand on our feet
while we try to then! Not cool. IMO

Someone who asks "what if" just may save your life someday too, btw!

[edit on 19-10-2009 by dodadoom]

Where's Eddie at now?

I'm anxious to see his replies to a lot of the posts in here. This is the most attention he's ever gotten and he's actually nowhere to be seen. That's pretty amazing. Any other time he'd be on here soaking it all up.

Originally posted by Amagnon

Originally posted by xelamental

Originally posted by finnegan
Conspiracists, I think some of you may be taking the Op to personally, although I do think it may have been better if any particular cases were left out of the discussion. Another problem lies with people who are just utterly deniable of anything no matter what information is presented to them. But I don't think it's too much to ask to provide solid evidence and to look at it logically.

Here is a video I posted in another thread which is also very applicable here

video by QualiaSoup

That's the best video on this topic I have ever seen.
I would love to see some "believers" takes on this.

This video represents in my view - the 'normal' approach to thinking. I wish I could make a small video to show how ludicrously limited and biased the style of thinking it advocates really is - however, it is largely how people think.

The problem occurs when you 'accept' something as true. So your skeptical - but finally evidence piles up - and you say, ok ET's really do exist. That decision of yours, did not pop aliens into existence - they either existed, or did not exist before you made that choice, and the same state of the universe continued smoothly along after you made that choice.

However, what has happened now is that you have biased your mind. Any evidence that aliens cannot exist can now safely be discounted. Even further than that, if you see a book titled "The Impossibility of the ET Presence" - you will not glance at it, nor read it. Reading it would be a waste of your time - because you already 'know' that ET's exist.

Any evidence that they do exist, no matter how flawed can safely be assumed to be true. With a little bit of mental tweaking from yourself - you can convince yourself the most tenuous evidence becomes 'solid' evidence.

My conclusion then - if you wish to retain a critical mind, and truly be able to assess data in an unbiased way - then you must suspend belief - all belief.

My model of thought goes like this.

Everything goes in - all data, all evidence - it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is. It is then assembled into groups - perhaps it is assembled underneath a statement of possibility. Such as Do aliens exist. Then you just pour all the evidence into that space. Then you have a good understanding of how the question might be answered both in the affirmative - and in the negative. Now you can also start to assign a probability to the likely hood that the possibility is real (true), or unreal (false).

For myself - the evidence I have indicates that intelligent aliens exist somewhere (lets say over 99%), that they have visited earth in the past (around 70%), that they are visiting today (maybe 60%).

The correct mental exercise here is to look for ways to reduce those percentages - because a high percentage is likely to create bias - such my 99% for aliens existing somewhere. To reduce that number I would be looking for info that tells me there are less stars than originally estimated, that the plants so far located are errors - that perhaps the earth and liquid water are freakishly improbable and so forth.

[edit on 18-10-2009 by Amagnon]

Science exists to provide a framework for acquiring knowledge. It's been proven, time and time again to be the best model we have for understanding the universe. What has your model gotten us apart from an unjustified belief in alien visitations?

reply to post by xelamental


I'm going to have to second the guy who said the video is trash. It hardly takes a balanced perspective. Instead, it seems to take status-quo science as a religion. As mentioned earlier, skeptics have been just as stupid as anyone else historically, arguing so heavily against Copernicus that the Sun revolves around the Earth, etc. Classifying anything non-scientific as "supernatural" is showing immediate bias towards phenomena that are not already scientifically-established.

Originally posted by nightmare_david
Where's Eddie at now?

I'm anxious to see his replies to a lot of the posts in here. This is the most attention he's ever gotten and he's actually nowhere to be seen. That's pretty amazing. Any other time he'd be on here soaking it all up.

lol... Yeah I was wondering where he was too... He started this thread, but doesn't care to refute anything posed to him.

Sounds like he has the "don't-show-me-no-irrefutable-evidence-I-don't-need-it" attitude.

Personally, I don't mind skeptics. Being skeptical is part of life. I just have an issue if the skeptic becomes a a-hole.

The Original Post is full of insults and attacks. That is not a skeptic, its a septic. It is a ignorant, generalized attack on 'believers' with a call for help from true intelligent skeptics. Notice not many skeptics came to his rescue and most see the OP for what it is... A immature attack on a group of people.

He is full of prejudice & hate, as he applies his judgments to an entire group of people without even knowing them and then starts a thread with a post full of insults and attacks.

Originally posted by ByteChanger

Originally posted by nightmare_david
Where's Eddie at now?

I'm anxious to see his replies to a lot of the posts in here. This is the most attention he's ever gotten and he's actually nowhere to be seen. That's pretty amazing. Any other time he'd be on here soaking it all up.

lol... Yeah I was wondering where he was too... He started this thread, but doesn't care to refute anything posed to him.

Sounds like he has the "don't-show-me-no-irrefutable-evidence-I-don't-need-it" attitude.

Personally, I don't mind skeptics. Being skeptical is part of life. I just have an issue if the skeptic becomes a a-hole.

The Original Post is full of insults and attacks. That is not a skeptic, its a septic. It is a ignorant, generalized attack on 'believers' with a call for help from true intelligent skeptics. Notice not many skeptics came to his rescue and most see the OP for what it is... A immature attack on a group of people.

He is full of prejudice & hate, as he applies his judgments to an entire group of people without even knowing them and then starts a thread with a post full of insults and attacks.

Agree 100%

I have nothing at all against skeptics. Except for when they act like "a-holes" like you said. When they act as if they have the answers to everything and completely ignore any valid evidence presented to them, that's when they start to get on my nerves. The ones that just can't believe anything they weren't told to believe.

The few things that really bothered me about Eddie is when he would jump on people for talking about books they've read. He would talk about books being hearsay and how they offer nothing. He would then turn around and use certain books he read as solid evidence for something he believes.

He would attack others who couldn't provide photos of their sightings. Then go on to say he has photos and videos of his sightings, yet never showed any of it because he "didn't know how to upload the stuff" when he was told how numerous times.

I could go on and on, but he's not worth it. I've been calling him out on his BS for a few weeks now trying to get more and more to see him for what he really was and in the end he did it all himself

Good job, Eddie

Originally posted by Skeptical Ed
Take advantage of the great tool being offered to you, our logical, reasoning minds!

I agree that everyone should be using such tools in everything they do. The grossest issue with skeptics is that they "only" use that tool. I personally feel that if I did the same, I would be a left-minded person. Relying only on one half of your brain to reflect upon reality is, in my opinion, no different than the distorted views of a mentally challenged individual. The exact same can be argued about right-minded people.

If only half a mind is being put to use in order to disseminate a challenging issue, such as the UFO phenomenon, then does that not constitute a flawed perspective?

I don't believe a whole minded person would have had a reason to write a thread such as this.

Originally posted by nightmare_david

The few things that really bothered me about Eddie is when he would jump on people for talking about books they've read. He would talk about books being hearsay and how they offer nothing. He would then turn around and use certain books he read as solid evidence for something he believes.

He would attack others who couldn't provide photos of their sightings. Then go on to say he has photos and videos of his sightings, yet never showed any of it because he "didn't know how to upload the stuff" when he was told how numerous times.

Yes, I've seen some of these posts you mentioned. A little ironic, he wants "believers" to think he has a great mind, but asks 'believers' for help on how to upload... Perhaps Eddie should buld a web page he could direct people too... Seems like a logical, albeit technical thing to do.

I could go on and on, but he's not worth it. I've been calling him out on his BS for a few weeks now trying to get more and more to see him for what he really was and in the end he did it all himself

Good job, Eddie

Yeah, I think the only reason I replied to this troll thread was because I felt personnaly attacked and thought a rebuttal was in order.

Yeah, that is pretty funny... Give the man enough rope and he will hang himself...

reply to post by ByteChanger


Yeah really. Here's my e-impression of Eddie:

I personally debunked all of Hoaglands stuff. I have done one act of debunking that would change the minds of all the believers, but I'll never tell you what it is I debunked. Ignore the fact that everything I tried debunking on ATS was already debunked long before I "debunked" it. I was the first to do it.

I like to imply that I personally know most of the well-known ufologists and talk to them all the time, but I keep my identity to myself. I'm 71 years old and live in New York. This automatically makes me more credible than anyone else here because I'm older.

I like telling people they're seeing things that aren't there, then go on to talk about about 6 solid UFO sightings that I had myself. I have photographic and video evidence of all this, but I have no clue how to upload them to a website to share because my superior intelligence that I like to flaunt, won't allow me to learn how to do something soo simple.

reply to post by nightmare_david


Wow. That's amazing...

I almost thought you were Eddie for a minute...

Skeptical Ed: Member was on ATS
8 minutes ago.

What's wrong? Thread go in the complete opposite direction you thought it would? All the replies you got in here and nothing more to say?

reply to post by nightmare_david


Start an new NASA or Hoagland related thread and he'll come flying in with bells on . . .

reply to post by ecoparity


Why start a new Hoagland thread?

He's already debunked all of Hoaglands stuff, remember?



In his new thread, he's still saying he doesn't know how to post images I'm half tempted to pull up every post a member made where they offered helping him with that so I can show he has no desire to actually learn how. He'd most likely say he never saw any of those, but one post was soo detailed that he couldn't have missed it and he also posted in the same thread right after the how-to was posted. I also know he's received one or two U2U's on it.

[edit on 19-10-2009 by nightmare_david]

Oh boy, and i thought i was illogical. Ed, you do realize that by denying everything you are exactly what the people in this forum have said, just another believer. Except your, "belief", is the belief in nothing. Science is good, yes. It has made our lives much better. And also, much worse. We have lost that wonder that our ancestors used to have. We have lost that belief that there is something out there besides ourselves. It is good to be logical, it is good to be reasonable, but it it is also good to be prepared to accept that there are things in this universe that defy scientific explanation. There are more things neath heaven and earth... You know the quote.

im really not going to say much on the subject other than being sceptical at times is fair enough but the line has to be drawn somewhere

Debunkers of Aliens/UFOs existing below, on or above this ball don't do their homework and generally know little to nothing about indepth reports.
That's not bashing but has become factual through Debunkers failing to prove their beliefs or even support their beliefs in this area with facts that we can analyse.

They (debunkers), get attention and do it knowing nothing about the subject matter as a rule. Their too lazy to learn, or just don't want to take the months and years to study. It's just simpler to get attention through chastising, insulting, degrading people interested or have had a sighting or encounter (CE1-4).

But no, I'm not bashing Debunkers. They should have a site all their own.

Decoy

Originally posted by finnegan
Conspiracists, I think some of you may be taking the Op to personally, although I do think it may have been better if any particular cases were left out of the discussion. Another problem lies with people who are just utterly deniable of anything no matter what information is presented to them. But I don't think it's too much to ask to provide solid evidence and to look at it logically.

Here is a video I posted in another thread which is also very applicable here

video by QualiaSoup

After lurking here for months (and posting once in an extremely dead thread I hadn't realised at the time), reading countless posts -- mostly the same old arguments between the "believers" and the "skeptics" -- I think 95% of people on this site could benefit from watching that video.

"I cannot evaluate that claim without further data!!!" -- Priceless!

As for the whole thing about Believers V Skeptics, I think it's pretty counterproductive. Anyone and everyone here should be looking for proof, or some semblence of, not attacking each other's claims, or closing off their minds to new ways of thinking.

Wait, am I quoting that video now?

Anyway, my second ever post on here! Whoot.

EDIT: Just saw the posts above me about this video. Just to clarify, I saw qualities of Skeptics and Believers in the "close-minded" character, and I think a better way of thinking/communicating can be achieved on both sides.

[edit on 22/10/2009 by Bluemcgee]

Skeptical Ed still hasn't shown his face in here

Sad and pathetic. That's all I have to say.

reply to post by nightmare_david


Why are you so obsessed with this guy?

And what do you think you've proven that he needs to come back so badly and look at?