I don't believe in skeptics

It's almost like true skeptics are a myth. Oh sure there are people who pin self-awarded badges of skepticism on themselves and then pat themselves on the back. But they are phonies. "I'm a skeptic" sounds so much better than "I'm a closed-minded scientism thrall".

"True skeptics conduct an open-minded and objective inquiry for truth. Unprejudiced, they have a questioning attitude toward facts and views, and they are willing to challenge their own beliefs. In contrast, pseudoskeptics are believers, committed to defend scientific materialism. Because psi phenomena demonstrate the falsity of the materialist worldview, pseudoskeptics have no other option than to dismiss all evidence for psi as uncontrolled, unreplicable, or flawed - even if several psi phenomena have been replicated hundreds of times in independent laboratories across the world."

Brain Wars, p. 139

In The Spiritual Brain, Beauregard made a good point here also when he talked about modern-day popular skepticism as "unidirectional skepticism":

"The culture of popular science is one of unidirectional skepticism - that is, the skepticism runs only in one direction. It is skeptical of any idea that spirituality corresponds to something outside ourselves, but surprisingly gullible about any reductionist explanation for it." (p. 91)

Analyzing pseudo-skepticism as it operates in science journalism, he thinks three factors come into play:

1- science journalism arose in a materialist-dominated culture, which defines skepticism in this way;

2- "objectivity" has come to mean "hostility to a nonmaterialist approach to" spiritual/mystical experiences;

3- "few science journalists know much about" spiritual/mystical experiences. (The Spiritual Brain, p.93-94)

Definitely seems that way sometimes. I'll stick to Cartesian doubt and go along my merry way wondering just how wrong I am about the things of the world. Often I'll be so afraid that the truth may be different than what I believe that I find myself embracing confirmation bias.

When people don't agree with them, they call them close minded.

All we need is some evidence to worth with...

My pet rocks talks to me, it doesn't always talk and sometimes it is very picky on when to speak, all i have is shaky image/videos of my rock and some vibrations, if you don't believe it you are close minded... sounds fair?

reply to post by BlueMule


This thread comes with good timing as i have noticed a rise in exactly what the type of skeptic you describe lately. It seems as almost the social norm or in crowd on ATS, Yes i am talking about a group of popular people who post here who seem to have acquired a following with their scientific knowledge and supposed "skepticism" as you describe it.

It seems as if there is a level of arogance associated with this as well. I don't truly understand it but i agree with everything you post in your OP.

reply to post by onequestion


Yeah, it's almost as if organized pseudo-skeptic activism is going on around here. Almost as if ATS is targeted by activism groups.

reply to post by luciddream


Thats not it at all.

Being willing to take a look at something and then refuting it is one thing but openly refuting things without a second look, or thought is close minded. Not changing your position or discouraging creative thought is close minded.

I mean why would we discourage peoples creative abilities.

People are starting to get wise to the shenanigans of pseudo-skeptics.

WHY I AM NO LONGER A SKEPTIC

[...]

That's right: the nerds won, decades ago, and they're now as thoroughly established as any other part of the establishment. And while nerds a relatively new elite, they're overwhelmingly the same as the old: rich, white, male, and desperate to hang onto what they've got. And I have come to realise that skepticism, in their hands, is just another tool to secure and advance their privileged position, and beat down their inferiors. As a skeptic, I was not shoring up the revolutionary barricades: instead, I was cheering on the Tsar's cavalry.

[...]

...and sooner or later, pseudo-skeptics are going to get cut by the other edge of the skepticism sword. The sword they think only has a single edge, they are going to learn that one of the edges faces them.

The Two-Edged Sword of Skepticism: Occam's Razor and Occam's Lobotomy

Abstract

Skepticism views the probability of a proposition as always less than 1, whereas belief or disbelief are absolute, asserting that the probability equals 1 or 0. The proper spirit of skepticism is constructive: it seeks to improve knowledge by stimulating better estimates of probability. That means micro-skepticism, questioning the soundness of every detail of fact, method, logic; it is empirical. By contrast, macro-skepticism is deductive; it relies on current scientific knowledge, which makes it backward-looking and destructively critical rather than constructively critical. It appeals commonly to Occam's Razor: it is always "simplest" to explain things in the way we are used to doing.

But knowledge advances through change; so the Razor becomes a Lobotomy as people forget Einstein's insistence that theories should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Strong skepticism about new claims safeguards science against error. But the failure to maintain skepticism after a theory has been incorporated fosters dogmatism. There are a mounting number of contemporary examples where the native conservatism and dogmatism of science have become tyrannies - knowledge monopolies and research cartels-because science has become so much governed by official bureaucracies.

[...]

Originally posted by luciddream
When people don't agree with them, they call them close minded.

1-All we need is some evidence to worth with...

My pet rocks talks to me, it doesn't always talk and sometimes it is very picky on when to speak, all i have is shaky image/videos of my rock and some vibrations, if you don't believe it you are close minded... sounds fair?

TRANSLATION:

"I'm a closed-minded scientism thrall".
[who wants you to focus on what i say [and believe it] and not what i do]

1-dont you mean work with?

if you want evidence of psi/esoterica
you need to remember/practice the scientific method
particularly the gathering of data[reading], and experiments

magical/shamanic/spiritual knowledge is not cumulative.
and having somebody show/spoon-feed you the answers at the end of the book
gains you less than nothing. at least in the case of academic/school subjects you pass the test

2-no it does not,
and i dare say your pet rock is not as materially dense in terms of vibrations

reply to post by onequestion

Being willing to take a look at something and then refuting it is one thing but openly refuting things without a second look, or thought is close minded. Not changing your position or discouraging creative thought is close minded.

Would you ever change your mind and accept, say, that spirituality, theology, metaphysics, and mysticism were all bunk if someone presented you with scientific material which "proved" that such things were not real?

Skepticism works both ways. You can be as skeptical of science as you can of the metaphysical. I wouldn't be so quick to point to the skeptics as the ones unwilling to change their minds when presented with alternatives. The believers are often just as unwilling to relinquish closely-held beliefs as the skeptics.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger

magical/shamanic/spiritual knowledge is not cumulative. and having somebody show/spoon-feed you the answers at the end of the book gains you less than nothing. at least in the case of academic/school subjects you pass the test

I understand what cumulative means but can you explain it in the context your using it for me please? Just for fun...

reply to post by Wandering Scribe

Would you ever change your mind and accept, say, that spirituality, theology, metaphysics, and mysticism were all bunk if someone presented you with scientific material which "proved" that such things were not real?

I see your point.

But my view on spirituality, esoterica, theology and metaphysics forms or is associated with what i choose to believe about science. So basically to change my perspective on science you would first have to understand my experience and beliefs metaphysically.

You know what i mean? Maybe thats apart of being a skeptic, truly. Not just refuting claims with scientific knowledge and proof, but first understand the perspective of the person your refuting it with so you know how to refute it in a way that helps them see the truth. Right?

Skepticism works both ways. You can be as skeptical of science as you can of the metaphysical. I wouldn't be so quick to point to the skeptics as the ones unwilling to change their minds when presented with alternatives. The believers are often just as unwilling to relinquish closely-held beliefs as the skeptics.

True, i tend to be that way, so maybe i am a skeptic of science in that way? I can be and i go back and forth at times. I do tend to understand science and where it comes from but fail to understand it in the macrocosm.

I like what you are saying, especially the last part there, but (sigh, there is always a "but," huh? My wife, now dead, was a school teacher, and she used this in report cards: "Johnny is a great and intelligent student, but..." She called it a "But Sandwich.") I fear we tend to swing to the edges of the pendulum on this subject so that we become antagonistic with each other rather than cooperative.

The fact is that science arose to counteract spiritually-oriented excesses that weren't doing people much good. Throughout history, from the Roman gods and godesses to the singularity of Christianity, people were compelled to believe the most outrageous things under the penalty of death if they did not. The Earth was made in 4004 BC on October 23rd at 9:00 in the morning, period. We needn't go on. We could fill volumes.

There are way too many snake oil salesmen in the world who will tell you drinking Coca Cola will cure your liver problems or that you should smoke cigarettes "for your health" (an actual ad from the 1940's.) The scientific method plods and is conservative, but eventually it wins out. The Earth DOES revolve around the Sun. Plate Tectonics DOES explain the movement of continents. It's a struggle, but eventually, it wins out.

From here we could go in many directions, and we do not have sufficient space, so we have to go somewhere, so since this is my post, we'll go for UFOs. How many were taken in by Billy Meier's photos? I was, I admit, years ago. I have the original coffee table books (worth a mint!.) Now I know the Billy Meier ray gun can be purchased on e-Bay and that Semjase appeared on the Donna Reed show and that the picture of a dinosaur and a pterodactyl was lifted from a contemporary book that I have seen with my own eyes.

So is it okay to be a skeptic on the Billy Meier story, or do you still believe? How about Steven Greer? Truman Bethurum? George Adamski? Jonthan Reed? Sean David Morton? Sylvia Browne? Richard Hoagland? Stan Romanek? Geez, we could be here for hours!

Is there something to ufos? I think so, but believing in every diving seagull, every Caret Drone. amd every street light reflection, and every car headlight (that would be Roxanne, if you don't know) is not really acceptable and, frankly, keeps the entire subject in a state of perpetual ridicule.

Now you can join people like Roxanne and heep your own brand of ridicule on skeptics, thereby ensuring the subject remains where it is, or you can stop the posturing and join with interested skeptics--not the kind like Phil Klass who a priori deny everything, but those who are willing to at least investigate the issues, and maybe come to some conclusions that are more iron clad than any you have now.

Meet people half way and you might get somewhere. Stay on the extreme and it's pretty well guaranteed you won't get anywhere at all. Telling me you "don't believe in skeptics" tells me you are part of the problem, not the solution, and not worth the time of day. I'm hoping you are just being provactaive and don't really mean that and that you are really willing to study the issue rather than worship it.

Originally posted by BlueMule
reply to post by onequestion

 

Yeah, it's almost as if organized pseudo-skeptic activism is going on around here. Almost as if ATS is targeted by activism groups.

edit on 31-12-2012 by BlueMule because: (no reason given)

there does seem to be an agenda
on the one hand: the promoters of genetic predeterminism and the neuroscientific view of life
Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died www.orthodoxytoday.org...

on the other

Again, the trend of modern science, as it has in fact developed, is Ahrimanic. The direct ancestor of scientific materialism was this Arabian science, which was itself derived from the Academy of Jundi Sabur. Thus, on the other side of the 333 AD midpoint from the Birth in Palestine was the rise of an active materialistic, anti-Christian world view in Jundi Sabur.

Occult history (as given by Steiner) reveals how this came about: Sorat intended to approach physical manifestation in 666 AD at Jundi Sabur, and to bestow upon the philosophers there a super-human knowledge. This knowledge was to consist of everything that mankind, under the plan of the regular Gods, was to learn through its own efforts by the height of the present, Consciousness Soul Epoch.

This epoch began in 1413 AD, so its midpoint will be 2493 AD. In other words, Sorat wanted to give to mankind, prematurely and without the requisite human effort and experience, the knowledge that would be right and healthy for mankind to achieve through work and evolution by the middle of the Third Millennium. The regular Gods' plan for the Consciousness Soul Epoch is for mankind to acquire, through self-education and self-discipline, the free, conscious, individualized human personality. If the mankind of the Seventh Century had been given this advanced knowledge at that immature stage of development, when people could not think in full consciousness, the result would have been disastrous.

Just consider how much evil mankind has done with the science we have acquired up to now, at our present stage of maturity (or immaturity), and then try to imagine what the relatively primitive people of the Seventh Century would have done with the science of 2493 AD.

This picture is bad enough, but we need to recall Steiner's occult insights to begin to get the whole picture. If Sorat had succeeded, Men would have lost the possibility of developing our true nature, and would have become egotistic, animalistic automata, with no possibility of further development. We would have become earth-bound*, and the earth could never then pass over to the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan stages.

The normal Gods' plan would have been seriously hindered, and Men would have lost their due and timely opportunity to become Spirits of Freedom and Love. -- However, the rise of Islam thwarted this plan of Sorat. It is a deep, mysterious paradox that Islam, which was, and is, opposed to Christianity in many ways, also in effect worked jointly with the Christ-impulse in history, by blanketing, by "skimming the cream off", this Sorat-science, and by watering it down.

Still, this science survived, and has worked on into the present day, but the worst was averted, for those times. The weakened Jundi Sabur impulse, as a distorted quasi-Aristotelianism, passed to the Arabs, over Africa and Spain, to France, England, and through the monasteries (e.g. Roger Bacon) back over to the Continent.

The "Realism" of the Medieval scholastics (especially the revived Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas) opposed this Arabian influence, somewhat correctly seeing it as inimical to Christianity; but with the decline and decadence of Medieval Aristotelianism, and with the dawn of modern, anti-Aristotelian "empiricism" (e.g. Francis Bacon), the diluted, but still powerful, Sorat-science came to dominate world-culture.

Baconian and Goethean Science

The true spirit of this kind of scientism can be illustrated by a telling metaphor coined early in this epoch by scientism's seminal spokesman, Francis Bacon. He said, propounding scientific experimentalism, that we must put Nature on the rack and force Her to answer the questions we put to Her.

This figure will speak volumes to those who meditate upon it: We, seeking information for whatever motives, are to torture the Goddess who gave us birth and nurture, so as to cause Her, through unbearable pain and injury, to blurt out secrets which She, in her wisdom, conceals from the impure and self-seeking. In much of so-called "physiological research" and "medical training" this is hardly even a metaphor; the torture unto death is quite literal.

The usual victims are animals, but all too many "researchers" are not above using human "subjects" when they can get enough power over them. And even a slight whiff of occult knowledge shows us a deeper meaning: The central rite of "Satanism" or "black magic" -- sometimes crude, sometimes sophisticated -- is the deliberate, ritual torture and killing of animals and, at a more advanced level, of human beings.

When done in a precise way, this practice confers knowledge and power upon the practitioner; also, it affects the whole earth, hardening and rigidifying it, to the characteristic Ahrimanic purpose. Thus we can see the hordes of "researchers" and medical students -- who hurt, injure, and "sacrifice" animals -- as undergoing an unconscious, Ahrimanic black magic initiation, which hardens, brutalizes, and Ahrimanizes their souls, and through them also the culture, and even the earth itself. (Sacrifice is the actual word they commonly use, not thinking which "god" they sacrifice unto.)

Vivisection is truly the archetypal act of modern science as it is generally understood and practiced.

In contrast to our Baconian science, there does exist a little-known scientific trend, inaugurated by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the general culture he is known primarily as the author of Faust; but he was also a scientist, known for (if known at all) the prediction of the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in Man, or, less often, for his anti-Newtonian theory of color.

His mode of scientific thinking was quite different form the Baconian-Ahrimanic mode, and likewise he illustrated it with a telling metaphor. He said (in paraphrase) that we must approach Nature as a reverent lover, and, perhaps, She will whisper to us Her intimate secrets. The contrast to Bacon's metaphor could hardly be more stark. Also, the Goethean method of scientific investigation, in contrast to amoral experimentalism, is a method of self-improvement and self-development -- a reverent meditating upon the facts of experience, in the hope that they will speak.

* puts trans-humanism into perspective, does it not?

source: The Advent of Ahriman by Robert S. Mason
above-quoted text www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

The Advent of Ahriman by Robert S. Mason www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

ABSTRACT:

A powerful spiritual being, called "Ahriman" (or "Satan"), will incarnate in a human body. The terms "soul" and "spirit" have clear meanings. Earthly/cosmic evolution is an outcome of the deeds of the Gods. The central event of earth-evolution was the Incarnation of Christ. Spiritual powers of opposition are active: Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat. Ahriman is the inspirer of materialistic science and commercialism, and permeates modern culture with deadening forces.

Ordinary scientific thinking is only semi-conscious; we can, however, make thinking conscious. The spirits of opposition are necessary in the Gods' evolutionary design. Ahriman manifests especially at 666-year intervals; the contemporary is 1998 AD = 3x666. Goethean science is a life-positive alternative to Ahrimanic science. Ahriman-in-the-flesh will likely present himself as the Christ. The Christ does not reappear in a physical body, but in a super-physical, ethereal form. Ahriman may incarnate "macrocosmically" in our computers.

Mankind will acquire new faculties of thinking-consciousness and clairvoyance. Ahriman seeks to pervert these faculties, and to divert mankind and the earth from their destined paths in the Gods' evolutionary plan. Ahrimanic secret societies influence politics, finance, and culture. A false "Maitreya" is "emerging" as a false Christ. An epistemology of conscious thinking supports the expansion of consciousness to the perception of spiritual truths.

The Ahrimanic Deception: A lecture by Rudolf Steiner wn.rsarchive.org...

reply to post by onequestion

The basic principles of magic, like
the basic principles of science, do not change, but they can
become lost. Shamanism presents a very full magical technology
which resumes all occult themes. Mankind now stands in greater
need of these abilities than at any time since the first aeon, if he is
to understand rather than destroy himself. Shamanism once
guided all human societies and kept them in equilibrium with their
environment for thousands of years. All occultism is an attempt to
win back that awesome lost wisdom. Let us look then, at what the
traditions of shamanism hold.

Shamanic power[knowledge] cannot be progressively accumulated like
other technology. A shaman will be lucky if his own apprentices
make any advance beyond his own achievements.
Shamanic powers are so difficult to master that a tradition requires a continual
influx of talent just to prevent itself from degenerating. For this
reason shamans usually describe their tradition as having declined
from past glories. Only an occasional, exceptional practitioner
can win back some of the more legendary powers.

-Peter Carroll - Psychonaut

reply to post by schuyler


It looks like you have a bit of a false dilemma going on there. The 'ET' is real / 'ET' is unreal dichotomy is false. Black-and-white thinking won't solve a paranormal mystery. It will just leave you vulnerable to the trickster, so to speak.

Skeptics seem to have a hard time thinking outside of the 'black-and-white' box.

This is a book that skeptics and believers alike need to read.

The Trickster and the Paranormal

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger

Shamanic power[knowledge] cannot be progressively accumulated like other technology. A shaman will be lucky if his own apprentices make any advance beyond his own achievements. Shamanic powers are so difficult to master that a tradition requires a continual influx of talent just to prevent itself from degenerating. For this reason shamans usually describe their tradition as having declined from past glories. Only an occasional, exceptional practitioner can win back some of the more legendary powers.

Reading that part made me tingle. That is no joke either is it? Interesting view...

reply to post by BlueMule


Wow i am going to buy that book now. I am also checking out the brotherhood of magicians.

Great thread.

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger


Yes I'm familiar with Steiner and I'm wondering have you read Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self by Carl Jung? I think you would dig it.