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What ever happened to the REAL skeptics?

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posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 08:10 AM
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Remember if you saw something, and it didn't make sense? You thought it through, and made a conclusion, and if you couldn't determine a cause...you left it alone.

What's up with all this non sense? Being a skeptic is always lingering with doubt, but never lingering with false assumptions.
You have people who are so called conspiracy theorist that butcher the total concept of a skeptic.
They're a skeptic of main stream sources, but not a skeptic of low underground ones.

Anybody else in agreement with me?



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 08:28 AM
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I see what you're saying. I'm pretty skeptical about most things here, but try to keep an open-ish mind about any given topic until it can be shown to be true or false to my satisfaction. I'm sure we don't all share the same opinion as to what exactly constitutes "proof", and what convinces me may not convince someone else. I sometimes have to remind myself of this and not just speak scornfully about some particular topic and/or those who believe in it. Just because something has met my criteria for being BS doesn't mean it meets other's.

Oddly enough, although several topics have, to me, been shown to be false, and many others are still under consideration, few, if any, have been shown to be true. I guess that's just the world of conspiracy.



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 01:51 PM
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reply to post by subject x
 


I see what you're saying, but i've read post on here saying people are aliens and all that jazz.
I respect peoples right to believe in what they want, but sometimes it just crosses the line you know?



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 02:16 PM
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reply to post by DuceizBack
 

Absolutely. There's heaps of stuff on ATS that makes me just shake my head in wonder. I see outlandish claims all the time that, in my eyes, couldn't possibly be true. That doesn't mean that those making said claims don't believe them.

I make no claim to understand every strange thing that occurs on the planet, though. As much as I may doubt something, if I can't find enough ecidence to convince me one way or the other, I try to reserve judgement on it. Sometimes it's hard to do. I think I only post 10% or so of the replies I type up, as I read them over and realize that just saying "I don't believe it" with no basis other than that, well, I don't believe it, isn't beneficial to anyone's search for truth, so I just delete what I wrote and await further evidence, which usually never materializes.



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 03:56 PM
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Originally posted by DuceizBack
Remember if you saw something, and it didn't make sense? You thought it through, and made a conclusion, and if you couldn't determine a cause...you left it alone.


I guess you confused yourself in the balance of your OP. Here, in the first sentence, you have provided the reason.

Skeptics--I guess you are principlely talking about UFOs--have found that they cannot prove a negative (that UFOs don't exist) and the growing mountains of evidence--though not proper scientific evidence--has shown them that they cannot win the argument.

Plus, the growing list of scientific evidence why ET life is out there is an assault from their own side. They have no refuge but to slink away quietly.

If I misread the first line, please explain it in simplier terms for me, I'm old and get confused easily.
edit on 8-3-2011 by Aliensun because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 04:13 PM
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"Remember folks, a true skeptic is willing to challenge authority and orthodoxy, and apply his critical thinking and skepticism in that direction. Those who absolutely cannot are not skeptics, they are establishment defenders. Randi, Shermer, CSICOP, the BadAstronomy.com folks, the Mythbusters, Penn and Teller, and the skeptics on my SCEPCOP forum are establishment defenders, not true skeptics.

These establishment defenders were taught in high school that "authority = truth" and therefore is never to be questioned, and that doing and believing what you're told leads to reward, while the opposite leads to punishment. They are unable to free themselves of their programming and conditioning, so in that sense, they are not "freethinkers".


www.abovetopsecret.com...
edit on 8-3-2011 by thereaintnospoon because:



posted on Mar, 8 2011 @ 04:35 PM
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There's a big difference between REAL skeptics -- which we all are from time to time -- and professional pseudoskeptics who do nothing but spew their officious opinions 24/7 on important topics.

When you've been around ATS long enough, you'll notice that the proponents of any particular theory are always different but the professional pseudoskeptics are always the same.




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