There are two things I’ve learned over the last year.<\/p>\n
1) If you get a room full of self-described skeptics, gathered to converse skeptically about something, a minor tweaking of the conversation can cause an alarmingly large percentage of said “skeptics” to start spewing utter nonsense; and<\/p>\n
2) Manyself-described skeptics seem to believe (yes, believe) that nothing can be believed, and assert that the ONLY thing that EVER matters is “the” truth, and at the same time insist that “the truth” can never be trusted (unless they themselves have uttered it). Such an approach can cause said skeptic to wield a skeptical hammer that is so big it obscures their vision to the determent of their intended goal. That a significant subset of these “skeptics” are sociopathic and terribly annoying is unfortunate.<\/p>\n
\nBut, what do I know about skepticism?<\/p>\n
I recommend the following three related blog posts:<\/p>\n
Yes, The Pope Should Be Arrested, and I Don’t Care Who Does It<\/a><\/p>\n Scientific Skepticism: A Tutorial <\/a><\/p>\n All That and a Skeptic<\/a><\/p>\n I am not recommending these three posts because I agree with what they say. I only partly do, and I partly don’t, perhaps rather strongly. I deeply and strongly disagree with the separation of ways of thinking (including scientific skepticism) and political perspectives. It is part of the progressive political perspective to be a rational thinker. Explicitly. It is part of the Republican Tea-baggging Yahooistic political perspective to be …. well, something else. Somewhat explicitly. It would be perilous to ignore this. It is explicitly part of the modern Atheist movement to think skeptically. A religious person is not thinking skeptically about that aspect of their lives, and if they were, they’d be some form of atheist or agnostic, and so on.<\/p>\n Perilous, and perhaps a bit sophistic. Which perhaps ties us back to items 1 and 2 above.<\/p>\n Anyway, go read these three posts and the commentary and engage in the discussion!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are two things I’ve learned over the last year. 1) If you get a room full of self-described skeptics, gathered to converse skeptically about something, a minor tweaking of the conversation can cause an alarmingly large percentage of said “skeptics” to start spewing utter nonsense; and 2) Manyself-described skeptics seem to believe (yes, believe) … Continue reading What is skepticism?<\/span>