I've been dipping in and out of the skeptics bits and pieces that I follow and feeling a little disheartened. It seems that Sciencepunk gave a talk at one of the skeptics in the pub about how the other skeptics are a bit elitist and might scare off women and non-white blokes. The response to this has been quite a hard lined picking apart of his accusations, which is what skeptics do, to be fair. The problem is, that there seems to be, from the outside, a feeling of the old boy network and they all watch each others' back and laugh at each others' jokes. I felt uncomfortable about a tweet by Crispian Jago the other day about a woman in a bhurka, basically wanting to ridicule her. Not the fact that she might feel opressed or showing any empathy, but wanting to make her a figure of fun. That ain't a good way to get non-skeptics on-side, but it'll certainly attract plenty of BNP voters. The other problem is that all the bloggers appear to be well educated, very confident people who love to have a good argument. Sorry, debate. The targets they generally pick on are deserving of exposure as frauds or deluded morons, but I for one, wouldn't feel comfortable joining in. I suspect I would be ignored because I'm not 'known' and would not want to expose myself to the potential deconstruction of my comments. I'm not trained, nor practised, in the art of public debate and consequently stick to the dark sidelines. This, I suspect, is what Sciencepunk was getting at. Most ordinary folk don't want to join in a public debate involving several high profile bloggers who can talk the hind legs off a donkey and seem to prefer each others' company to that of mere mortals.
It could be said that this is probably how most religions started out. Someone charismatic makes a few speeches that attract a following. They outperform the competition and gain more followers. With followers comes prestige, esteem and, best of all, power. Power to influence and change peoples' minds to that of your own views. Which, for most people, will be views of self-interest. These are all humans, no matter how much they stick to scientific principles and question everything. They are prone to inflated egos and must enjoy being followed and admired by so many. I just wonder how long before we see the Church of Skepticism lead by the chosen few.
Or it may just be that I feel Im not worthy of joining in the debates and it's all my problem. Either way, I don't think I'll be getting too close to the action. Far better to stay in this dark corner !
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Thursday, 12 August 2010
The first thing...
I've been thinking about stuff for most of my life. I know it's not an unusual habit, but I've often thought I might do it a bit too often and possibly about the wrong sort of things. I like to wonder why quite a bit. Mostly about people, but also about the universe and animals and things. I used to try and fathom things out like why people do certain things and when I'd come up with a few ideas, I'd go off in search of other people's thoughts and see if we agreed on any of it. I still follow this same sort of process, except with the advent of this internet thing, it can all be done much quicker and the number of alternative ideas available has grown exponentially.
My current favourite thing to think about is skepticism. I used to know it as scepticism, but apparently it's now got a k and seems to be some sort of club with its own rules and membership criteria. I've never really been much of a believer in anything. I used to believe in ghosts and strange phenomena. Or rather, I used to be interested by them. But I always wanted to know how they could exist and why they appeared to certain people and not others. These sorts of questions were never tackled in the books I read as a teenager. So I started to wonder about it all and it sort of lead me to wonder about other things such as the whole spirituality thing. I went to church very occasionally as a child. Mainly because I enjoyed going with my mum but also because I didn't see any reason not to. As a teenager, it offered me nothing so I stopped going. I was never pressured into going and was never made to feel that I should accept the whole God and Jesus package. My mum believes in something and my dad says he does, when pressed for an answer. I just don't see any point in holding belief in anything that has no evidence. I suspect there probably was a man called Jesus who did all sorts of great things, but there are only anecdotes about him from about 2000 years ago.
Consequently, I am now what's known as an atheist. This leads me onto my new label. Skeptic. For a long time now, I've tried to question what I think, what I read and what I'm told. And to a certain extent, what I experience. I've had a long standing interest in psychology and philosophy as well as numerous other topics. I completed an OU psychology course last year. I'm currently approaching the end of an Environment course. The whole basis of the assignments is that you can say largely what you want to, within a certain frame of relevance, as long as you present credible evidence. I try to apply this idea to other areas of life. If the world's leading scientists or experts declare that something is probably correct because they've seen the evidence and it seems to be the best fit, then I tend to accept their view. As an example, I see no reason to doubt that global warming is partly man-made. The evidence is strongly in favour of it and the vast majority of scientists accept this view. I'm not paranoid. I don't believe conspiracy theories. So I go with the most likely explanation. In the last few months, I have been using twitter more and have searched for, and found, a few like minded individuals who I am now following. The word skeptic kept being used and so I looked further. It excited me at first that so many people thought similar thoughts but having read a few of the blogs, I felt that it was a slightly exclusive club. There are lawyers, journalists, scientists, doctors, etc blogging and tweeting. This isn't a problem, but they all seem to blog at, and about, each other and occasionally try to compete. I'm not sure if I want to be a part of this club or not. For now I'm content to sit outside and watch through the window to see if I would feel comfortable in their company.
Enough ramblings for now. I have a nice bed and lovely company waiting. But first, there's a meteor shower promised and I could do with wishing on a star or two. Oops. Where can I find evidence of a positive outcome resulting from voicing a hope whilst viewing an astronomical object ?
My current favourite thing to think about is skepticism. I used to know it as scepticism, but apparently it's now got a k and seems to be some sort of club with its own rules and membership criteria. I've never really been much of a believer in anything. I used to believe in ghosts and strange phenomena. Or rather, I used to be interested by them. But I always wanted to know how they could exist and why they appeared to certain people and not others. These sorts of questions were never tackled in the books I read as a teenager. So I started to wonder about it all and it sort of lead me to wonder about other things such as the whole spirituality thing. I went to church very occasionally as a child. Mainly because I enjoyed going with my mum but also because I didn't see any reason not to. As a teenager, it offered me nothing so I stopped going. I was never pressured into going and was never made to feel that I should accept the whole God and Jesus package. My mum believes in something and my dad says he does, when pressed for an answer. I just don't see any point in holding belief in anything that has no evidence. I suspect there probably was a man called Jesus who did all sorts of great things, but there are only anecdotes about him from about 2000 years ago.
Consequently, I am now what's known as an atheist. This leads me onto my new label. Skeptic. For a long time now, I've tried to question what I think, what I read and what I'm told. And to a certain extent, what I experience. I've had a long standing interest in psychology and philosophy as well as numerous other topics. I completed an OU psychology course last year. I'm currently approaching the end of an Environment course. The whole basis of the assignments is that you can say largely what you want to, within a certain frame of relevance, as long as you present credible evidence. I try to apply this idea to other areas of life. If the world's leading scientists or experts declare that something is probably correct because they've seen the evidence and it seems to be the best fit, then I tend to accept their view. As an example, I see no reason to doubt that global warming is partly man-made. The evidence is strongly in favour of it and the vast majority of scientists accept this view. I'm not paranoid. I don't believe conspiracy theories. So I go with the most likely explanation. In the last few months, I have been using twitter more and have searched for, and found, a few like minded individuals who I am now following. The word skeptic kept being used and so I looked further. It excited me at first that so many people thought similar thoughts but having read a few of the blogs, I felt that it was a slightly exclusive club. There are lawyers, journalists, scientists, doctors, etc blogging and tweeting. This isn't a problem, but they all seem to blog at, and about, each other and occasionally try to compete. I'm not sure if I want to be a part of this club or not. For now I'm content to sit outside and watch through the window to see if I would feel comfortable in their company.
Enough ramblings for now. I have a nice bed and lovely company waiting. But first, there's a meteor shower promised and I could do with wishing on a star or two. Oops. Where can I find evidence of a positive outcome resulting from voicing a hope whilst viewing an astronomical object ?
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