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How we became skeptics

How did you become a skeptic

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Operaider

Muse
Operaider
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Apr 4, 2004
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Since I seem to find myself getting in constant debates with believers and trying to correct much of their illogical thinking, I began to wonder if there is any point to it at all. Is it possible for me to make them skeptical? Can some of them just not be saved? So I decided to see if we can figure out what caused us to become skeptics, so we can help induce a little skepticism in others.

I once was a believer myself, and became a skeptic do to a biology teacher who spent a week of class discussing evolution. He was in middle of the fight to prevent creationism from being taught in our schools. During the class he showed videos concerning the age of the earth and evidence for evolution. One of the videos included Randi. Along with his comments on evolution it showed him doing magic tricks under the guise of a holy man to a tribe in Africa. He then explained to them that he was just using tricks, just like the other traveling holy men who would come to their village and take their money. This along with Penn & Tellers show years later helped to get me to reevaluate my beliefs.
 
I was just thinking about this earlier today. I don't think there was really a defining moment for me, it was a natural progression. I was raised in a liberal, mainline Protestant religion, and identified myself as such until my mid-to-late teens. Then I fell into the trap that so many woo-woos fall into: I wanted so badly to believe that I was different and special (read: "better") that I spent a year or two dabbling in the occult.

Somewhere along the line, in my early-to-mid 20s (most of these transitions were gradual enough that it's impossible to be any more specific than that), I started to lose interest in the Darker Arts and was drawn to things of a skeptical/atheistic/scientific nature. I really don't even know when I became a true skeptic, because it took me a long time to admit it even to myself. Skeptic? Atheist? Oh no, I'm not one of those closed-minded people!

But eventually I realized that's exactly what I was, exactly what I had been for quite a while before I acknowledged it, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. True skeptics, after all, are the most open-minded people in the world: We alone will happily change our beliefs in the face of sufficient evidence, whereas non-skeptics, almost by definition, cling to their beliefs despite and regardless of evidence.
 
Born Skeptic, while others tried to raise me as a believer, they failed.
 
Didn't have any strong paranormal beliefs before becoming a skeptic. It was the cancer that put the final nail in teh coffin of a supreme benevolent being (or supreme being of any kind.)
 
Let's recall...I used to be a wiccan, tarot and altar and all the props. Crystals, Castaneda, the whole lot.

At that time, 90's, any Bulgarian could have access to books on any of those subjects. See, books were highly regulated by the state during the socialism regime in my country. Suddenly democracy hits us in '89 and everyone can print whatever they wish, so they print all woo headlines available.

We Bulgarians have a huge respect for books. This respect to books translated into "whatever is in books must be true", and the door to all woo was open.

At that time I was a teenager. Since Bulgarian education emphasizes cramming to thinking, for me as well everything in books was honest truth.

Years later and a lot of good books at the university, I started to notice the annoyingly bad style, bad translations, logical flaws and generally wacky ideas in newage writings. I thought- could those people try to be spiritual without being stupid. The rest is history...

Now as for "saving" believers...As I said, I was a teenager when I believed woo. It's an age, some of you may remember, when it's easy to think with your emotions and to have little patience or attention span for a more logical analysis of a text. Yet around that time, it's good to get the basics of skepticism and critical thinking. Teenagers are also curious, so slip them "Science as a candle in the dark"- or at least the "Baloney detection kit"

As for older people...it's sad to hear "I have spent 20 years researching (insert woo), so I can't be wrong". People have invested too much. Or they think they are too smart and educated to be wrong. If anyone has a clue how to talk to those people, please share it.

Also- huge thanks to my journalism professors for teaching me the habit of questioning every claim.
 
Skeptic by stages

1. Believed in UFO's when I was a kid. Then they closed Blue Book, and suddenly the UFO sightings seemed to drop way off. Convinced me people reported UFO's because it was trendy. Stopped believing in UFO's.
2. Later as a teen someone bought me an astrology book calendar. Seemed very accurate, followed it for a couple of weeks until I noticed it was the upcoming year! Realized how easy it was to delude myself. Stopped believing in astrology (and started viewing things skeptically in general). This was probably the closest thing to my "epiphany" moment.
3. The McMartin daycare sexual abuse case. Complete believer at first, came to realize defendants were innocent. Showed me the danger of woo beliefs and the damage they can cause. Hardened my skeptical outlook
4. Discovered Skeptical Inquirer. Realized there were lots of other people out there like me, a whole movement in fact.
5. Discovered this forum!

ETA: With kudos to Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Issac Asimov, Joe Nickell, and Mr. Randi Himself.
 
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I voted "Born and raised a skeptic" because that was the closest option. Actually, I was not really raised a skeptic, there was just a general unspoken skeptic attitude in my home. My mother was a believing catholic, and my father an agnostic. I was the most religious person in the family, but as long as I can remember, I rejected belief in any kind of superstition. This can only have happened because of the influence of my parents.

When I was about 10 years old, somebody gave me a Ouija board. I had never heard about it before, and I was excited that it could give me answers to all kinds of questions. After about an hour, I was deeply disappointed and had already figured out how it was supposed to work.

My skepticism became more and more militant in the same period that I gradually lost my religious beliefs, and in high school I was fiercely outspoken against astrology. At this time I also heard of CSICOP and James Randi, but it would take another 20 years and the advent of the internet before I knew what a "skeptic" was.
 
As a kid I told my fundie xian dad that I don't believe in god. Got a fire and brimstone lecture. Hard to remember exactly why... I think he tried telling me that lightning and thunder were the wrath of god, but I'd read one of those kid's illustrated introduction to science books, and preferred the natural explanation :)
 
Raised half-heartedly Catholic, became religious in my early 20s, but hadn't believed in the 'occult' outside of the existence of God since my early teens. Then about four months ago suddenly realised I really didn't believe in God any more either. I looked around at the world and thought 'okay... now imagine there is no God, no afterlife, nothing but what's in front of you. How would the world look different?' Answer - it wouldn't. These forums had a lot to do with my change in attitude. I veer from feeling immensely liberated to finding the lack of an afterlife depressing.:)
 
I was never much of a believer. My parents always said, "Think for yourself!" and "There is a logical explaination for everything." So, even as a child, I questioned everything. Also, religion was not a big thing in our household. Church was more or less an occasional backdrop for some social event.
 
Well I've pretty much been skeptical of most things for a long time. Ghosts,Alien Abductions,Psychics etc etc all seemed like hooey. I was at one time though a bonafied,hook in mouth,Bigfoot Bleever.

I read all the school library books on the topic and watched the In Search of Bigfoot epsisode every time it came on. I would then regurgitate this info to all my family and friends till I'm sure they grew bored of me.

Yep I was certifiable, To me the PGF was concrete stone cold proof and no one could tell me different...than two things happened

A.) I read Grover Krantz' book on the subject "Big Footprints" (I think that's it)

and...

B.) I saw The A & E Ancient Mysteries Bigfoot special


Old Grover's book was filled with basically nothing but speculation and conjecture I mean the man was pulling numbers out of his arse. He had population numbers and mating seasons and family unit makeup and on and on.

As I read it I kept wondering.... "Where's he getting this crap?" No new proof just guesswork. The grown up,fresh out of the ARMY me began to not buy it anymore than the dagger in my Bigfoot Bleef came...

The A & E documentary was especially illuminating mostly based on the part of the show where those two schmoes claimed to have new footage.

Now I hadn't seen anything new on film since PGF so I was stoked for some brand spankin new footage to reinforce my already wavering Bleef. Well what I got turned out to be a lesson in Parieola (sp?) The aforementioned schmoes set the scene, the who,what ,where and how they than let rip with the film and my brother,my GF at the time and I looked on intently and.......we all saw Bigfoot in a different corner of the TV screen not one of which was where the Hairy Biped of Unusual Size happened to be located in spot shadow.

I was taping the show so afterwards we watched it again and again and again and we never with any confidence saw what we were supposed to see in spot shadow. To me other parts of the screen looked more compelling than what they pointed out... I was pissed.

The clincher to me was.... the stills.

This Bigfoot was lounging in the most awkward position I've ever seen (Allegedly) just kicking back or so they would have us believe. The stills were over scribbled with a stick figure outline of where BF was supposedly lying...

Anyway,ever since then my anti-Bigfoot stance has been growing and growing to the point that now I go out of my way to mentally kick Bigfeet Bleever in the groin any chance I get and this fiery skepticism of all things cryptid has fueled all other areas of skepticsim for me religion,politics,UFOs,conspiracy drivel...you know anything on C2C with Art Bell/George Noory which is a good show............... for a laugh!!
 
Born a Christian and bapitized one. Never like it. I was forced to attended CCD and hated that. One of my favorite memories is of faking being sick so i would not have to attend CCD after school, then my mom being somewhere so she could not pick me up, then finding out that the CCD that day was a party with pizza and cupcakes and pop. Church just never seemed right to me. I still sat out in the hall with my pretend stomach ache because i could not stand CCD.

When I moved to Texas after 3rd grade my family never really went to church down there. Xmas and easter type of thing. This was the time when I became very very intrigued by UFOs and anything "unexplained" (Nessie, Bigfoot, Bremuda Triangle) and would devour books on the subjects.

I was never fond of science classes (i dug math) but didn't dislike them, they were just like any other class to me, breeze thru with a B spend my time partying or playing games after school. I had considered myself agnostic since i was probably 12ish.

I saw a Penn and Teller show sometime shortly after high school and they mentioned Randi. Randi turned me on to Sagan, and My life has been changed since. The first good resource I got my hands on was The Demon Haunted World and I could not tell you how much it changed my life.

It was like **** had been wiped from my eyes and I could finally see. Everything became clear.

Since reading that book I have understood reality and been a skeptic, and atheist, and have been very hardcore about it.
 
Another slow progression here. I have a number of memories of having some interesting woo ideas. Like "If you wish hard enough, you can make anything happen", or "there are ghosts in that bedroom".

Then, I noted that no matter how strongly I wished for some things, they still didn't happen. I kept looking for ghosts, never found any. At some point, I started to realize that just because an idea sounded nifty didn't make it reality.

I suppose in the end it was probably my mom's general pessimism rubbing off and hopefully converted into something a little more constructive ;)
 
I really cannot pinpoint the exact moment I came to think of myself as a skeptic, it was a really slow and gradual process. Like many who posted I was born in a very religious family, Catholics in my case, I was an altar boy in my early teens. Later on I even left the Catholics and became a member of a Baptist church. I read the Bible (including the old testament) cover to cover twice! I believed in UFOs as well as in poltergeist at one time.

It is only as I grew older and started to compare what I believed, against what was verifiable that I started questioning my earlier beliefs. I read a lot about science, the scientific method and also about skeptical thinking and the more I considered everything the less my old beliefs actually made sense to me. I discovered the JREF a few years ago and the more I read the more sense the skeptical approach applied to "the paranormal" (and boy does that cover a large territory!) made sense to me. So to sum it up, there was no big epiphany of any kind, it was very much a personnal process.
 
As long as I can remember I always wanted to know "the truth". What was the world, why were we on it. Who we are. What is the universe. Is there a god, and those kind of things.

So, I researched everything that was close, any book, every belief.

I believed in lots of things, then, one day, I learned. Everything revolved around language. Concepts. Ideas. I understood then that even the best knowledge was not enough.

But thats another story.
 
It was typing "Derek Acorah Proved To Be A Fraud" which got me to an archived commentary link on the Randi site (or it may have been Uri Geller - can't remember)

Was always of the naive opinion "well if it WAS all bull***t, they wouldn't be shown with such conviction on TV, would they?"...How wrong I was...

I hate to sound sycophantic, but the site has opened my eyes and made me question everything. Three cheers for the Randi Forum. Hip Hip...
 
A small admission

Always having this "I don't really believe, but there MIGHT be something in all of this paranormal stuff" did leave me jumping at shadows a little bit until I started to 'think things through' a bit. This is a big bit of self confrontation here, but even though I'm grown up, 280 pounds, six foot four inches tall with stubble and everything and telling my daughter that there are no such thing as ghosts, I would still get the willies slightly in certain situations - like walking through woods late at night, being in 'spooky' houses alone, pulling your feet into bed quickly in case something grabs you from under the bed...even sometimes walking through the house in the dark if I've gone downstairs for something. I know it's stupid, but i guess it's 30 years of brainwashing by horror movie directors.

I noticed after I became a skeptic and acknowledged the fact its all rubbish, that none of this bothers me anymore.

I can even ditch the comfort blanket and teddy bears.
 
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