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Skeptic vs. believer's forums

Garvarn

Thinker
Garvarn
Joined
Nov 4, 2003
Messages
204
In my experience, 'believer' forums tend to generate a genuine mob atmosphere as soon as a skeptic turns up. "We are here to share experiences, not to be insulted with demands for evidence!", "If you have no experience of your own, get out!" or "Visit a medium yourself and then come back!"

When I inform them I have been to highly recommended mediums and they turned up with nothing, I am told that the mediums I visited was not serious or 'certified' (the Grand Mama of Swedish mediums nowadays issues certificates for her pupils -- ensuring that they have gone through training in accordance with 'international standards'). Please note, they have no idea of which mediums I have consulted.

Skeptic forums, on the other hand, tend to be fairly open to different opinions and criticism among skeptics seems to be allowed.

What is your experience?

/Chateaubriand
 
Certainly I have experienced the same on (different kinds of) believer forums, but I don't think we should be too holy. Believers are often given the mob treatment here, too.

That said, I think some believers enjoy the attention, and they use the fact that lots of people pounce on them to pick and choose which posts they will reply to and which to conviniently ignore.

Hans
 
You're probably right, Hans -- it may be that I don't read enough threads in this forum to be able to pass that judgement.

Best regards,
Chateaubriand
 
I'm also really puzzled with the persistence of some skeptics. They will reply with a well-worded adequately-documented five-hundred word essay to any idiotic one-liner that a "believer" will emit, and they will keep doing this for any number of nonsensical posts and any number of believers, no matter how many times that "believer" has proven that s/he is incapable of even the most basic logical procedures or that s/he is simply an attention-whore and -even worse- a troll. Many times they will persist even though a fellow skeptic has already posted an almost identical reply just a few posts above, and despite the fact that the "believer" hasn't answered any of their previous posts.

The usual justification of this behaviour is that other readers or guests should not get the idea that the "believer" has "won the debate" because there are no convincing counter-arguments. This excuse is at least inadequate, since a simple link to an older thread will usually do the job. Besides, a "neutral" reader will only get disoriented by following a thread where 20 people reply to 1-2 believers. I have tried myself to follow some of these threads and it is almost impossible to do so without trying really hard. I don't see why a "neutral" reader would be motivated to try that hard. Besides, I don't see why 20 skeptics have to dive in the very same argumentation pool since one of them is already doing a very good job. Is this urge to debate some kind of ascertainment for the skeptic, who finds an easy target for sharpening his debating skills and boosting his logic-driven ego ? Can he accomplish this by shooting a small raspy bug with a machine gun ?

So, by baiting skeptics with a primordial piece of mental junk, the average believer actually succeeds in confusing so much the issue that nobody can get any meaningful conclusion out of the thread. Then, s/he will move on to create another thread - monument of his/her idiocy but also of our restlessness. I think that it is about time we stop over-debating any flashy piffle to death. Because, as we have repeatedly witnessed, not only is idiocy immune to logic and reason, but it can also act like a whirlpool which draws skeptical arguments to the dark abyss of bottomless threads.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Certainly I have experienced the same on (different kinds of) believer forums, but I don't think we should be too holy. Believers are often given the mob treatment here, too.

That said, I think some believers enjoy the attention, and they use the fact that lots of people pounce on them to pick and choose which posts they will reply to and which to conviniently ignore.

Hans
Click to expand...

It's a different kind of mob though IMO.

Believer mob - agree with us or be banned, you may challenge nothing.
Sceptic Mob - go on then show us the evidence. Is that the best you have, what about such and such, care to try again?
 
Stitch: Oh, but certainly. I do agree that our mode of mobbing is far better. Otherwise why would I participate?

Greco: I think that an imprtant factor is that many of us just love to lecture, and will do so at the slightest provocation.

Hans ;)
 
Your point is excellent, El Greco -- and this phenomena is not restricted to skeptic forums. Skeptics tend to display that behaviour even in the lion's den -- I'm probably guilty myself occasionally.

Best regards,
Chateaubriand
 
I think one of the biggest differences is that we recognise that we sometimes gang up and even, on occasions, attempt to give the believer some space.

We even invented an entire methodology to try and have a proper debate with one of them (1inChrist, fossils, rock strata, ah, good times they were...).

In my experience yuo will never get a group on a believer forum to
A) Admit they are behaving like a mob
B) Much less actually try to give the poster some space

As Hans says, we may be a mob sometimes, but it's a better class of mob:)
 
To build on what El Greco said: I find that the conversation tends to swirl around in circles, with the believers addressing only one or two points the skeptic makes, and diverting those points to other topics, often concerning how nasty we skeptoids really are. The conversation eventually becomes one of personalities.

Eventually, the believer will point out that the conversation is going in circles and blame the skeptic. In the process, the believer will call the skeptic illogical, if at all possible. If you try to restart the conversation, the same thing will happen again.

~~ Paul
 
This is probably off the subject, but since we're on the topic of skeptics -- what is your opinion of the official skeptic organization in your country (provided there is one). Personally, I find the Swedish VoF a bit boring and they could do with a bit of training in public relations. I know 'truth' shouldn't need nice packaging but living in the world we do... What's the situation in your country?

/Chateaubriand
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
To build on what El Greco said: I find that the conversation tends to swirl around in circles, with the believers addressing only one or two points the skeptic makes, and diverting those points to other topics, often concerning how nasty we skeptoids really are. The conversation eventually becomes one of personalities.
Click to expand...
The problem is getting them to talk about one thing at a time. But you can't say we haven't tried.
 
I don't really mind that mob atmosphere. I will answer their accusations, unfair assumptions and ad hominems calmly, politely and sensible, and the attackers ends up looking foolish, even in the eyes of their fellow believers. On the believer boards I have frequented, there are entirely illogical people, and often also an amount of fairly reasonable people, and all of them usually admits that I make good points and informative posts. I believe the tone of one's posts makes all the difference. Even though I'm 100% percent honest and direct, I don't get hated, censured and banned.
 
Beliver boards have a tend to have a greater expectation of people being nice than the skeptic boards I have inhabited. From my limited experience it's posible to post on beliver boards for many mounths without getting banned as long as you are unfailingly polite and pick your battles with care.
 
You have to act like you're walking on glass in the believer forums. The slightest challenge to their beliefs can be interpreted as an insult.

So, I don't even try anymore, I just go to the insulting part.
 
thaiboxerken said:
You have to act like you're walking on glass in the believer forums. The slightest challenge to their beliefs can be interpreted as an insult.

So, I don't even try anymore, I just go to the insulting part.
Click to expand...

I just tend to view the walking on glass bit as a challange. ?I'm getting pretty good you should try it some time. Might mean you do less damge to the reputation of sceptics as well.
 
thaiboxerken said:
You have to act like you're walking on glass in the believer forums. The slightest challenge to their beliefs can be interpreted as an insult.
Click to expand...

Indeed, on believer boards there's this taboo about challenging each other's beliefs. Every belief is considered valid, and they usually justify it with junk like "we all have our own truths" or something like that. I frequently have to tell people that by challenging each other's beliefs, we all move closer to the Truth, and that I'm attacking their beliefs not their person. People see the sense of what I'm saying, but after a few days they have forgotten, and continue to react just as emotionally as before. It's a hard task, but I have been getting through to some, and this makes it worthwhile.


thaiboxerken said:
So, I don't even try anymore, I just go to the insulting part.
Click to expand...

The insult approach does nothing however to the believers' belief systems. If you truly want to spread some rationality, the diplomatic approach is the only one that works.
 
The fact is that a great deal of skeptics will grow haughty at their greater knowledgeability as opposed to believers. I can see from how people regularly speak on this board how a believer could feel as if they were being demeaned in some way. Heck, a perfect example of this haughtiness is a remark Daniel Dennett made awhile ago expressing his opinion that us atheists ought to rename ourselves "brights" on account of our being smarter than believers. While Danny is probably, when you look at the general population of each group, correct, putting ourselves up on pedestals isn't exactly going to ingratiate ourselves with other people, and being nice to a person is often the first step in helping them to understand something.
 
Chateaubriand said:
This is probably off the subject, but since we're on the topic of skeptics -- what is your opinion of the official skeptic organization in your country (provided there is one). Personally, I find the Swedish VoF a bit boring and they could do with a bit of training in public relations. I know 'truth' shouldn't need nice packaging but living in the world we do... What's the situation in your country?

/Chateaubriand
Click to expand...

The British lot are mostly friendly, but we could do with having a lot more in the way of public events. There has been almost no reaction to the news that the NHS are going to offer more altmed practices for free. There will probably be an annoucement sometime soon, but we haven't really got the rabble roused.
 
I enjoy the believer boards as much as the next skeptic. I like the challenge. The only part that really annoys me is the circular logic being used as evidence. That's the biggest difference I see between them and us. Our arguments, for the most part, are based off of scientific data and researchable facts. On the other hand, their "evidence" seems to rely on other paranormal claims being true. They build a house of cards out of unsubstantiated claims and use their beliefs as a glue to hold it all together.
 
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