Skepticism and your friends

TheGline said:
I think it's more like, they're comfortable thinking that way and don't really understand firsthand the consequences of cognitive dissonance. Most people managed to shield themselves from such things through all the usual techniques -- post-hoc rationalization, for instance.

If someone is confronted with firsthand evidence of their cognitive dissonance, and they don't seem interested in learning from their mistakes, then there's a good chance they simply aren't going to. I'd like to believe they can, but it just doesn't always happen.
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I agree that they are more comfortable thinking the way they have always thought. However, I think that for certain people, they get some actual enjoyment in thinking that the world isn't an ordered and logical place; that there is room for magic and miracles.

I have a friend who can connect any random thing to God's presence. For example, one night he was trying to overcome his urge to call his pot dealer, and there was a knock at the door. It was some random guy asking him some random question. He took it as a sign from God that he shouldn't buy any more pot.

Yeah, okay, my stoner friend might not be a very good example. But in his everyday life, he is one of the more logical people I know. But he loves the idea that God is up there, listening to his every thought, prodding him to do the right thing and generally being available for him to talk to 24/7.

When I point out something completely ridiculous that he attributes to God, he feeds me the line, "The lord works in mysterious ways" or "We as mere mortals cannot possibly know the mind of such a tremendous being, yada, yada, yada." And he says these things with complete glee. He absolutely loves it.

The thing I don't understand is why people are so opposed to thinking. Why is it such a comfort to them to be able to say, "The bible tells me so," rather than thinking about it and answering logically? Why is thinking such a scary prospect?

But I digress. Maybe people are capable of learning from their mistakes, but I really don't think a lot of them want to. But then again, humans baffle me. I can't wait until the mothership comes back to rescue me from this wacky planet.
 
SamanthaMc said:
I agree that they are more comfortable thinking the way they have always thought. However, I think that for certain people, they get some actual enjoyment in thinking that the world isn't an ordered and logical place; that there is room for magic and miracles.
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This is a very on-target observation, and it connects with things I have observed on my own. Many such people seem to be horrified by the prospect of the "unweaving of the rainbow" -- that when you explain something, or attribute a scientific explanation to it, it puts them in the same position as the boy who cut his drum open to see what made it go bang.

I don't think mystery is a bad thing -- without it, the world doesn't feel like a place to make discoveries, I guess. What worries me is the idea that mystery should be compulsory, that there are some things that must remain behind a curtain because if we pull the curtain away life gets all drab and colorless. If the history of human discovery is any indication, the universe has only become a far more fantastic place for all of our urge to discover its real nature. I don't think the wildest fantasies of our ancestors could ever have encompassed things like black holes, neutron stars, DNA, quantum computing, or even something as "simple" as the smallpox vaccine.

Do people enjoy remaining ignorant? I don't think that's it. I think it's more a case of them wanting others to not be smarter than them, because then that means they're one-down.
 
I have a close woo woo friend who's a bit of a New Age hipster type and that's somethig I kind of like about her so I never say anything when she starts telling me about pychics predicting 9/11, dream meanings and Masaru Emoto fooling the UN into thinking that water...can talk. That's part of who she is and she wouldn't be her without it.

It's only when its something incredibly dangerous that I speak up, like alternative medicine.
 
I decided to come out on a Myspace page about two weeks ago.

So I made a small, tasteful page with some links out to screw loose change, stop sylvia browne and a statement of faith from Charles Darwin, and the song 'evolution rocks' by our very own Overman.

Told my friends and family about it, and now they all know. Well, they did before kinda, but now its definitive. Am that skeptical, sciency guy. And myspace is good for something :)
 
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