Who's Gained the most Ground?

Porterboy

Critical Thinker
Porterboy
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
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I was just wondering how many skeptics are former woos and how many woos are former skeptics?

Almost every time I go along to a Spiritualist church or discussion group I hear someone say: "I used to be a skeptic, but...". This occasionally happens the other way around as well. Derren Brown, the British illusionist and skeptic, said on one of his shows: "I used to be a happy-clappy Christian until I realized what a load of nonsense it all is." I personally feel that cases like Derren's are the minority. Most Skeptics, when asked, seem to have been a skeptic for most, if not all of their lives.

I don't think this process will result in a world full of woos and no skeptics, or vice versa (Neither scenario sounds very appealing to me; God, wouldn't it be boring!), but the long term conclusion may be a shift in the baseline opionion or paradigm of humanity.
 
In the end truth will prevail. And science will become the standard to judge the world. Not to say we will loose all the spiritual, but science will prevail.
 
These people who say they were skeptics never produce any evidence that they were once skeptics. The Internet will slowly destroy the woos as it allows information to be easily obtained. Then it will be a matter of people opening their minds to the correct information, and realising that woo information is plainly wrong. That will be the major benefit of the Internet.

It will take a long time, but it will happen.
 
I used to believe a lot of nonsense. But then again, I was 13..

My adult years have been very down to earth.
 
I used to read all sorts of "woo" stuff, but never really accepted it. Sometimes I sort of did, then realized that I wasn't really committed to it. Now I no longer even read much "woo" stuff. It is all the same, hasn't changed in at least 30 years (at least what I read about did not) and now I am hardly interested anymore except to try to help others think more.
So I guess I was born a "sort of" skeptic, became a "sort of" woo person, and now returned to non-woo and more than "sort of" sanity. At least I hope so.
 
No true skeptic ever becomes a woo. There might be a few who thought they were skeptics who caved in to religious superstitions, but that would be about it.

I know this from pure speculation using logic mind you, don't need any evidence. ;)
 
skeptigirl said:
No true skeptic ever becomes a woo. There might be a few who thought they were skeptics who caved in to religious superstitions, but that would be about it.

I know this from pure speculation using logic mind you, don't need any evidence. ;)
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I can agree with this, from a different perspective. I was a woo - new age 'healer' and psychic and all that, but through it all I was always skeptical - asking questions and trying to find out why things were the way I thought (or wanted). I made my peers uncomfortable by challenging things they just stated or accepted as fact.

Anyone I know who said they were skeptics 'until ...' well, at the point the 'until' moment happened, they seem to stop asking questions and accept whatever it was. If they were true skeptics, they would have continued questioning it.
 
"I used to be a skeptic until..." blah blah.

They're using the word skeptic in place of 'disbeliever'. They never were a Skeptic, they were skeptical (big difference!).

This assumption that Skeptics are disbelievers or automatically opposed to things is something we really need to tackle.

For example, I recently got an enquiry from a BBC radio producer doing a phone-in programme on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life existing.

He wote:
I have a couple of guests who DO believe there is life out there, but I would really love to invite a skeptic on the programme at 1.45pm to put your own views across.​
Notice the implicit assumption that Skeptics do not believe in extra-terrestrial life.

Such ignorance is widespread unfortunately.

As to those "I was a skeptic", "I believe in X but I'm a 'skeptic of' Y", and those who are married to "the world's biggest skeptic"; well all we can do is point out their mistake to them (and others) and hope they realise that the term 'Skeptic' is being used incorrectly.

Btw, I think one of the causes of this problem is the fact that skeptic is used as the opposite to believer. For example in forum threads like: Ghosts, are you a believer or a skeptic?

'Skeptic' is not the opposite of 'believer' (!)
 
John Jackson said:
...For example, I recently got an enquiry from a BBC radio producer doing a phone-in programme on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life existing.

He wote:
I have a couple of guests who DO believe there is life out there, but I would really love to invite a skeptic on the programme at 1.45pm to put your own views across.​
Notice the implicit assumption that Skeptics do not believe in extra-terrestrial life...
Click to expand...

That's a coincidence- a few years ago I was on a local public TV show debating a UFO believer. The first thing that was thrown at me was, "With all the stars out there, don't you believe there could be like on other planets?" with the clear implication that I didn't, since I was a skeptic.
And the believer "used to be a skeptic", too. I've seen this with at least a dozen UFOers, starting way back with Whitney Schreiber. It's a ploy to convince people who are not believers that the UFOer used to be a smart "skeptic" just like them, but was exposed to such an overwhelming amount of evidence that they became convinced.
This happens in alt medicine, too. "I used to think that herbal remedies were old wives' tales, but when my whole family came down with X, we took Y and were are cured in days."
 
I was thinking exactly what John Jackson said. They were skeptical about religion, for instance, but may have not been a critical thinker.
I propose that we are all born skeptics, then become indoctrinated with various forms of woo by our parents and culture.
Some of us make it back to thinking critically about questions, and some are
just comfortable/lazy/afeared ;) thinking 'higher powers' did it.
 
SRW said:
In the end truth will prevail. And science will become the standard to judge the world. Not to say we will loose all the spiritual, but science will prevail.
Click to expand...

Horsecrap. Never underestimate the human ability and desire to self-deceive, or human laziness. As long as woo provides an easy and comfortable answer, ie. tell us what makes us feel good and doesn't challenge us to think, then people will believe in it.
 
Your problem is you classify religion as woo. Only certain beliefs are notably woo. There are probably as many skeptics who are not atheists as one who are. Of course if you think all religion is woo then carry on.
 
Dogdoctor said:
Your problem is you classify religion as woo. Only certain beliefs are notably woo. There are probably as many skeptics who are not atheists as one who are. Of course if you think all religion is woo then carry on.
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Which "certain beliefs" are not woo?
 
Damn :)

pchams said:
Which "certain beliefs" are not woo?
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Dang, I was going to write that.

As far as I know, every system of social coherence that is, or has been, commonly accepted as a religion, is woo.
Or, as to not offend anyone, has had a supernatural element to it, in many cases being some supernatural object or being.
You could point the finger at buddhism and say "that is not woo". But buddhism is a non-theistic religion. It is much more a practical way of life, in my oppinion.
 
We could complile a list of religions that are clearly nonskeptical. ("Woo" is just too farkin silly for me use whilst teaching, so why use it at all?}
$cientology strikes me as reaally silly, but what about the people who worship their dead ancestors? Or think their god rose from the dead?
Like Randi, I was raised in the C of E and saw through the silly beliefs they taught at an early age.
 
We could go back to DogDoctor's original, "Only certain beliefs are notably woo" and work from there, but I think we may have grabbed the wrong end of the stick, work-wise.
To be fair, I guess we could substitute "supernatural" for "woo", if that makes people more comfortable.
 
My point was that you can exclude the lot of people who are skeptics and belong to skeptics groups and fight woo because they believe there is something that cannot be proved or disproved and has no effect on anything that we can test. If you do then you have cut the population of skeptics in half at least. Go and include any who have mistakenly believed in something which is woo and you have almost none.
 
A more significant way to look at this in my opinion is what is the sum total of woo beliefs in a given population today compared to a time in the past? Have we dispelled more woo than we have gained? If you look at things from this perspective I would say we are making ground.
 
luchog said:
Horsecrap. Never underestimate the human ability and desire to self-deceive, or human laziness. As long as woo provides an easy and comfortable answer, ie. tell us what makes us feel good and doesn't challenge us to think, then people will believe in it.
Click to expand...

Oh Come on I was just living in my own woo woo world.
 
I think too many of us skeptics are skeptical about other people's beliefs, but non-skeptical when it comes to their own. To me, this is the real challenge of skepticism, to hold yourself to the same standards that you would impose upon someone who is promoting strange beliefs. I think this is the greatest payoff of skeptical thinking, to rid yourself of your own strange beliefs, but a lot of skeptics aren't willing to go this far. Some skeptics do admit they hold irrational beliefs for irrational reasons and that's probably the most that can be asked of them.
 
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