The Journey towards Skepticism

Nobody is born a sceptic and for most of us it is a long journey. I thought it might be interesting to hear how group members reached this position.

For me, back in my early 20s I was a huge fan of Lyall Watson (Supernature, Gifts of Unknown Things, Lifetide etc). It seemed as if it would be such a wonderful world where magic actually existed. I wanted to believe that plants communicated with one another; that there were people who could turn a tennis ball inside out using only the power of their minds; that (can't blame Watson for these) a dinosaur lived in Loch Ness and supernatural beings could influence our lives.

I don't remember an exact point when that desire to believe turned to skepticism but, being interested in those things, I read a lot about them and gradually came to realise that all these stories were no more than anecdotes; that every time I tried to find evidence of their actual existence, I came up against a brick wall.

I very soon found it impossible to believe that any god who was capable of preventing the suffering in the world and chose not to do so was not a credible being to me though it was only later that I came to investigate and realise how little (ie, none) evidence anyone has ever had for his/her existence. It was a short step from there to asking for evidence on a whole lot of things.

During a TV discussion on some or other paranormal 'event' several years ago, I heard the interviewer say to the token skeptic who had just debunked yet another load of nonsense, "The trouble with you scientists is that you've always got an answer to everything". The sceptic (and I'm sorry, I can't remember who it was) replied "I haven't got an answer to everything but I do have a question: where is the evidence?" I don't expect ever to have the answers to all the metaphysical questions in the world but I do hope I will always have that question.

And the journey away in my case; it was with I Ching which I dabbled with for a while and found it really useful when making decisions, until ...

I realised that the interpretations are so vague that what it does is to tap into your subconscious mind to select the decision which you, yourself, find acceptable. I have since realised that tossing a coin to make a decision uses the same process; you immediately know if the wrong side comes up.

I have talked about it with a friend of mine who is a clinical psychologist and she agrees that there is nothing supernatural about it at all - simply way to let your mind allow you to accept what you think is the right thing to do.

I have probably only actively thought of myself as a sceptic since i stumbled across The Skeptics guide to the universe podcast in 2009. However i remember being challenged by a person who is still a good friend when i was either 8 or 9 when i told him i didnt believe in god, his reaction was to relay to me an anecdote about a miracle he had heard about but i remained unconvinced, he ended up building opinion amongst friends and telling our teacher and i remember being stubbornly prepared to stand up to the telling off i thought was coming, it never did and although its not an exciting memory it is my earliest memory of a sceptical thought i felt strongly about against the percieved wisdom of the crowd.

I have always challenged friends and family about ghosts and ouija boards in particular since i was a teenager too. I dont think i have ever believed the religious/ spiritual claims i have come across even when very young.

I was however fascinated with things that were presented as mysteries or unexplained such as UFO's, the bermuda triangle and roswell right up until my twenties. I always wanted these things to be true but never applied critical thought to these things until i started to become a bit more mature and seek out different views.

So I think instinctively i've always been sceptical or at least interested about extraordinary claims for as long as i can remember, its only been the last 4 or 5 years i have identified as a sceptic though.

#3 Reading your post makes me realise how, although I was ready to believe all sorts of crap back in my teens, somehow god never really cut it. One of my earliest memories of religion in school was being in early junior school (age 7-ish) and being told the story of Abraham and Isaac and immediately thinking that if this was the god on offer I wanted nothing to do with him. At the age of about 16 I was dragged along to an evangelist church service by as friend and, even though I have to admit to having been moved by the faith of others (nowadays my reaction would be movement of quite a different kind) I was never convinced by either what I was told of the 'god' himself or by the actions of his believers. While it seems to be true that most children have an innate desire to believe in magic, I do sometimes wonder whether a few of us are somehow hard-wired to disbelieve.

#4 Yeah personally speaking i had an upbringing where my dad was an atheist( but by no means a sceptic) but my mother believed. Neither really talked to me directly about god or tried to influence me, so i was left to make my own mind up. I meet very few religious people who dont have religious parents and although this is obviously anecdotal evidence I suspect this has a big influence and I have always believed that once people commit to a religious belief, then generally they have too much invested in those beliefs regardless of any evidence. This has always irritated me and is a big reason why i what i regard as 'man made' religions is off putting more so than belief in 'God'.

I never really paid attention to the bible stories while young, however last year I began listening to a series of BBC King James Bible readings out of interest as i didnt want to be one of those people who dismiss without having at least read or given a hearing to the opposing view, i admit i was surprised at the immorality displayed (mostly on gods part) within the passages i listened to, i think i covered at least the whole of genesis and found it hard to understand how people interpret some of the claims and stories as metaphor. Although some of those stories really should be being mined by hollywood producers in my opinion!

But it is an interesting argument as to whether these beliefs are sometimes hard-wired or not. As with most things it is probably both nature and nurture.

Interesting that you mention magic too, lots of magicians are sceptics! James Randi, Penn and Teller, Derren Brown to name a few.

One thing that makes me wonder if I should be here at all: I'm not convinced I'm always entirely rational. I like rationality though. My parents were Mennonites, my heritage is way different again, and personally I happen to share no specific belief at all. That still doesn't make me entirely rational.

One odd thing though: as a cultural historian I've spent much of my adult life studying stuff I personally see as total rubbish. Why did renaissance patrons order whatever? I've studied alchemy, astrology, kabbalah, etc., etc. As Gershom Scholem once said: studying nonsense may still be real science.

>7 southernbooklady: I'm not convinced I'm always entirely rational. I like rationality though. My parents were Mennonites, my heritage is way different again, and personally I happen to share no specific belief at all. That still doesn't make me entirely rational.

It's because I don't think I am 100% rational (a la Mr. Spock?) that I adhere to a relativist position on questions of "what is good" and "what is bad," etc.

Is anyone ever 100% rational? There is so much in the human psyche that leans towards acceptance of the supernatural and the inexplicable (often for the very reason that it is inexplicable) and we are, after all, only human. To me, the job of a sceptic is to look for evidence in every case where belief is expected and to look extra hard when we find a tendency in ourselves to believe. To my mind (such as it is), what makes a valuable sceptic is acknowledging that a part of us wants to believe these things and being especially hard on ourselves whenever we can.

I do promise that at some point soon I plan to post some of the topics I feel inclined to believe and let you all know how difficult I find it to be critical about them. You are all very welcome then to take the piss as much as you like but I hope someone will also help me to understand how to apply the same level of scepticism to these things as I can to others. Scepticism is hard!

the job of a sceptic is to look for evidence in every case where belief is expected and to look extra hard when we find a tendency in ourselves to believe

This could be a candidate for the group motto. :)

Like BarkingMatt, I take a lot of interest in things I don't believe in (religions, cryptozoology, haunted-house stories, etc.), and enjoy reading about them. We need only study history -- as well as modern-day news -- to see the bad consequences that can come when people don't apply critical reasoning, or at least a stop-and-think approach. So I've tried, over the years, to do learn to do this. I don't think there was a single "aha!" moment for me; it was and still is a gradual process.

Frankly, people who think they are 100% rational scare the crap out of me. Perhaps because the only time I notice them is when they're presenting scenarios where killing millions of people would be the rational course of action.

Every ethical calculation should include the possibility that the reasoning is mistaken.

So yeah, liike southernbooklady said :) I'm just having a strong emotional response to it.

>10 Amtep: Frankly, people who think they are 100% rational scare the crap out of me

Almost as much as people who are 100% sure that they are following God's plan.