Do you think skeptics want to know the truth?

Question

Before I say anything else- this is an honest question, so you flame, you get reported. That being said; DO you think the majority of skeptics, are too dismissive of the paranormal (religion included) or do you think they actually want to know the truth. It’s my personal opinion that if I popped up with a video of an interview with a ghost taken from three different camera’s and corroborated by 85 people, I’d still be dismissed as a fraud, because people don’t want to know, they just want to defend their beliefs. What would a person have to do to prove the paranormal to the average skeptic? Do you think skeptics find a way to MAKE something explainable even if the explanation makes less sense than a paranormal conclusion? Isnt this just as bad as a person who blindly believes in the paranormal WITHOUT evidence? If you’re going to respond with “It would never happen cause it’s not real” don’t bother this is hypothetical, and I don’t want that kind of response, I want real mind searching

I do understand the need for proof, and i advocate it. Only an idiot would believe something because so-and-so said so. The problem becomes when people are presented with evidence, and it's passed off- this happens with MANY MANY aspects of science. I can cite you examples if you write to me- if not, owell.

Answer 1

Some skeptics want to know the truth. Others are simply biased in favor of a negative conclusion, which is not true skepticism.

That said, your hypothetical ghost video could be demolished by legitimate skepticism in a thousand different ways. Videos of UFOs and Bigfoot and the Virgin Mary pop up about a hundred times a week. Remember the alien autopsy? These videos may be more or less convincing to the ordinary moron; but if the skeptic is to admit anything, he's going to qualify his admissions with the most rigorous tests of every aspect of the medium; and even then, his concession that (e.g.) the Virgin Mary video is not explicable in any of the ordinary ways of which he is aware does not make him a believer in Catholicism!

Religion is frankly guilty of encouraging - demanding - imbecile credulity on the part of its devotees. To question any of it is "blasphemy." I contend that if God exists and created us with these excellent brains, this mechanism for discerning relative truth, it's surely an ingratitude on our parts to refuse to use them!

Answer 2

Very interesting question.

I was thinking something in a similar vein this morning.

You know how all those religious movements reported as cults? Like Waco, the Comet Nike people, the Japanese train poisoning, etc.

You get a lot of people saying, "Oh, that is ridiculous! How can anyone fall into that garbage?"

Then those same people will go on to lecture me about a 2000 year old Jewish man watching everything I do, so don't look at porn, or swear, or even think about anything bad, because although there are 20 zillion people that have lived, Jesus is looking at YOU and can't wait to either hug you or kill you.

In other words, there are some things a person is open to believing, and there are some things they will shoot down immediately. Even though to a neutral observer, they may both seem legitimate/fraudulent.

We take our biases, what conditions we were brought up in, where we live, what media we consume, etc. It's all part of the equation. Throw in the fact there is so much propaganda, con games and rhetoric, it can get very confusing even for those that are open minded.

Answer 3

Doubting Thomasina, here.
I want truth, but I require a whole lot of evidence, is all.
And logic.
Now, I won't speak for everyone.
And before I go on, there are FIVE psychic experiences I've had in regards to car accidents. Two of which could just be that unconsciously I was aware of probabilities, that the best explanation for someone's absence and for the traffic was a crash.
But two were waking visions of my near-fatal car accidents- and I thought I was done when the first one hit me. Then the second one came, nearly exactly as I had seen it.
So, there are things I can't explain.
I'd rather live in mystery than in faith. Mystery I can deal with. Being wrong? Not so much.
Now, when I was three, I read out loud "T'was the Night Before Christmas." I asked my mommy how Santa got in, because we were in an apartment.
She was taken aback by my reading, and my subsequent lineof quesitoning. Nothing she said could convince me that Santa not only came through our fire escape, but had the time to go through every fire escape of the two buildings in the area, and all of those houses.
It took hours just to trick-or-treat our neighborhood!
And, because I knew that anything that sounded magical was MOST likely just an adult's way of patronizing the person I was in a little girl's body, I don't trust anything I hear.
My own head will usually give me a better reason than the things that people spout.
But, why did I feel an eery presence in my boyfriend's uncle's house, the first time I was there, to find that the previous owner had kille dhimself in the garage?
It's a mystery.
That's all.

Answer 4

"It’s my personal opinion that if I popped up with a video of an interview with a ghost taken from three different camera’s and corroborated by 85 people, I’d still be dismissed as a fraud, because people don’t want to know, they just want to defend their beliefs."

A: No-one has ever done this, or anything remotely like this. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of people who believe in ghosts, and who insist that we're narrow-minded for not simply taking their word for it.

B: The number of people "corroborating" the event is essentially irrelevant. See A.

You're jumping to the conclusion that skeptics are narrow-minded without providing any evidence for that claim.

It's definitely the believers, not the skeptics who suffer from narrowmindedness. People believe in ghosts and gods and angels and the like because they're not willing to consider alternative explanations. Skeptics consider the alternatives and arrive at the correct conclusion.

Answer 5

Most skeptics that I know are more than willing to accept actual evidence when it's given to them.

The problem usually is what people define as evidence. Too often, people present me with the "evidence" of a testimonial of something that happened to them. While I may love to just believe everything everyone says, one person saying they saw a ghost is just not enough evidence to convince me that it's true. As for your video example: at that point, I imagine that I would be convinced that something extraordinary had occurred. At that point, I'd want more research so we could figure out what kind of energy it was, all the peoples' different perceptions, etc. The problem for me is that lots of people have been convinced by very well-corroborated evidence of the supernatural to discover years later that it was all a big fat hoax.

Answer 6

I was a spiritualist for 12 years and worked with a medium who has since become world famous. to summarise i would put it this way 1. There is a lot of phenomena out there. 2. A good genuine medium will amaze you with the stuff they can pick up from people. 3. Look at the evidence with a cold scientific approach. 4. In the end, the evidence does not support the view that communication with the dead is possible. 5 There are all sorts of interesting back waters that look fascinating at a first glance. 6.Go back to point 3.

Answer 7

Skeptics, like most of us, want to know mostly what will support their already-held beliefs. But if you offer facts as facts and opinions as opinions, some people will indeed pay attention. Not many, and not often, but they will.

Skeptics often argue that they are really looking for proof, but what they consider to be proof is very strict. For example, they don't believe in miracles unless they see, right before them, a phenomenon which they KNOW cannot possibly happen by natural law. They fail to recognize that most miracles are in conformity with natural law, just not with the laws of probability. And what of all the phenomena which are dismissed with "well, I'm sure there must be a rational explanation," when they do not have the "rational" explanation, and do not bother to search for it? Again, what they would accept as rational is quite narrowly defined.

I may go too far the other way because I have developed a capability not many people have: to suspend judgment. I can hear about something, or even see it with my own eyes, and not feel compelled to explain it, one way or the other. Not to agree or disagree, but to observe as objectively as possible and ponder over for some time. Most people seem to be uncomfortable with suspending judgment, and therefore decide too quickly, before all the facts and implications have been examined.

Answer 8

If you created that video, and some of the 85 people who corroborate were people like James Randi who is adept at debunking frauds who claim to have demonstrated something paranormal, then I will reassess my beliefs. Until you do, your question is purely hypothetical. I don't believe you or anyone else can ever produce such evidence, because if it were possible, it would already have been done.

Answer 9

From my experience, many sceptics would convert to a religion if they considered the evidence pointed that way. We are sceptics because, from the evidence, we conclude there is no god.

I try to be open minded. If I had convincing evidence for a point of view other than mine, then obviously my views would shift. However, it appears that what a theist considers conclusive and what I consider conclusive are different.

Video evidence is unreliable. Special effects can be done with relative ease. Someone else's religious experience is another non-proof in my book - too many people experience contradictory things, as well as people attributing natural experience to supernatural beings or paranormal activity left, right and centre.

Answer 10

Evidence of my own senses would be a good start. Even then I won't blindly assume that what I have observed is true. I know how easy it is to be decieved. I have seen extremely convincing illusions that were then demonstrated and I was startled at how easily I was decieved.

For certain I would never accept video 'evidence' or any other third-party 'evidence' without a very large pinch of salt.