Skeptically inclined people,Why do we answers these questions?

Question

Obviously,to one degree or another,we think it's nonsense.The believers,mostly don't want to hear our answers.Some of them are even angered or insulted by them.I know why I do it. How about the rest of you?

Dave,if you think you're helping anyone by supporting superstitious nonsense.You are wrong,you are the one doing the damage.Frightening kids with your silly,chidish ghost stories.

Denie,how do you give an explanation for something that doesn't exist.

Denie,what I'm saying is it has to be something else.How can I know what it might be.Why would I speculate?It sounds like a recording because it's the same answer to the same question.

Answer 1

I am well educated and quite rational. I merely get a kick out of shoving a persons ignorance in their face. Basically I am a jerk who finds it amusing to insult the feeble minded who believe in spooks and goblins.

Answer 2

We only get mad when you disregard our intelligence. I have an IQ of 163, I'm not some hick from hillbilly land. And some of you are down right mean. Do you ever think that you may not know everything. There is a lot of paranormal stuff that I don't believe in. I am very skeptical about all things until I see them for my self. I have seen a UFO, the big black triangle thing, but don't think it was flown by little green men. It was over a government base. Who do you think was flying it, my money is on the USAF. We are not nut jobs, I hope that science will some day explain what I have seen. Until then I will use the best explanation I have, I've seen ghosts. I am really sorry if your uncomfortable with that, but thats not my problem, its yours.

Answer 3

I believe in "discernment". I'm not a skeptic and I'm not a "true believer". I just want explanations of why these spiritual etc. things happen. I don't "promote" getting into the spiritual realm...I regret ever "letting" things happen to me. But, that is not to say they didn't happen. Not knowing what I was getting into..I encouraged some of the things that happened. However, I don't believe that anyone can "make " them happen. Spiritual communication etc happen ONLY if the spiritual side responds. I just don't like that all some skeptics have to say is "there's no evidence" etc..just because THEY have no evidence. Please give the scientific explanation if you don't agree.I think of scientists as being educated ,mature people..so..if you are...please give educated , mature answers. Thanks for the chance to try to explain my beliefs..(and unbeliefs).
EDIT..Another example:If a person says they saw a ghost..you could at least say something like"Someone was smoking a cigarette and what you saw was the smoke from it."..Just SOMETHING besides.."it doesn't exist". At least be CREATIVE!!!
EDIT What I mean is...At least put some EFFORT into your answer. You're beginning to sound like a recording.
EDIT..When I saw men on tv walking on the moon..I couldn't believe it was true. I thought it must be movie /tv people doing their thing (so much in the movies looks like it's really happening..but it's not). (I didn't really think this...but that's an example. At least I knew what the other possibility was.) I'm trying to help you out. If these paranormal things are not true..give us some proof...or at least make a "stab" at saying what else it might be. I'm open to hearing what you have to say..just say "something" that will make me lean towards becoming a skeptic.

Answer 4

Well I certainly recognize the right of anyone to believe the way they want, even if those beliefs are not warranted or are just outright wrong. But the point of Yahoo Answers is to help people, and if I'm to help these people posting in this strange little section of Science & Mathematics, I need to post answers from the rational, scientific viewpoint. Moreover, I think it would be a disservice to allow mystical woo-woo answers (shout-out to spookychick) to go unchallenged in the Science & Mathematics category since that is only going to lead to more scientific illiteracy and mystical thinking replacing legitimate scientific methodology and knowledge, and we don't need any more of that!

Regarding evidence: any believer in the paranormal will have their own personal anecdotes and experiences which they regard as evidence, for them. But this is not scientific evidence, which is gathered under controlled conditions and is not subjective, emotional, or otherwise "felt" with a purported "sixth sense". Personal anecdotes are generally unreliable evidence and are usually the result of panic, misunderstanding, power of suggestion, dreams or even deliberate fraud. Is such unreliable evidence supposed to be taken seriously as supporting wildly fanciful claims of ghosts and goblins?

Answer 5

I find myself, despite my effort for years to be on one side of the fence or another, still perched in the middle ground finding myself increasingly critical and cynical when observing the behavior of both sides, and their ability to abandon civil dialogs, refuse to respect one another, refuse to learn views alien to their sphere of knowledge...

I am not innocent of this by any means. Intensity of feelings when dealing with questions of faith or in crises in ones own life/beliefs are often vented this way publicly, especially when people browse for the wittiest one line answer or skip by sincerity that carries on too long. Having answers linked to wikkipedia pages, responses to serious questions that sound like free-writing from SNL writers in a grumpy slump...

I had an intense prolonged experience six years ago. The skin on my hands was chemically burned(the easiest description of the injury) and for almost nine-months, would nearly heal with tissue-paper thin soft pink flesh, then, violently blister for four or five days, and split open with deep fissures (into the meat of my palms up to the tips of my fingers)that would take about three weeks to "appear" to heal again...until the blisters started in again.

Doctors tried to help.
I had no insurance.
I could not afford many guesses.

I couldn't sleep, button a shirt, get my hands wet, tie my shoes ,etc.

The pain was indescribable and unending.
It was like loud guitar feedback. It had ownership of one of the most sensitive and nerve rich areas on the body. It stopped sleep and interrupted thought. For months and months, without pause, it sang through my nerves and made my ears ring. For that pain I did something rare in my life.

I have prayed only three times in my memory. The last time was for the pain to stop. And there on my knees in the middle of the night the screams of my hands, immediately and apparently by request,stopped.

But at the very next moment a switch was flipped deep inside my brain. Or maybe a tap had been opened. Those are the only ways I can describe it. A circuit breaker, a by-pass, overflow channel, whatever this switch/tap was, it seemed to take all of the energy of searing pain from my hands and divert the signal away from the pain center of my mind into somewhere new.

I had ideas and understandings of very complex things from several different areas of study. I have taken six years just to come to terms with the ideas that POURED into my mind once that tap opened.

I am still a skeptic. But I understand both sides, and find conflict even within myself. Can your question be answered?

Answer 6

I take the time to answer these questions to provide a counter balance to the true believers. In so doing I am hoping to make an impression on the undecided. If we skeptics weren't here then the umpressionable, undecided person would get sucked in as I was when I was one of them.

Answer 7

I often wonder that myself. I started a skeptical group at my college, and we often attend talks by other groups on the paranormal or pseudoscience, just to ask questions and try to make them see that there's really no evidence for it or see the internal contradictions. My professors think I'm wasting my time, that these people will never listen to us, but I think the whole point of going to college is to learn. And even when I'm pretty sure they won't listen, I can't help but tell people.

Besides, maybe there's someone reading the replies who hasn't figured out what to think yet. It's always useful for them to see a reasonable answer.

Answer 8

I think we are all curious, regardless of our avowed level of skepticism or belief. I always like what the Dalai Lama reportedly said about aliens. No, he did not believe in them, but he wasn't so foolish to say that if confronted by 50 aliens in his life that he would continue to disavow their existence. Sometimes our egos may want us to prove our arguments to say 'nyah nyah,' as we do to younger siblings as we grow up... We all BELIEVE we are right, but nobody will KNOW until it's too late...

Answer 9

Bear mind skepticism is a method not a position. We want to see convincing evidence, not just to blindly believe. Evidence is the key and as much as possible. Anecdotes do not qualify.

Answer 10

Leave them alone and let them believe what they want.