The Good Place

I've only ever used the Ignore facility twice in my long history of taking part in the discussions here and at Skeptiko. Perhaps significantly, those two appear here and now: Steve001 and fls. The decision to ignore was for different reasons. For example, I don't believe that Steve001 is dishonest or devious but sincerely believes he is right but the same could be said of any ideologue and I think he goes far beyond mere obstinance.

Not just including the years here and at Skeptiko I've noticed skeptics have little trouble understanding each other. Whereas the less and non skeptical have a difficult time understanding skeptical positions. I want to hold my breath waiting for the Karmarling's of the world to move to a more skeptical position but I'm pretty sure I can't hold my breath long enough for that to happen.

Well, to be fair, there has been many a proponent I have had difficulty understanding. It doesn't occur to me to characterize them as devious, dishonest or beyond mere obstinance, though. 

For all my complaints about the behavior of some Skeptics at the JREF forum, I have to give this to them - name-calling and defamation of proponent posters was generally absent, and the moderators were all over the occasional examples of this behavior. I think some skeptics were even banned or suspended for it. I don't know what it's like now. I haven't been there for years.

Linda

Well, to be fair, there has been many a proponent I have had difficulty understanding. It doesn't occur to me to characterize them as devious, dishonest or beyond mere obstinance, though. 

For all my complaints about the behavior of some Skeptics at the JREF forum, I have to give this to them - name-calling and defamation of proponent posters was generally absent, and the moderators were all over the occasional examples of this behavior. I think some skeptics were even banned or suspended for it. I don't know what it's like now. I haven't been there for years.

Linda

I'll deviate a bit from your first sentence. In my youth I had friends that werent skeptical, that gave me good insight into the way they think in affirming ways. Because of that interaction I learned for that kind of person believing something is true is more important than knowing something is true. That I think applies here.   Believing isnt enough, that's what separates skeptics from non skeptics. I don't characterize people that way too.

There was a name change. JREF is now known as "International Skeptics Forum". Moderation policy remains the same. Yes, name calling isn't tolerated even though it's at times appropriate ?. The certainty of some here remind me of a couple of posters at ISF. There's several members whom start threads that have pages of replies explaining why and how they are right, two are Bjarne and Jeffery Wolynski.  No matter what is said to them they won't admit error- ever. To a lesser degree I see it here, with one exception member ipsofacto. He/she is the only member whom has admitted they could be wrong that didn't feel like nothing more than lip service.

The certainty of some here remind me of a couple of posters at ISF. There's several members whom start threads that have pages of replies explaining why and how they are wrong, two are Bjarne and Jeffery Wolynski.  No matter what is said to them they won't admit error- ever. To a lesser degree I see it here, with one exception member ipsofacto. He/she is the only member whom has admitted they could be wrong that didn't feel like nothing more than lip service.

You're just talking about the proponents here, I assume?

I mean, the sceptics here are so open-minded and diffident that you couldn't possibly be including them.

I'll deviate a bit from your first sentence. In my youth I had friends that werent skeptical, that gave me good insight into the way they think in affirming ways. Because of that interaction I learned for that kind of person believing something is true is more important than knowing something is true. That I think applies here.   Believing isnt enough, that's what separates skeptics from non skeptics. I don't characterize people that way too.

I go back and forth on whether there are differences in thinking between skeptics and believers - at best, there may be some slight differences on average, but with substantial overlap in range. Certainly the people who hang out here, which will be a selected sample, seem interested in knowing whether something is true. Disagreements seem to be about how that judgement is made, more than anything.

There was a name change. JREF is now known as "International Skeptics Forum". Moderation policy remains the same. Yes, name calling isn't tolerated even though it's at times appropriate ?. The certainty of some here remind me of a couple of posters at ISF. There's several members whom start threads that have pages of replies explaining why and how they are wrong, two are Bjarne and Jeffery Wolynski.  No matter what is said to them they won't admit error- ever. To a lesser degree I see it here, with one exception member ipsofacto. He/she is the only member whom has admitted they could be wrong that didn't feel like nothing more than lip service.

Well, to be fair, that certainty amongst some of the Skeptics is a lot of what turned me off at the JREF forum. I'm not sure there's much difference between skeptics and non-skeptics in that regard. Rather, I suspect it reflects whichever group is in charge of which forum. There was an interesting study done on atheists and believers (https://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Groundbr...1591024137) and on the Dogmatism scale (scores range from 20-180), there was not much difference between atheists/agnostics/inactive and moderate believers (65/58/69/73). The atheists in the study belonged to atheist clubs, so probably a select sample of somewhat more dogmatic atheists. Regular churchgoers and fundamentalists had much higher dogmatism scores, but I don't think they could be considered similar to those with belief in paranormal activity.

Linda

Not just including the years here and at Skeptiko I've noticed skeptics have little trouble understanding each other. Whereas the less and non skeptical have a difficult time understanding skeptical positions. I want to hold my breath waiting for the Karmarling's of the world to move to a more skeptical position but I'm pretty sure I can't hold my breath long enough for that to happen.

It's honestly startling how frequently you make statements that apply to you moreso than anyone on this forum without even a hint of the irony.

Obviously you mistakenly think I pulled those mysteries out of my ass. I think you're projecting your own emotional state. How hypocritical to say what I think is schtick and what others such as you think is novel. The next time someone like you has a novel thought I'll let you know.

Steve, I never said that I have a novel thought to put forward. What I am sure I do not do, though, is broadly accuse each and every skeptic of having some emotional, irrational basis for every thought or belief they have related to psi or consciousness. What I have experienced with you, however, is that you cannot seem to get away from the thought that at the root of every single belief in the legitimacy of the paranormal, psi, or extraphysical consciousness in some form or another is an emotional fear of death or need to believe in an afterlife. That's not fair, it's not honest, and it's also not real in the slightest. And, worst of all, it's a dismissive crutch that you frequently fall back on as a way to implicitly demean the beliefs of those who disagree with you. You basically assume a less obvious version of a typical internet skeptic (of which this forum has very few, if any, other than you): the kind who simply dismisses and mocks those who challenge the paradigmatic approach to consciousness, especially leaning on accusations of "fear of death" or "emotion" or "you just believe it because you want it to be true". 

There are numerous issues with such a stance, starting with the fact that it's just point blank false in numerous instances. Another major issue with it is that it ignores that emotion is likely a factor in almost any and every human position, including those held by skeptics. It's realistic to imagine that some "skeptics" hold the position that they do because of some emotional dislike of religion, some frustration (to put it mildly) with the idea of an all-powerful being or something akin to it, etc. Certainly there are some, probably many, skeptics who fall into those groupings. That doesn't mean that every skeptic does, and it wouldn't be fair for someone to go to any group of skeptics and constantly, repeatedly accuse them of holding their beliefs for no reason other than emotion or fear. That would just be a way to avoid engaging with their actual arguments or the evidence they present. Further, it's also possible for someone to hold a belief in part because of emotion motivation while still having sound arguments, reasoning, or evidence at their disposal. 

So, for a multitude of reasons, your constant use of the emotion crutch is completely unjustified and tired. And I was not saying novel meaning to criticize you for not coming up with some brand new skeptical argument as it pertains to psi - I was saying that maybe you ought to consider actually contributing something of substance rather than just vaguely alluding to an emotional need for belief.

And, hilariously, in your response you accuse me of "projecting [my] own emotional state". I cannot say that I'm shocked, since you, as always, don't get the point. What I said was not hypocritical, because I didn't say anything remotely resembling that what you have is a shtick whereas no one else has their own shtick. It's that your shtick doesn't involve actual reasoning or evidence; it involves baseless and irrelevant accusations of emotional need as the basis for a belief. For instance, Tim certainly could be said to have a shtick regarding NDEs. But Tim's is at least clearly based on loads of research, reading, contacting relevant individuals, and thinking. It doesn't take any research or reflection to say to someone "You believe what you do because you emotionally require it and that's it." That's what you do all the time. That's what I'm saying is worthless and obnoxious.

I'm not sure what you mean by pulling those "mysteries" out of your ass. They're clearly not the only examples of the principle you were seemingly trying to demonstrate.

A suggestion for you is to let Tim and Stephen respond instead of presuming you know what they think. I never have an uncontrollable need to respond to your posts so why do you feel the need to respond to me if it causes you so much consternation.

I never presumed to know what Tim and Steve think. Where in my response to you do you feel I suggested such a thing? Nothing I said requires that I made any assumptions about their thoughts. I responded with what I think, based on my own experience. 

And I've said this to you before, but you seem to think I only respond to you and serve no other purpose on this forum. I'm glad that you think I pay you so much attention, but truly I've been following this thread, as I do many, for plenty of time, and I chose to respond to your post. As you noted below, I also responded to fls. Don't feel too special, now.

P.S. I read your response, according to you Fls doesn't understand- huh. You know what I think? I think you'll  state all those that don't see things the way you do don't understand. Betcha I'm right. One thing I know about you is you don't like anyone that casts doubt about stuff you hold dearly.

This is what's funny about you steve. You don't actually engage with anyone in any real way, so you have literally no sort of clue how people would respond to a reasonable, informed, intelligent person. Most of your conversations on this forum don't involve any actual meritorious discussion of issues. So you really have no idea what my beliefs are and aren't familiar with how I would tend to interact with people who actually know what they're taking about. 

So, no, I wouldn't state that anyone who sees something differently just "doesn't get it". Unsurprisingly, you ignored/didn't read the portion of my post regarding Alex Rosenberg. I don't generally agree with Rosenberg or his conclusions. But I think he's a person worth engaging with because he actually gets it and is willing to discuss the issue. No, I am not saying fls doesn't understand just because she doesn't agree with me. Based on her post, I don't get the sense that she has a solid comprehension of the discussion. She said as much herself, saying that she really didn't get the argument that malf was responding to. I've read a fair amount on this topic, and just based on fls's posts in this thread, I don't feel that she understands it well. Do you understand that? I'm sure it would be easier for you if I was intellectually dishonest enough to just say "Oh, no, you just don't get it" whenever someone and I aren't on the same page. But that's not how it is. Before you actually have a conversation about "meaning" in a purely materialistic worldview, you have to actually be able/willing to acknowledge why such a question exists. If you can't get there, there's not much of a conversation to be had. I could be totally wrong - fls could understand the position, I may have misunderstood her post, etc. My response was based on the sense I've gotten from her posts so far in this thread. 

And while it's entirely purposeless to respond to the last sentence quoted above, for the reasons I've already stated, I will say that you're totally and completely wrong that I have any sort of issue with anyone who disagrees with me. I don't have any "dearly held" (oh look! another accusation of emotional need!) beliefs as to anything discussed on this forum. I find the stuff we discuss to be intellectually stimulating and important, and I wouldn't waste my time on a forum like this if I didn't want anyone to disagree with me, was looking for an echo chamber, or "held dearly" any of the beliefs related to this stuff. This is not the forum for any of those things. I am here to continue to learn, to follow/take part in conversations of really intelligent people on these topics, and to engage in actual, substantive debate when possible, and learn from that too. I have always hoped for greater genuine skeptical activity here, just as I did at Skeptiko. I'm here to learn, just like (hopefully) everyone else. And the suggestion that I "don't like" those who disagree with me is a sad, comical, and uninformed characterization. I'm not here to hold personal grudges or develop feelings of dislike towards posters on an internet forum, especially since most people here are actually interested in similar stuff, whether they're skeptics, proponents, or in between.

So, steve, if that's the "one thing" you know about me, then you know absolutely nothing about me. As was the point of my original response to you, it's pretty easy to dismiss people by saying that they just reflexively dismiss or dislike anyone who doesn't see things the same way as them. The whole purpose of my response, as I already said, was to point out that it's ridiculous how frequently you accuse people of being emotionally motivated, and that's it. By suggesting that I don't like people who "cast doubt on" my "dearly held" beliefs (false), you're just throwing more of the same emotional accusations. And they're not remotely accurate. Same old, same old.

 What I am sure I do not do, though, is broadly accuse each and every skeptic of having some emotional, irrational basis for every thought or belief they have related to psi or consciousness. What I have experienced with you, however, is that you cannot seem to get away from the thought that at the root of every single belief in the legitimacy of the paranormal, psi, or extraphysical consciousness in some form or another is an emotional fear of death or need to believe in an afterlife. That's not fair, it's not honest, and it's also not real in the slightest. And, worst of all, it's a dismissive crutch that you frequently fall back on as a way to implicitly demean the beliefs of those who disagree with you. You basically assume a less obvious version of a typical internet skeptic (of which this forum has very few, if any, other than you): the kind who simply dismisses and mocks those who challenge the paradigmatic approach to consciousness, especially leaning on accusations of "fear of death" or "emotion" or "you just believe it because you want it to be true". 

Yeah, the fear of death argument is probably the most frustrating one.  I could equally jump to the conclusion that the only reason "skeptics" don't believe is because they hate the thought of taking higher moral responsibility or they hate the thought that there may be a God who's knowledge of right and wrong is a challenge to their "freedom"  (not that they believe in genuine freedom of course - that would require us to not be merely biological robots!)  In other words, they believe there is no God because they want it to be true.

 Regular churchgoers and fundamentalists had much higher dogmatism scores

Might that be because we actually know better? 

Might that be because we actually know better? 

I know that you were just taking advantage of a good setup for a joke (I often can't stop myself from doing so, either)...but...

What is really interesting is that dogmatism scale (the DOG scale - which tells you something about the researchers own sense of humor) is a scale of open-mindedness. So while you might think that it's about knowledge - i.e. DOG measures the justness of your knowledge base, so those who are most dogmatic are those who believe their knowledge base is most just - it doesn't. For example, measures of critical thinking ability tend to show a negative correlation with dogmatism.

Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Linda