Free and Fair Elections

I really enjoy reading articles by Peter Heck. He is a very reasonably minded individual who is very good at keeping things in perspective. That's why I'm unsurprised by his take on the subject of this article, as it is a very level-headed analysis, but I cannot help but disagree with it in part.

I don't disagree with his argument that there has been no professionally produced evidence that Trump actually won the 2020 election. He's obviously right. The grandiose promises of the people who were sure they could produce extraordinary evidence that the election was rigged did not come to fruition. That's obviously true. Is confidence in fair and free elections paramount for our particular governmental system to endure? Yes, I'd say it is. To save from going through every little detail, I agree with most of the arguments as standalone statements. The facts are facts, unless they aren't - to make my stance a little more clear. We couldn't know any differently because no hard evidence has come of it. The election process is innocent until proven guilty, persay. But just as many people have been acquitted under shaky and suspect terms, I'm wholly unconvinced that the "judicial process" has confidently acquitted the 2020 election. We're looking at the Casey Anthony of presidential elections.

So do I disagree that it's dangerous and irresponsible to "continue to peddle" the claim that Trump actually won the 2020? It could be interpreted that way, but it's not so clear cut. It's actually a little strange that Heck makes this argument considering that there is no sanctity of the election process from the leftosphere - especially when this is discussed at length in the article. Confidence in the election process is nonnegotiable for the survival of our country as is. Yet we have been seeing Democrats et. al. contesting the results of elections since George Bush in 2000 and 2004. Suddenly, after Obama won, elections are free and fair again. Trump wins in 2016 and the democratic process is hopelessly corrupt and endangered. It's all okay, though, because Biden won in 2020, so all those glaring issues with the election process that allowed Trump to incorrectly win in 2016 have been fixed and now it's dangerous and irresponsible to believe the elections are anything except the freest and fairest in all the land.

Peter Heck insists, essentially, that it's wrong for Our Side to say that the election process is corrupt to its very core because Their Side is saying it, so we must instill confidence in the populace about the integrity of the process by discontinuing to vocally doubt it. If we stop that, then there can be confidence in our election process once again and everything will somehow be fine.

This premise makes little sense if the democratic process is, in fact corrupted. If our elections are not, in fact, free and fair, then we do nothing but doom ourselves to an accelerated takeover by a one party rule. There appears to be little hard evidence of fraud, whether it's 2000, 2004, 2016, or 2020. Very few people are found guilty for voter fraud every year. The amount of fraud or otherwise tampering of the election process would have had to occur in multiple states and affect many thousands of votes for Trump to have actually had the election stolen from him as he so claims.

Yes, of course, there has been no hard evidence. Every lawsuit was denied processing, so evidence they had was never admitted to court. Events that have long passed, like Georgia's conspicuous burst water pipe that was resolved many hours before they sent people home and "stopped counting" but didn't actually stop counting, and every other state that was an all-but-guaranteed Trump win suddenly stopping votes in the middle of the night, shutting out Republican watchers, barring up windows and blocking all oversight, dumping ballots in through the back doors under cover, some states taking many multiples of days to finish counting and the subsequent gaslighting that "this happens all the time" (it doesn't), and then suddenly multiple states inexplicably turning around for Biden at the very last second, are not things we can really go back and examine, as they were real time events that do not have quantifiable numbers. Multiple YouTubers have been suspended and videos taken down for going to registered voter addresses and finding condemned houses or empty lots. People attest to having received many multiples of mail in ballots to their address. But there is no hard evidence, I'll admit. Nothing was admitted in court because all of the lawsuits were not allowed to proceed, so how could we have the evidence? People who investigate are blocked, silenced, and stifled. The mainstream media would never write dozens of highly amplified articles about canvassers going to registered voter addresses who voted in the 2020 election and finding empty lots, so speaking about it is a "conspiracy theory". There's nothing anyone can do except shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, there's no hard evidence."

What all of these events and this, I suppose, softer evidence points to, however, is absolutely a justifiable suspicion that perhaps our elections are not the freest and fairest elections of all time, and that they may, in fact, be compromised. The confidence in our elections is paramount to a continued functioning democratic republic. Which is why it's such a crying shame that it's entirely justifiable to believe that these elections are in fact not free, nor fair, and have been rigged in various covert and unquantifiable ways. We have articles all but admitting the "shadow government" rigged the election ahead of time by changing election laws and altering as many aspects of our democratic process as possible entirely under the radar, without the people's consent and even admittedly illegally in some cases, and yet we are somehow supposed to believe it's all good. Freest and Fairest Election of All Time. Never mind that many of the events that occurred while votes were being counted that night are the same schemes that are pulled in corrupt third world elections. Claiming it is very important for us to stop questioning the validity of the 2020 election to help instill confidence in the election process ignores that questioning the validity of the 2020 election isn't the problem. The problem is the incredibly suspect validity of the 2020 election.

And that's where Mr. Heck and I will simply have to disagree. I watched these bizarre and highly suspicious situations play out in real time the day and night of Nov 3rd 2020. This isn't a random dossier that showed up from an unknown source with unproven claims that got published by every mainstream media outlet who all declared it simply must be true. This is what I saw with my own eyes. I won't allow the MSM to gaslight me into believing it is very normal for it to take many many days to declare the presidential election winner. I have watched the news coverage for the presidential election in 2004 and 2008, as well as of course 2016. 

Trump was declared the winner in 2016 by 2am on Nov 4th 2016. No states suddenly stopped counting, threw out bipartisan vote watchers, had trucks of ballots dumped into the back doors while the vote counters taped poster boards all over the windows, nor had various "counting errors" giving statistically unlikely solid chunks of votes to a single candidate at 4 in the morning. Bipartisan vote watchers were not barred entry despite having been court ordered by a judge to be allowed in. Yet I am to believe no one would have committed any fraud in an election where a significant number of people genuinely believed they were going to "vote out" a literal dictator? Impossible. I contest it is in fact irresponsible to tell people to believe that there was not malicious behavior in the 2020 election. Our democratic republic does not require only confidence in the election process, but actually fair and free elections. The illusion of a properly functioning democratic republic is not an actual properly functioning democratic republic.

I wonder if the real reason Heck insists we should no longer question the integrity of our election process is simply because it's clearly no longer valuable or useful. I don't suspect this is the case, as a man who has written before about the importance of truth. I wonder then if it was not the fruitless endeavor and hopeless doomerism of the burden of knowing the election process is most likely compromised, but there's little any of us can actually do about it which prompted him to simply explain away the problem like this. Simply believing we have fair and free elections will not actually help us have fair and free elections, but it would surely help promote a comforting illusion. 

There is absolutely no reason not to bring up these highly suspicious behaviors by vote counters, the rushed patchwork legislation changes people did not vote for, the non-zero number of registered voter addresses located at empty houses. It is imperative not to simply put our fingers in our ears and sing loudly that we have confidence in the democratic process. We must be able to have dialogue about what kind of behavior is not allowed in order to have that confidence in our elections. Barring watchers, stopping counts at midnight and sending the Other Team's counters home, taping paper over the windows, trucking ballots into backdoors at 4am - these are not behaviors conducive to a fair and free election. Do not bar discussion about these things - and if you believe that casting doubt on the 2020 election while having this discussion does not help the case, then just say that. We can speak objectively about what does not happen when a country's elections are actually fair and free without invoking the alleged "Big Lie". But it's offensive to say that we must simply drop the whole thing and start having confidence in our election process after nothing has changed. 

The "Conspiracy Theory" Conspiracy Theory

I have already written about how the habit of calling all ideas counter to the mainstream narrative "conspiracy theories", or especially "right wing conspiracy theories", is a form of gaslighting. It is a well established tactic that works quite easily to immediately, magically, and fully discredit your target and make them appear crazy with the least possible amount of work. Once a theory has been established as a conspiracy theory, it's a simple matter to discredit anyone who says anything even remotely similar by the power of association. This post further explores the tactic of calling everything a conspiracy theory, as well as why it works. It also explains the rational behind various conspiracy theories and psychological concepts that are at work within belief and disbelief of conspiracy theories - and why everyone is at risk of them.

The "conspiracy theory" discourse

I have looked into the origins and definition of the term "conspiracy theory". Apparently, there is a "conspiracy theory" that the term "conspiracy theory" was invented in 1967 by the CIA to discredit people who didn't believe the government's statement on JFK's assassination. This theory and the resulting discussion around it illustrates an important factor in the way the conspiracy theory label is used to attack every concept adjacent to "the official conspiracy" of any given theory.

 

The people seeking to discredit ideas outside of the mainstream narrative will define the theory in question with the most extreme possible attributes. They will find the craziest adherent with the most easily debunkable concepts and call that, for example, "the JFK conspiracy theory". This may occur naturally if someone is pushing a truly unbelievable idea, like flat earth. Any theory with possible validity behind it, unfortunately, will be defined by its craziest supporters. They will explain the conspiracy theory with very definitive terms and say that people who believe the US government assassinated JFK unilaterally agree on any given number of terms and concepts. They then move on to disprove any number of certain aspects of the defined and outlined theory. Once the "definitive JFK assassination theory" is debunked due to flaws in the official theory, they will declare that anyone who believes any adjacent concept of the official theory to be just as crazy as anyone who believes wholesale in the official theory. Thus, if you even mildly doubt that the US government is being honest about the events surrounding JFK's death, you are automatically considered as someone who believes "the official" JFK conspiracy theory (the crazy one). The person who seeks to discredit you will point to the debunked "official theory" and consequently discredit you as someone who is wacky enough to believe clearly disproven things. Any objections will be met with the same brick wall mindset, since you are now simply a crazy conspiracy theorist and are therefore unreliable, maybe even suffering from psychosis. 

 

Another current example of this issue is seen where, if anyone believes even a single politician may have been involved in child sexual abuse, they are thoroughly and undeniably "Q-Anon" and accused of believing the full and complete manifesto of Q-Anon supporters (even if you say otherwise, you're obviously just lying because you know Q-Anon is looked down upon and want to avoid the social alienation). Some people will even attack you as Q-Anon for acknowledging that child sex trafficking is real - it should be very obvious why this is a problem. It's worth mentioning that I do not believe the people doing this are actively attempting to cover up sex trafficking - but rather, they are so far radicalized in the complete other direction due to their intense aversion to Q-Anon that they believe all analogous concepts are related to it.

This is an applicable example of "false dichotomy" wherein, what is actually happening is that the most far-gone, fact and evidence ignoring concepts are touted as the theory, and thus anyone who says they think anything even resembling xyz theory is, obviously, a devout adherent to the official theory. This practice creates two perceived groups of people, wherein you for example either believe the outlined JFK conspiracy theory (which has been debunked, and therefore you are crazy), or you believe the official US government story. The idea that there is no possible alternative is heavily implied through the manner in which these things are addressed, the conspiracy theory discourse.

 

The train of thought you are manipulated into is "if the official JFK assassination conspiracy theory is wrong, then it's impossible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination". This is actually not a logically sound conclusion, since it is actually still possible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination, but simply in a way that is different from the "official" conspiracy theory. Whether there is weight to such a conclusion may vary - admittedly, I've been using this as an example, and yet I don't really care about the JFK assassination. I do believe, however, that it's entirely reasonable to believe it is possible that the government was involved in JFK's assassination because they have been caught being involved in illegal affairs before and have lied about all sorts of absolutely nefarious things. However, the crux of the matter is that believing unquestioningly in the official government explanation for JFK's assassination explicitly requires that you think it's simply impossible that the government would be directly involved in the assassination of a US president and then not admit it. As if they would be involved in assassinating JFK and then turn around and go, "yes, our bad, our sincerest apologies, we promise not to conspire against the duly elected president of the United States ever again, pwease don't execute us for committing treason." The people who would have been involved in this are still alive today and I'm sure they do not want to be executed for treason. At the end of the matter, though, it's mostly inconsequential, as there is not enough evidence to charge anyone.

 

This subconsciously accepted false dichotomy conclusion applies just as easily to most conspiracy theories. Moving back to the "the CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" theory, if the CIA did not invent the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 to intentionally discredit people who don't believe the official JFK assassination story, then you should doubt whether "conspiracy theory" is being intentionally used to discredit possibly valid ideas. You see the "conspiracy theory" that the CIA invented the term, and see it debunked, and you are led to a conclusion wherein, if I say something like "the term conspiracy theory is being intentionally used to discredit certain ideas simply because the mainstream/government/organization in question wants to wholly discredit such idea" you think I'm an adherent of the "the CIA invented the term in 1967" group, which, seeing that theory has been debunked, discredits me as a wacky conspiracy theorist, despite the fact that I don't believe the CIA invented the term in 1967. It's close enough to the conspiracy theory in question to, not simply doubt, but fully and entirely dismiss my claim, despite being entirely reasonable. 

 

The unspoken possibilities between the extremes

 

My entire point here then is that, regardless of whether the CIA "invented" the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 for use against alternative theories for JFK's assassination, it was utilized in this way. Is it truly crazy to believe that someone seeking to hide the fact that they did something illegal and punishable by death would go to great lengths to disguise and discredit people if the truth is at risk of being exposed? The utilization of the existent term of "conspiracy theory" is very reasonable to use if you wish to discredit a theory that's gaining popularity. If given to honest contemplation, the claim that it's reasonable to believe that certain ideas with reasonable cause for concern are being discredited through application of the term "conspiracy theory" is not even slightly crazy, but more akin to a simple observation. The point here is that it's important not to dismiss ideas out of hand because another group of people has designated it a conspiracy theory. This is a tactic being used on purpose to cause this exact reaction - but there is nothing crazy about being skeptical.

 

This is how the labeling and subsequent debunking of the most far-gone concepts is used to discredit similar, but conceptually different ideas. Unfortunately, you are being manipulated this way and likely do not even realize it - not by a shadowy cabal, but by simple psychology. The idea that the term conspiracy theory is intentionally used to discredit ideas that organizations do not want people to believe is not crazy in the least - people who believe in the "general goodness" of large, powerful organizations are naive, probably crazier than most "conspiracy theorists". In fact, they can simultaneously believe things like "the United States as an institution has intentionally exploited black people and other minorities throughout their history and gotten away with it due to institutionalized power," and then think it's simply absolutely wacky that they would be involved in other nefarious acts that would cause great harm to large groups of people. Why believe they would only ever do this one particular bad thing, insofar as believing they are still doing it, but then not see other questionable behavior by the government as suspicious?

The government is actually, definitely, lying - but about what specifically?

 

What happens is because "the government is lying" is tied to things that really are pretty crazy (flat earth is a good example), any person who says "the government is lying" is more likely to be viewed as a nutcase rather than someone who is noticing suspicious things and questioning them. We can even point to things that we know for a fact the government lied about, and say "given the evidence that the government has lied before, why do you believe unwaveringly that they simply could not possibly be lying about this?" but still have people dismiss it out of hand as "crazy". It is self-evidently much more crazy to believe governments are simply behaving themselves nowadays despite multiple proven situations where they did suspicious and malicious things quite recently, like how Obama's administration decided to consider all military aged men killed by drones in the Middle East as combatants, thus underreporting their "civilian" kill count. This is, by all accounts, not actually a very "crazy" lie - but the fact of the matter is that the government lies. It is not unreasonable to distrust someone who has a habit of lying - it is, in fact, quite smart to distrust someone who has a habit of lying, especially when they are in such powerful positions. People seem to have no issues with this conclusion, since it's not very hard to find someone who believes it's reasonable not to trust Trump since they believe he has a habit of lying. It should not be hard to attribute the same concept to all government organizations and politicians at large, and yet it is somehow "conspiratorial thinking" to believe any politician aside from Trump has lied, and likely could again, for their own gain.

 

In fact, they may believe that Trump has been conspiring with Russia and getting away with it for nearly four years without prosecution despite evidence, (which would imply a network of individuals within the government that were working to ensure Trump could get away with this and not be prosecuted - almost like there was a "deep state" working outside the confines of our constitution) but the very idea that any number of analogous situations may have happened or are happening is, why, simply absolutely crazy. If any given politician could manipulate such a situation, why doubt that anyone else could, or would? Throughout all of history, the elite ruling classes have lied to and abused their subjects and citizens for their own gain without regard to their humanity, with mass murder evidenced within the lifetimes of people alive today, but now, magically, governments just don't do that stuff anymore, obviously, because they said they don't. They would also benefit tremendously from getting you to believe that they are looking out for your best interests, but we just ignore that, because to be skeptical of the government is something crazy people who believe in a flat earth do. We, being generally good (or at least believing we are), assume everyone else is, too. This is called the false consensus effect and is an accepted psychological concept. The fact of the matter is that the rich and powerful are not like us. Narcissistic people who seek to manipulate and use others for their own gain of wealth and power have had thousands of years to figure out the best way to do it, but you simply believe they suddenly stopped, because, like, we just, progressed, as a society, or something. Us normal people generally lack the power, resources, motivation, and opportunity to perform egregious crimes against humanity - and so we assume everyone else does, too. "If I were president, I would simply not commit genocide", you say, without any perspective on how a person with unimaginable power views themselves and the world around them.

How people who believe they don't believe anything crazy view "conspiracy theory"

The inspiration for this post, of course, is the newest "conspiracy pyramid" graphic/video circulating around the internet, wherein this person commits the exact "guilty (of being absolutely insane) by association" concept that I have stated here, that I would have said any other day of the week before this graphic was released. That this person did indeed lump "flat earth" theory along with what they considered to be the absolute most "dangerous and deranged" theories was not surprising to me in the least. The aversion to being associated with flat earthers is strong, and people who may not have any issue believing that the government is lying to them or cooperating with other governments to push through policies and ideas that the general populace may dislike, would see the association pushed that "my belief that the government is not trustworthy is adjacent to believing the earth is flat," and then move away from their reasonable distrust in the rich and powerful elite that routinely exploit their position for their own gain to avoid social alienation.

 

Ironically, the argument is made that "if you believe some of these (the ones the author considers the most dangerous) conspiracies, you usually believe most" implying that once someone believes something like "George Soros is funding operations that push a radical left-wing agenda" which is actually easily believable (why would a rich and powerful man who believes himself to be a philanthropist not put money into funding operations that support what he believes to be a path to a better world?), you magically believe the earth is flat - when in reality, you never go in that direction. If you start from believing the earth is flat, then you would likely have little issue believing most of the other conspiracies - but believing rich and powerful people abuse their power and influence has little to do with denying observable realities about our universe, like the roundness of planets. This is explicitly done to make people adverse to these theories - social pressure is very real, as we will go into shortly.

 

It's an obnoxiously obvious tactic and, unfortunately, very successful. Through this method, they more or less make "contemplating the trustworthiness of the elite" conspiratorial in itself, on par with ignoring readily available, self-evident aspects of reality - for example, we can see the round moon in the sky and assume other planetary bodies are similarly round. Flat earth theory assumes something is wildly wrong with reality itself and we are being successfully lied to about it despite having the ability to discern otherwise through methods available to the everyday person. The level of coverup necessary to hide that the earth is flat is unimaginable, while theories surrounding the "deep state" assume malicious intent and cooperation by rich and powerful people. We are implicitly led to believe these two concepts are somehow similar. "How could you believe people with unimaginable power and influence would ever lie for their own personal gain? Why, the amount of effort to cover that up is unimaginable!" is the implied messaging - we understand exactly why a flat earth doesn't hold up to scrutiny, then unintentionally apply the same levels of disbelief to the concept of the "deep state" - yet they are not similar in composition in any measurable way. It implies that discovering malicious cooperation between the ruling elite class would somehow be "easy" to discern, as easy as looking upon the moon and seeing that it is round. Politicians have been caught doing nefarious things in the past, and yet we are to believe we have simply caught them every single time? Or, sillier yet, they have simply stopped trying to do those things? The implication here is "if the government were conspiring in a bad way, we'd have simply found it out by now". It took 40 years for the Tuskgee Syphilis experiment to be exposed, but for some reason people just have incredible faith in people today to be super good at discovering corruption, somehow, for reasons.

 

Most results are due to psychological aspects

 

The important thing to remember about all this is that there is no nefarious cooperation behind the useage of "they" or language that implies intentional, malicious action being taken. It is not a shadowy cabal of people manipulating on every level the narrative and ideas that are allowed to see the light of day. The vast majority of these people are independent actors who, for the most part, are unaware that they are actually providing a valuable service to the very small number of people who desire these outcomes. 

 

Culture and ingroup preferences drive most of the behavior of the majority of people. There is plenty of evidence that people often behave in ways that benefit themselves the most, as well as the documented concept that people often adopt extreme versions (going in either direction) of their beliefs when they are openly discussed within their ingroup. Who we associate with and what we associate ourselves with directly influence what we say and think. We also have the concept of "ingroup favortism" wherein anyone perceived to be in the ingroup is given the benefit of the doubt and people in outgroups are judged more harshly. We recognize these biases and would understandably then be adverse to being classified as part of the outgroup, knowing how poorly your friends in your ingroup perceive them. You are not poor of character, of course, as no one sees themselves as the antagonist of their story, so being part of the outgroup and thus being perceived to be poor of character, is something we instinctually would seek to avoid. Last but not least for our psychological concepts, we have general "group behavior" psychology that demonstrates things like "groupthink" (not to be confused with Orwell's "doublethink"), wherein people conform their beliefs to the those of their perceived ingroup. That's right - if you feel a strong connection to a particular group, you are more likely to begin to hold the same beliefs as them regardless of the defenses and explanations you've given yourself for your previous beliefs. This is not some wild pseudo-psychology, all of these things are documented phenomena that explain the ways in which we are manipulated every day by the environment around us.

 

These phenomena are exemplified in the realm of conspiracy theory discourse. It is not so grand a global plot as people think is meant when these things are discussed, but merely the psychology of the human mind viewed on a large scale. The people in power do not orchestrate these things with the help of ritualistically indoctrinated cultist initiates that they place in office buildings around the world, they merely utilize already present psychological phenomena to their advantage. Self-interest and ingroup preference are intensely powerful psychological concepts and to believe that they could not be manipulated for the advantage of another is, again, naive. Everything is downstream of culture, you do not actually need to control very much of society at large to get control of a considerable portion of the populace - and they will not even know they have been manipulated. It is simply normal day to day psychological reactions to our environment.

It sounds crazy because we have been conditioned to believe this is not possible because of various things we've attributed to society at large. We like to believe people are naturally good, that the people have the power because we can vote, and we ignore evidence of things if they are happening too far away from us or too long ago. We recognize the nefariousness of monopolies but don't stop to question how it might be dangerous that 10 food companies control almost every other food company in the world. Even more unbelievable, this writer at Forbes shows that the totality of market power can be consolidated down to just four total companies, in control of literally everything else. To make matters worse, here is Business Insider again letting us know that just six companies control all of the mainstream media we consume. This seems very suspicious considering my earlier points about how culture has a lot of control over the everyday person. Also, if you're "conspiratorial" enough to dare think it, it appears to give credence to the idea that the news media by and large is one big "ingroup" that may, perhaps, agree on a large number of ideas.

This very concept itself (it is bad that so few companies control so much) is seen as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory", yet there is not a single mention of Jews is in these publicly available, very normal "Business Insider" articles. The front page here as I'm seeing today has no fewer than three anti-Trump articles, including a very bluntly named Op-Ed "Donald Trump Doesn't Care About You". But, I suppose Business Insider is pushing a dangerous far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory by reporting these easily researchable facts. This is actually a beautiful example of my entire point - the people who don't want you to notice these things are trying very hard to make you adverse to seeing them. The antisemitism angle comes from the very same people fighting against the general public noticing this very suspicious behavior, as a method of causing aversion toward accepting this easily verifiable fact. Because, you see, it would be antisemitic to acknowledge it. The secret, here, is that it is not antisemitic to notice these monopolies and this label is simply being used to attempt to manipulate you into not believing that this is true, or at least not believing that it could be a large problem. Because you're not an antisemite, are you?

 

Going back to the new conspiracy chart linked above, we make some interesting observations. Indeed, the author of this chart is exhibiting some grade-A ingroup preference, as at least one of the "deranged crazy" theories is easily and without a doubt verifiably true and openly admitted - the "moisturizing with foreskin". It does sound crazy if you have never heard of it before, and taking this chart at face value will undoubtedly lead you to believe it's a crazy conspiracy theory, because you were told it was (by someone maybe you believed at face value due to your own ingroup preference?). Honestly, just look up "foreskin facial". I actually can't even find anything implying an underlying conspiracy when I search "foreskin facial conspiracy". This appears to be wildly irresponsible by the maker of this chart. Another commenter has brought up that "deep state" is actually closely tied to "COINTELPRO" (something in the "proven true" list), and yet "deep state" is in the "too far gone" category. This pyramid indeed tells us more about the ingroup biases of the person who made it than it does about true conspiracy theorists who believe these particular ideas. It appears, actually, to be an example of someone whose ideas became more extreme (all things called conspiracy theories are dangerous and antisemitic) due to ingroup discussion, evidenced by the person who was brave enough to point out that "deep state" is far more reasonable than it is shown here. Anyone within the ingroup and subject to the groupthink of the group would be under heavy pressure to dismiss "deep state" as a wildly inaccurate, dangerous theory, even when maybe they see evidence for it, as the "deep state" theory is mostly owned by the "outgroup" of Trump supporters.

 

Indeed, the association of reasonable theories with wilder theories like flat earth is done on purpose to cause people in various ingroups to avoid association with what they perceive as outgroup thinking. If believing rich and powerful people cooperate under the table or that a rich person who controls 20% of everything created on earth wouldn't utilize their position for their own interests is as crazy as "science denial" like flat earth, then they must avoid association with such ideas due to social pressure and ingroup identity.  We can see the expressed disgust of the commenters when they see particularly "science denial" theories - it's demonstrably a very strong tool to create aversion within an ingroup.

People with too much power do not behave like we do

Shame and manipulation is used to get people to do, say, and believe things all the time. The disbelief comes from the idea that it could be done on such a large scale, and yet the fact of the matter is that a very small number of companies - and, thus, a very small number of people - control unimaginably vast amounts of all of the kinds of things we see and consume every day. It is much crazier to assume these incomprehensibly powerful people who control levels of wealth and influence genuinely inconceivable to poor, average schmucks like us are behaving benevolently, and not in their own self-interests. We magically, for no reason, give the benefit of the doubt to these people who are - and I cannot stress this enough - incomprehensibly powerful, because the alternative is, admittedly, kind of scary. We simply do not want to accept that it is possible that rich and powerful people could, dare I say, be mean, because if they were mean, the levels of devastation they could bring upon us are chilling.

I'm not saying definitively that these people with unimaginable wealth and influence are doing any particular sort of nefarious thing. I'm trying to make you understand that it is entirely reasonable to believe that people with such power to do literally anything they desired, could, in fact, do anything they desired. If the thing they desired to do was detrimental to the vast majority of people, well, that would be quite unfortunate for us. Is it so farfetched to believe that a single person, so powerful and capable of anything they desired, could seek a manipulated vision of a world they personally perceive as "better", despite, perhaps, many people disagreeing? Could such disgusting levels of power and influence cause certain people to maybe see the world differently than we do? The failure to grasp the implications of the absolutely vast levels of power and influence these people has comes from our complete inability to apprehend the sheer levels of influence and power they have. This, in itself, becomes "conspiratorial" simply because the vast overwhelming majority of people do not understand that people with this level of power are absolutely nothing like us. Trying to convince the average person otherwise seems "crazy", with no small part played by the earlier mentioned false consensus effect (we simply believe most people think like we do, for no reason, our brains just do that).

 

Conspiracy theories are not unique to the right-wing

 

It's important to remember that there are things that are truly "conspiracy theories", which flat earth falls into. Indeed, certain left-wing originating concepts like the Trump-Russia connection are by their own merits conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked by readily available public information. The people who believe it, however, simply ignore this evidence and continue to believe there is a nefarious connection between Trump and Putin. It's possible, surely, because Trump is a politician and the government does shady stuff all the time. It's even fully understandable that they would continue to believe in it due to the exact same reasons that people continue to believe in a flat earth - you can't trust the evidence because the people providing the evidence are lying. It's interesting to point out, in fact, that the "official" Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is as debunked as the "official" JFK assassination conspiracy theory. But that does not mean nothing nefarious is happening - however, there is little to be done about it, and what remains is only speculation. 

 

Just as I believe it's possible the government was involved in JFK's assassination, but we can't really know, it's also definitely possible that Trump colluded with a foreign power, maybe Russia. But if the overwhelming evidence that's claimed to exist really did exist, he would have long been prosecuted. Everyone on every level of the government hates him. That's the difference - one side claims the evidence is there, and yet no one has been held accountable. The remaining evidence for the government's involvement in JFK's assassination is only speculative. It's actually wild to see that people who believe the Russian collusion story don't believe unilaterally in the "deep state", since such concepts would go hand in hand. What else explains why Trump hasn't been prosecuted despite these alleged mountains of evidence? Just, y'know, because reasons. Or, just maybe, it's an ingroup preference for the Russian collusion theory and prejudice against the outgroup theory of the "deep state".

 

This is what's happening on a psychological level. The people who believe in all of the debunked Trump-Russia connections are showing ingroup preference. They believe in the theory because their ingroup does, and specifically because the outgroup - Trump and by association his supporters - are of course against the theory. Seeing as they are the lying, malicious outgroup, they cannot be trusted, and may even be in on it. Conservative outlets and right-wing pundits have no issue labeling this as a conspiracy theory, but the term simply does not catch on in the mainstream because the mainstream media who published these stories for so long are also suffering from the ingroup preference, along with the same problems any other conspiracy theorist suffers when they find their beliefs debunked. Aversion to admitting you were wrong is yet another psychological issue wherein we see ourselves as the protagonists and thus, often justified and in the right. Wholesale belief in a debunked conspiracy theory, then, isn't "being embarrassingly wrong" but, rather, an understandable mistake, due to all of these such and such reasons, and thus you will likely never see news outlets that pushed this theory admit outright that they were wrong.

 

The mainstream media outlets pushing these articles are run and operated by mere humans like any one of us and thus are subject to the same psychological issues that we all fight against. There is no magical attribute that journalists possess that make them immune to the same ingroup favortism and self-benefiting preferences as any other human being. They published the stories in the first place, so the Trump-Russia connection is okay in their ingroup. We do not hesitate to point out the outgroup's failures and label them derisively, but when our ingroup fails and makes a terrible error, it's "simply a misunderstanding" and all efforts are made to explain how it's very reasonable and understandable that they would make such a mistake, downplaying any harm it's caused. It's not because there is an invisible cabal of Satanists controlling the op-eds of every single NYT journalist through threats and blackmail - it is normal, every day psychology that every one of us experiences. If they feel they are part of an ingroup, they will adhere more strongly to the perceived beliefs of that ingroup. It is why we are so easily able to pinpoint and classify which news organizations we believe have left or right leaning biases - because they do. It's absurd to believe that they do not, because they are human like any one of us and subject to the same psychological phenomena. 

What this shows is less the idea that right-leaning people are subject to believing in conspiracy theories, and more that we are all susceptible to believing things that don't have very good evidence. A recent article came out actually wherein someone said they found out their hairdresser believed in Q-Anon - and they proceeded to be no less than shocked that they weren't also a raging racist who thinks Trump is a demigod. The failure for this outgroup person (the hairdresser) to not adhere unilaterally to all of the things that the author's ingroup told her the outgroup believes should have been an eyeopener to the author that "conspiracy theorists" are regular people like anyone else and aren't living in an alternative reality. They see the same evidence, or wild speculation perhaps, that everyone else sees, but interprets it differently due to their ingroup preferences and personal biases. This quote is at the very bottom so I will copy it here to share, the author says, "The hairdresser’s take on race, and anti-Black racism specifically, did not spiral into conspiratorial territory, nor did they hail Trump as the best thing to happen to Black people. I was actually shocked to find their ideas were similar to my own." Unfortunately, most people get here and think "this wacky conspiracy theorist is saveable", and not the more correct, "every normal person is subject to influence by particular ideas (and this means even myself)".

 

Theories around conspiracy theories and why people believe them ignore that every person is capable of being swindled by a theory or ideology that plays on their own personal biases. They attempt to paint "conspiracy theorists" with a broad brush as being irreconcilably crazy - something is mentally wrong with them (per wikipedia "Research suggests that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological and that it is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia and Machiavellianism."), but they are simply being manipulated by the same psychological influences that every person is suffering under, but in different ways. 

 

Who people identify with plays an enormous part in how they perceive themselves. The content we view will slowly alter our own perceptions, even if we think we are "above" such things. It takes an intentional effort to avoid indoctrination - but indoctrination occurs constantly without our express permission. It is subtle and works mostly in the background - and is not due to the intentional, malicious and cooperative actions by a shadowy cabal of elites, but simply due to what is more or less a "trickle down" effect in the culture pushed by them. I personally have been pulled back and forth by close calls with radicalization toward certain ideas. My personal foundation that keeps me from from straying too far into dangerous territories is my Christian faith. Many people without a foundation - that is to say, any foundation, regardless of whether it is Christian or otherwise - will fall victim more easily. With secularism on the rise, it appears people are more subject than ever to the subtle manipulation tactics that occur every day through psychological phenomena. It is not intentionally done by a malicious actor, and sometimes we even place ourselves there.

 

It's a little overwhelming to realize that we are nearly helpless to control where narratives and biases will lead us, and many people tend to believe they are simply too clever to fall for such ruses. It would be to your extreme benefit to recognize that you are susceptible to these forces, and act accordingly when you feel like your ingroup preferences may be leading you somewhere bad.

Literally the Bible

Whether or not something in the bible is literal is useful for discussion when we're trying to decide what a certain biblical excerpt is trying to tell us. For example, Jesus' parables were not literal stories of events that occurred, probably, but an example of using story telling to portray a certain message in an understandable way. This affects their impact and purpose for us. There are, however, events as detailed in the bible where their literal-ness is naively debated, like Jonah's story. Other events are debated like literal Creation, literal Eden etc. These debates are harmful and stem wholly from a position that denies properties of God and truths as revealed in the bible.

The story of Jonah, very abridged version, is this guy is swallowed by a big fish or whale, in there for 72 hours, then literally thrown up onto a shoreline where Jonah then preached a bunch of people to repentance. He wasn't chilling in the mouth like Finding Nemo - he was in the stomach, presumably, as the bible says he was "swallowed". This is what people take issue with to try and argue this story is figurative.

There are even more aspects to this that are in fact very relevant as they too require miracle work, but those details aren't important for this point. The fact of the matter is that people are arguing whether or not Jonah is literal, and the only reason they could really feel compelled to argue that it is not literal is because it is so chock-full-'o-miracles that it seems to us in our ignorance to be very unlikely to have happened. How could a man survive in a whale stomach? Stomachs are where food goes to get digested. Clearly this must be metaphorical as no man could survive in a stomach for longer than a few agonizing moments, let alone three days.

Here is the problem: the only position it makes any sense to be in, to argue that Jonah was not literal, is if you are an atheist or anti-theist attempting to disprove the bible. When believers question if things like Jonah as described in the bible could be figurative because they are such wild stories, they are not simply questioning the logistics of surviving in a stomach, they are losing the plot entirely. They claim to believe in an all-powerful God capable of any number of incomprehensible miracles, but somehow draw the line here, at a man living in a stomach for three days.

You cannot reconcile believing in an omniscient, omnipotent Creator who willed space, time, and matter into existence through unimaginable circumstances with "man can't live in fish!" This is nothing more than attempting to appeal to atheists who refuse to believe in miraculous, supernatural phenomena, by saying "whoa bud, I'm not one of those irrational Christians who believe in crazy stuff like "man live in fish", I am a smart, reasonable Christian, who just believes in the bible as, like, a guidebook for good behavior, or whatever." Maybe even a naive attempt at finding common ground with these atheists, saying "no, that's fair, some of these crazier stories probably didn't really happen, so it's not that crazy to believe in the bible" forgetting that they will never believe in Jesus's resurrection if they are obstinately opposed to miracles.

Yes, believing that a man could survive in a fish for three days and three nights just to be barfed onto shore somewhere else is the sort of thing that anti-theists look at and go "Christians believe things that are not scientifically possible, and thus, they are dumb," but whether someone thinks it's impossible for a man to live in a fish for 72 hours doesn't affect whether or not God could perform such a miracle if He desired. There is another story in the bible where three men are cast into a furnace so hot that the men operating the furnace died from the residual heat alone, but they emerge alive and unharmed. This is also obviously not possible, even moreso than Jonah and the whale, but I see very few atheist-appeasing Christians argue that the story in Daniel 3 was somehow figurative. It seems almost that the more farfetched the story is, the more likely most Christians accept that it's a miracle from God, but as soon as a story sounds like it could maybe be scientifically explainable but falls short, it's suddenly not legitimate.

It is not defensible as a believer to question whether or not an event as described in the bible could happen, if you simultaneously believe in God, especially if you believe in Jesus rising from the dead, which is so much more intensely unscientific than any other biblical miracle. If you want to debate Jonah's literalism for another reason, just because you truly believe it is metaphorical for some reason perhaps. But you really can't justify arguing that it's not literal just because it is farfetched. If you can't reconcile Jonah's story with your belief in a God that can in fact do absolutely anything, then you have much worse problems facing you can "can man live in fish".

What Is a Skeptic

The term skeptic means many things, though one thing of note it is used as is a self-identifying label for people who hold a disbelief for theology and, in some cases, any and all supernatural claims, as well as people who don't believe in metaphysics.

If you're trying to find out more about skeptics, there's always the dictionary.

1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.
3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it.
4. (initial capital letter) Philosophy.

1. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible.
2. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind.

What's particularly interesting is that a search of merely the term "skeptic" does not first produce a link to a dictionary definition, but The Skeptics Society itself.

The Skeptics Society is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) scientific and educational organization whose mission is to engage leading experts in investigating the paranormal, fringe science, pseudoscience, and extraordinary claims of all kinds, promote critical thinking, and serve as an educational tool for those seeking a sound scientific viewpoint. Our contributors—leading scientists, scholars, investigative journalists, historians, professors and teachers—are top experts in their fields. It is our hope that our efforts go a long way in promoting critical thinking and lifelong inquisitiveness in all individuals.

Now, I read their brief introduction fully, but I'll admit up front that I didn't read their entire manifesto. Not that I'll be criticizing The Skeptics Society in-depth - and only some of their claims were particularly questionable. Here are just a few bullet points about what it means to be a skeptic, according to a society full of them:

• Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims.
• It is the application of reason to any and all ideas.
• Skepticism is a method, not a position.
• We must see compelling evidence before we believe.  

So, basically, what you could expect from a skeptic is someone who doesn't accept a claim without first analyzing it. It's not your final stance on a matter, but the introductory phase - the part right before you formulate your belief, where you find reasons to believe or disbelieve it - or maybe still not know for sure. At the end of the day, "being skeptical" doesn't replace belief or disbelief - it's a separate situation altogether. Realistically, you should move from being skeptical about something toward a concrete belief on the matter - you don't simply stay skeptical forever.

There is nothing particularly anti-theistic about this. Many theists approach religious truth claims similarly, and simply come out believing them to be true instead of untrue. An interesting tidbit that I personally enjoy from this explanation of the nature of a skeptic was the following statement:

Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true.

Someone should let the vast majority of self-proclaimed atheist skeptics in on this, especially Richard Dawkins, I don't think they've taken it into consideration. Indeed, if you approach something assuming your conclusion, you will be hard pressed to be convinced otherwise even in the face of compelling evidence. I've long held that this attitude is the antithesis to skepticism, and apparently the skeptics agree with me.

Here's one thing I think we can both agree skeptics are not, or at least, should not be:

Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo.

Not that I have comprehensive evidence, but I'll go ahead and attribute the prevalence of this belief to the unskeptical skeptics that seem to be everywhere, making a bad name for the true skeptics - the ones who immediately dismiss claims and evidence that challenge their previously held beliefs while claiming to champion reason and evidence. Strange, it's almost like there are people who don't truly understand what they claim to believe, making a bad name for beliefs of every kind. Some common ground for people of all beliefs and backgrounds, I suppose.

Moving forward, the skeptics had some more to say about skepticism:

Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece, when Socrates observed: “All I know is that I know nothing.” But this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you were skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism.

Even more stuff I agree with, maybe I'm actually a skeptic myself. Who knew.

Truly, the position of pure skepticism is, to be blunt, laughable. You cannot earnestly believe nothing but skepticism - there must be a foundational truth, or else you have no basis to believe anything, even that you can't believe anything. It's self defeating - if you believe that you can't believe anything, well, you've just believed something. Sorry!

So far, The Skeptics Society has done nothing but agree with me. However, a few things did come up that maybe they should have analyzed further...

Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, which involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. 

While perhaps this is merely the brief and forward explanation and not the full scope of their position, it's not particularly agreeable. See, we do not only know things through the scientific method. Yes, I'm aware they did not say "we can only know things through the scientific method," but it fails dramatically to realize that there are many things we know to be true that can absolutely not be proven through the scientific method. The scientific method specifically involves things like the ability to reproduce a test, producing the same results over and over again to ensure that they are verified through testing, and having the thing to be tested exist in some sort of tangible way that allows us to actively experiment on it in real time.

The scientific method cannot be used to test the validity of things outside of natural, testable causes - specifically the (genuinely) supernatural and metaphysical. Some drastic "skeptics" and atheists will take this to mean that therefore these things do not exist. This is not how that works - absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is reasonable to be skeptical of these things for the lack of evidence, but declaring them to be entirely false due to not being scientifically testable is ignorant - you cannot know that through science alone. The Skeptics Society doesn't seem to have particularly made this claim (that I know of), but again, many self-proclaimed skeptics do.

Indeed, the scientific method cannot be used to test many other things - things that only happened once, for instance, i.e., history. There is a branch of science that investigates these claims, but it is called "historical science," and includes "forensic science," and it does not - because it cannot - utilize the scientific method.

If skeptics truly only utilize the scientific method for the purpose of understanding truth, then they will never be able to know historical truths - indeed not even historical truths that they themselves experienced. These experiences were not tested with the scientific method, so without accepting that there are other ways to know truth, they would have to conclude that these events have yet to be proven due to a lack of scientific evidence. It would be just as silly as having skepticism be your only position. Disbelieving all of history due to history not being able to be verified using the scientific method sounds a little silly, yes?

Most notably, science also cannot prove itself. Quite interestingly, science is a marvelous tool, but its validity cannot be tested by its own standards. This is not quite self-defeating unless you were to phrase it in a manner like, "science is the only way to truth." While The Skeptics Society has not done this (merely stated that science is the best way), I have seen self-proclaimed skeptics do it many times. Science surely is a manner of discovering truth, but to claim it to be the only way to truth is self-defeating, as it cannot prove itself. This brings to light the fact that we know science to be a way to truth due to other means of reasoning - mainly and most importantly, philosophy.

Science is a slave to philosophy. Without philosophy, we could not know whether or not science was a valid manner of understanding truth. We use philosophical principles when we establish the validity of science - particularly causality.

Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses, so basic a concept that it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it. Accordingly, causality is built into the conceptual structure of ordinary language.

What is being said here is that causality is understood to be true in so basic a form that it is not actually proven by anything. It simply is - we know it is because it is so clearly true. It is a law of the universe, part of reality, and understandable through simply living day to day. The scientific method would be hard pressed to provide proof of the law of causality when it, in fact, depends on the law of causality. Without the law of causality, we couldn't prove anything, as science is the study of causes and effects.

The basic laws of the universe, including logic, are not proven by the scientific method - but we know they are true. There are other ways of knowing things other than the scientific method, and to base whether or not you will believe something only on whether or not it is scientifically provable literally ignores this reality.

The Skeptics Society doesn't ignore causality:

Science is the best method humankind has devised for understanding causality. Therefore the scientific method is our most effective tool for understanding the causes of the effects we are confronted with in our personal lives as well as in nature.

Of course, they still fail to connect the dots between science depending on causality without being able to prove it. This statement confirms that causality is important - and real - but doesn't mention anything about how it cannot be known through science. While it's possible these, perhaps more "advanced," ideas are being skipped over for the sake of a simplistic and straight forward introduction for newcomers, given my own prior interactions with and understanding of the behaviors and attitudes of skeptics, I am somewhat... skeptical.

The Skeptics Society also noted:

A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement.

This claim is not quite as controversial as the previous one, but I still felt it required attention. See, the fault of this statement falls from the use of the word "factual." This statement attempts to say that claims become actual fact once an amount of evidence has been produced that make the claim appear reasonable enough that people tend to agree on it. This is simply not how that works. If something is shown to be true beyond a reasonable doubt, it is not always definitively true for the same reasons that a lack of evidence or lack of enough compelling evidence doesn't make something definitively false. See, while we can know things, we cannot know everything, and we indeed cannot know the vast majority of things for certain. There could be evidence in the future that challenges what we think is true, or we could find that previous evidence was faulty or misled.

For example, it's entirely reasonable to believe that everything is affected by gravity. However, we have not witnessed all things falling and being subjected to gravity. We are therefore merely inferring through previously understood data that it is most likely that everything does indeed fall and everything is indeed subject to gravity. We, however, cannot know for an absolute fact, as we haven't tested literally all things falling, and we never can. While gravity is proven beyond a reasonable doubt and there is no evidence against gravity, we have not proven through the scientific method that all things are certainly and unarguably affected by gravity. Perhaps there is a thing that is not that we haven't discovered, or perhaps there will be a thing in the future that is not, but we cannot know this. It does, however, seem very unlikely. We therefore have concluded that gravity is likely beyond a reasonable doubt - perhaps 99.999...% likely, but not 100%.

Perhaps it is just my opinion, then, but we can only know that things are very likely to be true, not necessarily that they are true. Now, I'm not saying I don't believe in truth - to the contrary, I very much believe that there is absolute truth. But we are finite - rather small, insignificant, and truly unable to fully comprehend all that there is to comprehend in our vast and fascinating universe. Whether we know a truth doesn't change what the truth is - what I contest is merely our ability to know the truth without any doubt - absolutely zero doubt is hard to justify for a large number of truth claims - scientific truth claims overwhelmingly included.

And, of course, I found fault with the following statement...

Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are not valid.

I would wonder when this manifesto was written - because surely it was after the overwhelming evidence for a beginning of the universe from Einstein's Theory of Relativity to the Big Bang and everything in between. Surely they are not unaware of the absolutely vast amount of evidence that points to a Creator and the mountains of evidence that lie contrary to Darwin's theory of evolution, as explored previously. I question if the skeptics are not violating their own standards: Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true.

As stated previously, we cannot know definitely that something is true or false. If new evidence comes up, we must be open to the possibility that it proves or disproves something that we held to be true or false previously. Creationists were skittish in the past toward the idea of using science to back up their beliefs, but as we have seen recently, there is no reason for theism to be afraid of science - it actually tends to point toward a Creator more often than not.

My biggest criticism of skeptics and perhaps-not-so-skeptics is their assumption of naturalism and materialism, ruling out the possibility of any other explanation. While The Skeptics Society appeared to not believe in doing this, they show themselves to in fact be guilty of the same. Quite disappointing.

When I read something, I leave myself open to the possibility that it may have evidence that is contrary to my beliefs. When I read a clickbait article title proclaiming that science has just "definitively disproven God," or "new evidence strikes devastating blow against God," I give it the chance to make its case. It's always been a case of assuming their conclusion or a misunderstanding of what kind of evidence would actually be needed to disprove God, but regardless, I understand and accept that if evidence were found that truly did falsify Christian doctrine or disprove God, I would have to accept the reality of the evidence.

It is irrational to believe anything other than the truth. What the truth is, however, is up for debate, due to the very nature of how we find out what the truth truly is. I've found that the evidence for God is overwhelming, that not only does science more often point to a Creator than to naturalism, but every other facet of philosophy, logic, history, and every other aspect of human existence does as well. I find it is more reasonable to believe in the truth claims of Christianity than materialism. If this was not the truth, it would not matter how reasonable it seemed - perhaps the truth is unreasonable, who knows. In the same regard, if Christianity is true, then materialism would not be - no matter how reasonable you believed it to be.

The Skeptics Society finishes their brief introduction with some excerpts from a book by Shermer, Michael, How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. Here are a few parts with some of my own comments.

In fact, at least two of our more prominent supporters...are believers in God. Other members of our board may believe in God as well. I do not know. I have never asked. 

This quote shows that The Skeptics Society has theists, or least proponents of intelligent design (which is not traditional creationism). This is not surprising, as I've stated and from my own experience and feelings on the matter, there is nothing anti-theistic about true skepticism. Indeed, true skepticism has just as much a chance to lead one to God as it does to naturalism, depending on the biases, interpretations, and influences of the person investigating the claims. I question the contradictory statements within just this brief about page, especially in the face of understanding that religious people can also be 'skeptics'.

The primary mission of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine is the investigation of science and pseudoscience controversies, and the promotion of critical thinking. ... If someone says he believes in God and he can prove it through rational arguments or empirical evidence, then, like Harry Truman, we say “show me.”

This is, of course, interesting. Theists, creationists, and apologists have been presenting their comprehensive and compelling evidence for a Creator for many years. It's so bizarre to me how  people have either managed to avoid this evidence their entire lives - I was only able to avoid it for 26 years - or just decided to volitionally disregard it. They are either unaware of the evidence, unreasonably declaring the evidence insufficient due to their own personal commitments to materialism, or they lack an understanding in philosophy and logic.

If in the process of learning how to think scientifically and critically, someone comes to the conclusion that there is no God, so be it—but it is not our goal to convert believers into nonbelievers.” 

While there is nothing particularly to debate here, it's of interesting note that while a short jaunt through science may lead one to atheism, an in-depth analysis is unlikely to leave one there without a good, heavy dose of denial.

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
― Werner Heisenberg

Our analysis of The Skeptics Society will end with their own definition of a skeptic. If the society of skeptics define what the modern movement of skepticism is supposed to be about, then it is reasonable that this is a reliable definition. This is what we will analyze further:

It is also important to remember that dictionaries do not give definitions; they give usages. ... But these usages leave out one important component: the goal of reason and rationality. The ultimate end to thinking is to understand cause-and-effect relationships in the world around us. The goal is to know the universe, the world, and ourselves. Since rationality is the most reliable means of thinking, a rational skeptic may be defined as:

One who questions the validity of particular claims of knowledge by employing or calling for statements of fact to prove or disprove claims, as a tool for understanding causality.

This definition is... disappointing. This self-definition unmistakably confirms the suspicious I had earlier: skeptics put too much emphasis on the scientific method as being the only way of knowing truth. More information is required to understand how I came to this conclusion, as they have made their own definitions for some of these words.

Science leads us toward rationalism: the basing of conclusions on the scientific method.

Science is the best method humankind has devised for understanding causality. Therefore the scientific method is our most effective tool for understanding the causes of the effects we are confronted with in our personal lives as well as in nature.

Here, they define "being rational" as basing conclusions on the scientific method - this is highly unsatisfactory, as philosophy and logic are truly the backbone of rationalism, while science is actually a product of rationalism. The act of basing conclusions on evidence as shown by the scientific method requires logic and reason, it is not possible to do so without it. Otherwise you merely have the results of scientific studies, without conclusions. Rationalism can and does exist independently from science, while science depends on rationalism. This explanation of "science leading to rationalism" is essentially entirely backwards. Rationalism leads to science - it wouldn't exist without it.

They also clearly state their opinion that science is the most effective tool for understanding cause and effect. This asserts that science has been developed as a method of understanding causality - but it is not. We understand causality separate from science, as well. Science depends on causality - without it, science is meaningless. We have to understand causality before we can utilize science - without understanding that causes have effects and effects have causes, the results of scientific studies will not make sense to us.

While The Skeptics Society started out strong, the conclusions and definitions they have come up with have proven disappointing. They place too much emphasis on the scientific method while ignoring that philosophy and logic are actually the real ways that we understand the world around us - and science is a product of these methods. Science is a marvelous tool, but it doesn't exist independently of philosophy and logic. I don't feel like their failure to mention these realities was done as a way to keep from confusing newcomers - it appears to truly be ignorance. The skeptics have failed to establish the very basis of logic and reason as their methods of truth, defaulting to the incomplete and unsatisfactory position of "science always and science only," which, I'll remind us, is self-defeating - science can't prove itself, let alone prove that it is the "best" way of finding truth.

Now that we're done with our analysis of The Skeptic Society, we have a few conclusions. While skeptics claim to approach claims in an unbiased manner, there are perhaps some theories they have dismissed outright and refuse to approach new evidence for with the same unbiased attitude. Skeptics laud the scientific method as the best way of finding truth, not so much as even acknowledging science's dependence on philosophy and logic to even exist. While anyone of any belief can be a skeptic, there is undeniably a culture around it that insinuates the majority of them believe that a skeptic approach using science and critical thinking will result in certain uniform beliefs.

Unfortunately, a lot of these conclusions coincide with my previous assumptions. I was hoping perhaps I'd find that the internet not-so-skeptics were operating under false assumptions and simply misunderstanding what it meant to be a skeptic - but if The Skeptic Society espouses these beliefs, then they are operating on the same level.

Skeptics truly believe that science is the one true way to truth - a sad, shallow, and misguided view of the world. The scientific method is a great tool and it helps us understand a lot, but championing it as, essentially, The Way, is a failure to draw reason and rationalism to their full conclusions. Basically, when you stop at "science" as the way to truth, you have stopped short - you need to go deeper. Science doesn't show truth, it never has - we've always utilized principles like causality and employed logic and reason in interpreting and understanding scientific results.

To truly be skeptic would be to approach new evidence for something you previously found to be false with the same unbiased attitudes as you would a completely new claim. If a self-proclaimed skeptic comes across evidence that is at odds with evolution, they shouldn't disregard it. They don't have to change their opinion overnight, but they shouldn't be at the same place they were previously. Sure, some evidence can be found to be misguided or conclusions can be inferred incorrectly, but simply proclaiming that all opposing evidence is in fact misguided is not being a skeptic. Adhering unwaveringly to your previous beliefs does not employ skepticism.

Self-proclaimed skeptics tend to fail to live up to their own standards of skepticism.

"One who claims to be a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs."
- Phillip E. Johnson