You’re absolutely correct. I see it on TV all the time when someone who doubts something for whatever reason is called a "skeptic". The root word used to mean someone who "dissected" a problem by looking at all the parts and then drew a conclusion. Now it means a possibly irrational doubter. It’s the same way that "critic" and "critique" have come to mean only negative descriptions of something, the positive aspects of the words being lost.

Ah, it’s a classic question. Does it really mater whether you base your life decisions on reality or dreams? Maybe not, but I think it does matter myself.

Let’s say that you’re sick with appendicitis. Should you go to a shaman to have the evil spirit removed or go to a surgeon to have the appendix removed? If you want to go to Paris, should you take instructions on Yogic flying from the Transcendental Mediation people, or should you buy a ticket to ride on an airplane built by materialist engineers who probably didn’t even make an offering to the spirits when they built the thing? Will prayer cure your infected tooth, or do you need a dentist? Will your car run on perpetual motion and positive thinking or does it need fuel?

I really don’t care if people get comfort from a delusion or a drug or whatever, if they leave me alone. As long as I don’t have to see it, hear it, smell it, or pay for it, people can believe pretty much whatever they want. But for every believer out there "making the world a bit more livable for others" there are at least two others who want to mess with my life so that I’ll be more like them.

Perhaps laws and government policies shouldn’t be based on emotion and personal beliefs, but they all too often are. The problem for skeptics and such is that we get dragged along with the rest of society whether we like it or not. The only defense we have is to point out that any flaws in thinking that we see and hope that enough people will agree with us to change things.

These type groups don’t do much of anything except talk. Too many different opinions for much joint effort. Individual skeptics and critical thinkers have contributed a great deal to humanity. Thousands of years of religion never did as much physical good for humanity as science has done in the past 150 years. Both science and religion can be misused by unscrupulous persons, but at least in science you’re supposed to challenge bad ideas. Where you see the most benefit from skeptics and such in science is situations like when someone discovers that leprosy is not caused by demons or such and that skeptic is then willing to oppose the established false beliefs.

Like I say, you can do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to pay extra taxes to support things that are not real and don’t pass laws that force me to accept your beliefs.

Fred Askew