Who is the biggest fanatic?

[Burnt State]

This forum has been an interesting place of competing ideologies, though i think most of the religious believers were chased away, but we still clearly have the voices of the paranormal believer, the skeptic, the conspiracist and everyone inbetween. I'm curious to know who you think is the biggest zealot. Who is the most likely to spew uninformed nonsense based purely on emotion and conviction, selective facts, repeated unconfirmed information or their version of science?

From my vantage point the four areas i've outlined shake down as follows:

a) The skeptical debunker loves to use science and Occam as a hammer, and sometimes will discredit or ignore real information for the sake of a clearly rational worldview where nothing magical ever happens. They rarely admit to their own misgivings and like to protect their own.

b) The faith based religious believer who might ignore any bit of science in favour of their imaginary god as blind faith rules their world and everyone else is going to hell, or something like that.

c) The paranormal/ufo believer believes every odd bright light in the sky comes from outer space, ghosts and evp's are everywhere - you're just not looking/listening carefully enough they say, and yes, demons and angels are entirely real.

d) The conspiracist thinks that 911 was an inside job, humans have nothing to do with global warming and JFK's dog was in cahoots with the driver to shoot him dead. Everywhere there is a chemtrail causing cancer for these folk as their facts get pulled out of thin air.

We've had some very interesting battles here on the forum and any longtime forum reader knows that there have been some threads that have been all out battles of the uninformed, the believers, the skeptics and the exasperated on a variety of topics. But who is the most fanatic of all and most likely to promote a viewpoint based on weak information or pure emotion simply for the sake of proving their point?

 

[manxman]

But who is the most fanatic of all and most likely to promote a viewpoint based on weak information or pure emotion simply for the sake of proving their point?

your final sentence only targets one of your options and clearly represents your personal bias, just sayin, the option for who out of your groupings demonstrates the least intellectual integrity is A.

infact you demonstrate your bias regularly by posting links to debunks by your own personal god's whose word you trust implicitely aslong as the sci-ency stuff seems logical, without ever it would appear fact-checking before posting the link, nearly all demonstrate a clear lack of any intellectual integrity..

 

[Burnt State]

and that would be a pure example of belief right there. i think in each example i tried my best to colour the fanaticism of each accurately though in each case there are believers who feel very strongly about these positions as you are currently expressing. it's all a question of belief isn't it? the whole question really based around who you feel is the most zealous and will lie the most.

my final sentence targets all the options of course. you need to examine your biases that you are finding at that moment for yourself i suppose.

as for your suppositions about who or what my gods are i would say by the limited interaction you've had with me or my posts since i've been active in the forums that you would need to to a lot more reading before making such quick judgements about whatever your minute estimations of my intellectual integrity happen to be. perhaps you need to check your own facts in that regard. but after all, we are all entitled to our opinions and what we say about others almost always says much more about ourselves than others does it not?

 

[manxman]

based around who you feel is the most zealous and will lie the most.

the people at the ends of both camps, the ones who make their money out of all the rest in the middle just looking for honest answers to their grey area questions.

you have mis-understood the intellectual integrity issue, i have not drawn a conclusion as to yours, only your distinct bias, the IE issue is with the debunk links you post without fact checking, simply because they play straight to your bias, that IS an integrity issue.

 

[Burnt State]

I suppose then you should work to challenge those facts in those threads. Posting useless information is not my m.o. at all, though i don't deny taking on the odd humorous, passionate or tickster perspective on occasion, so without any real clarity or proof, beyond rhetorical responses such as these, there's no where to go outside of your own perceptions.

This discussion is about who do we perceive to be more likely to lie to support a position regardless of facts. Personally, IMHO I have found the paranormal and religious believers to be much more likely to lie and/or ignore facts. The conspiracist likes to pretend to connect facts, but those can be questionable in nature so I would rank them third - after all, some conspiracies have proven to be ultimately true.

Sadly for some, including my own predisposition for imagintive and creative thinking, I would still put the skeptic in the position as least likely to lie and most concerned with facts. Yes, even though so many of us are irked by the Randi perspective and attitude.

 

[manxman]

I suppose then you should work to challenge those facts in those threads. Posting useless information is not my m.o. at all,

maybe you should fact check before posting, instead of dumping intellectually bereft bias in the extreme, debunking nonsense on us to fact check for you, yesterday was a prime example, he does a whole page 2000 word debunk, ALL based on a false assumption of low res pictures, not worth a feckin pinch of salt, it just played to your bias so it was posted, all the sciency stuff didnt hold an iota of worth, being ALL based on that one false claim in only his second sentence, a claim he fraudulently made, it was no error.

a claim YOU should have spotted easily had you actually read the link.

and you now tell me its my responsibility to correct your bias driven linking, no it is YOUR responsibility, or you are being as intellectually dis-honest as the people you link to

 

[Burnt State]

Lo res pictures? Please. You appear upset.

I'm not sure what you're on about here, but if you take it to the link you might get better results than trying to repeatedly derail this thread.

 

[manxman]

i see, critism, is derail, or i dont like your criticism of my debunking style and bias, which i try hard to thinly mask as critical thinking.

i can assure i am too long in the tooth to get upset by bias debunking, been there got the t shirt years ago, no your constant refering to the trickster is to be taken as firmly tongue in cheek, however you are on the same mission here as lance, only difference is lance promotes himself in a fashion as to make him good car crash tv or radio, everybody loves a show with attitude.

Your mask however has slipped.

see how the last post you made to the climate thread was cherry picked, and you only showed the data upto the year that siuted you and left the other 6 years off, thats dis-honest.

 

[pduchesne]

i see, critism, is derail, or i dont like your criticism of my debunking style and bias, which i try hard to thinly disguised as critical thinking.

i can assure i am too long in the tooth to get upset by bias debunking, been there got the t shirt years ago, no your constant refering to the trickster is to be taken as firmly tongue in cheek, however you are on the same mission here as lance, only difference is lance promotes himself in a fashion as to make him good car crash tv or radio, everybody loves a show with attitude.

Your mr nice guy mask however has slipped.

see how the last post you made to the climate thread was cherry picked, and you only showed the data upto the year that siuted you and left the other 6 years off, thats dis-honest.

Sorry manxman, that was me who posted the short data by mistake, then had to update the data in a subsequent post. I would have just edited the original post, but I've been accused of some pretty nasty stuff, so I didn't want to look like I was pulling some kind of coverup. Your point still holds though.

 

[pduchesne]

This forum has been an interesting place of competing ideologies, though i think most of the religious believers were chased away, but we still clearly have the voices of the paranormal believer, the skeptic, the conspiracist and everyone inbetween. I'm curious to know who you think is the biggest zealot. Who is the most likely to spew uninformed nonsense based purely on emotion and conviction, selective facts, repeated unconfirmed information or their version of science?

From my vantage point the four areas i've outlined shake down as follows:

a) The skeptical debunker loves to use science and Occam as a hammer, and sometimes will discredit or ignore real information for the sake of a clearly rational worldview where nothing magical ever happens. They rarely admit to their own misgivings and like to protect their own.

b) The faith based religious believer who might ignore any bit of science in favour of their imaginary god as blind faith rules their world and everyone else is going to hell, or something like that.

c) The paranormal/ufo believer believes every odd bright light in the sky comes from outer space, ghosts and evp's are everywhere - you're just not looking/listening carefully enough they say, and yes, demons and angels are entirely real.

d) The conspiracist thinks that 911 was an inside job, humans have nothing to do with global warming and JFK's dog was in cahoots with the driver to shoot him dead. Everywhere there is a chemtrail causing cancer for these folk as their facts get pulled out of thin air.

We've had some very interesting battles here on the forum and any longtime forum reader knows that there have been some threads that have been all out battles of the uninformed, the believers, the skeptics and the exasperated on a variety of topics. But who is the most fanatic of all and most likely to promote a viewpoint based on weak information or pure emotion simply for the sake of proving their point?

BS, are you trying to lead an old fashioned witch hunt? I would have thought a paranormal forum would be about the last place for something like that.

 

[manxman]

mistakes are human, they are not dis-honest, yer feckin eejit, look what youve bin an done to me .

edit

he is the trickster, taking the rest of them for muggs, telling them what he is doing when making reference to the trickster, thinking they are to stupid to get it, its a favorite with them, same as accusing their opposition of doing the exact same skull-duggery they are doing themselves, it's just a game, how they get their kicks.

 

[Burnt State]

BS, are you trying to lead an old fashioned witch hunt? I would have thought a paranormal forum would be about the last place for something like that.

I think I stated my own position quite clearly above regarding my position and I think the poll question is a fair one given the debates and positions here. I know people love to hate the skeptic, but our most frequent question in paranormal circles, as heard in recent Paracast and other podcasts, is who does the most damage to the field, the hoaxer or the debunker? My position is it is the liar who creates the most damage to any field of study, especially those motivated mostly by emotion, belief and a lack of fact checking.

What has held back ufology from any serious consideration in the mainstream - well it's the tinfoil hat brigade and it's the Hellyer's who drag any facts into oblivion. So if it turns out that Zeteticism needs to be revived then I hope so. But in the mean time, as seen on all respectable UFO based sites and theorists, it is healthy skepticism that lends credibility to the discussion.

Now if people feel bad about their position, well that is at the core of this discussion - why we support our emotions over facts, and who is more likely to choose that, as seen in some of the quick choices made above.

 

[manxman]

i agree healthy skepticism, you should try it, instead of constantly linking to sites where it is non existant, where inconvenient facts are left out and known fact grossly distorted to suit the writers bias, which reflects your bias, all us people stuck with grey area questions want are honest answers, not persuaded to accept some publicity seeking pillocks twisted version of the truth, that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.

 

[Burnt State]

mistakes are human, they are not dis-honest, yer feckin eejit, look what youve bin an done to me .

edit

he is the trickster, taking the rest of them for muggs, telling them what he is doing when making reference to the trickster, thinking they are to stupid to get it, its a favorite with them, same as accusing their opposition of doing the exact same skull-duggery they are doing themselves, it's just a game, how they get their kicks.

When I'm a trickster I make it very obvious - no need to second guess me at all. Again if you base your perceptions on my environmental positions you are getting a pretty small picture of my worldview.

And when I'm wrong I can laugh at myself or apologize as needed.

But this post is a Zetetic one, because as anyone who knows my post history I am very open minded and skeptical about paranormal events, including ones I've had myself. I would love for the amazing and impossible to be true, but it strikes me that beyond folklore, there may be something very complicated going on in terms of human perception and what informs consciousness. That does not stop me from leaving the door open for magic.

But that's not what this thread is for.

 

[Burnt State]

i agree healthy skepticism, you should try it, instead of constantly linking to sites where it is non existant, where inconvenient facts are left out and known fact grossly distorted to suit the writers bias, which reflects your bias, all us people stuck with grey area questions want are honest answers, not persuaded to accept some publicity seeking pillocks twisted version of the truth, that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.

Do you have any other song to sing and if so please apply it to all the other threads I've started as I completely welcome critically informed voices?

 

[manxman]

do you ?.

you whined about derail

then you changed tack to the poor persecuted skeptic.


whats the next move, understand i just call it as i see it, i dont know you, and have nothing against you, however constantly peddling the bias tripe you link to is wearing thin, i dont care whether others see it or not, just jack it in, fact check then post your link.

nearly everything is black and white to me, and my bias is ghosts etc are nonsense, only i dont feel the need to piss on peoples chips all the time, live and let live its their life.

 

[Burnt State]

Trying to critique this thread with unresolved arguments on another, while at the same time generalizing all my posts here, even when you are critiquing me for things I did not post elsewhere, yes that's derailing. Do I need to quote the various Latin phrases that define this weak style of attack?

So please, save your advice for where it is actually applicable.

Edit: "poor persecuted skeptic" that's a good one for me, the guy who likes to post about magical thinking. Are you really so certain of how you think you have me pegged?

 

[manxman]

i dont have you pegged, ive already told you that, i have your bias pegged, you as you rightly say i dont know.

you are taking this personal, it isnt personal, it is however a critique of your authority figures whom you constantly link, are you willfully blind to the undisguised bias in the type of debunks you link to, it matters not one jot if the topic is full of half truths and wooey science, people are not stupid, and do not need linked to a debunker masquerading as a critical thinking skeptic selling their version of sciency woo, to balance the good and bad woo out.

 

[pduchesne]

What has held back ufology from any serious consideration in the mainstream - well it's the tinfoil hat brigade and it's the Hellyer's who drag any facts into oblivion. So if it turns out that Zeteticism needs to be revived then I hope so. But in the mean time, as seen on all respectable UFO based sites and theorists, it is healthy skepticism that lends credibility to the discussion.

Okay, I'll play along. I would argue that the tin foil hat folks are the only thing keeping the UFO industry alive.
What's held ufology back from mainstream consideration is the nearly complete lack of concrete evidence to support a paranormal explanation for UFOs. Don't get me wrong, I wish it wasn't true, but there just isn't any real evidence out there. Without the "tinfoil hat brigade" it is unlikely we would have the market to support The Paracast, C2CAM, or even this forum. So maybe we should show them a little respect.

 

[Burnt State]

Okay, I'll play along. I would argue that the tin foil hat folks are the only thing keeping the UFO industry alive.
What's held ufology back from mainstream consideration is the nearly complete lack of concrete evidence to support a paranormal explanation for UFOs. Don't get me wrong, I wish it wasn't true, but there just isn't any real evidence out there. Without the "tinfoil hat brigade" it is unlikely we would have the market to support The Paracast, C2CAM, or even this forum. So maybe we should show them a little respect.

I think that's a very interesting position and you are most likely right. As for the respect part that's kind of hard to accept, but I enjoy the double edged sword you're pointing with. It is in fact the great irony of the field, and it is both what is expected from this loose arena and despised by those who define themselves as serious researchers.

I find it hard to reconcile support for that specific brigade whose belief systems strain credulity in light of someone like James E. McDonald who, along with others, worked to try to find and define that evidence. Wouldn't ufology be far better off with more McDonald and less Hellyer? Those two camps seem to butt heads so often that, as we've seen today and yesterday, such squabbles get us absolutely nowhere and probably engenders no respect from the public looking in at all.