Feeling Skeptical

Alright, so there's a trend adopted by a couple of the communities I have come to associate myself with, and I need to vent about it. Now bear with me because this is bound to catch some hate. Most people who call themselves skeptics not only aren't skeptics, they are assholes. I feel the need to break this down, justify myself here, because this is a thing that has become a big part of our civilization.

 First, let me say that I hate fluffy-bunny bullshit. The shiny happy people in the desert trying to crystal-fuck themselves to the tenth stage of enlightenment if only they could just afford another treatment to rid themselves of the giant shapeshifting demon (~19 min). Fuck those people. Not because they're wrong or right or because anyone knows anything about it but because they make any exploration of nontraditional paradigms fucking laughable. They serve as a tool for force hostile to their own community and that is fucking disgusting.

 Now, that said; we need to examine the people who stand most firm against that group: skeptics. Skepticism is a tradition philosophy almost entirely represented by an examination of the world via empirical means. I'm going to stop here to explain empiricism because it gets badly misused all too often. Empirical knowledge is knowledge originating in or based on observation or experience. Philosophically, this means that if you didn't see it happen or play a role in its happening you do not know shit about it. In fact "not know"; Can't know anything about the subject with any sort of authority. In fact classical skepticism often characterizes itself by expressing near absolute uncertainty. The most skeptical thing that can be said in any situation is "I don't know."

 There are certainly situations where claiming definitive knowledge without direct experience is fine. We know the earth is round. we've been in space, we can test various aspects of human space travel, we have historical records going back thousands of years expressing the curvature of the earth. Fuck, if you go far enough in any direction you will wind up where you started. Bam, fucking round planet.We live in a world where we don't have to personally experience absolutely everything to at least come close enough to knowledge and that is wonderful. However, its important to remember the whole "absence of evidence" adage. Anytime a subject arises where no positive evidence has been discovered the most anyone can or should say is "we don't know."

 We don't know if there is an afterlife. We don't know if aliens visit earth. We don't know much. Honestly, most of the "paranormal" category exists in a place where we don't even know for sure what we're looking for. At least not yet. If there is an afterlife, how the hell would we interact with it? What if it exists in dimension we haven't been able to explore or recognize.

 Science gets better at what it does every day, so saying that we know things we can't even really explore yet is a massive disservice to all of us. Science never makes a statement when it can ask a question.

 So any time you try to tell someone what they experienced you are not a skeptic, you are wrong, you are a douche bag, and fuck you. Maybe direct people you feel are misguided towards better information, offer alternatives, hell maybe even have a discussion *gasp*. Skepticism, science, mysticism, spirituality; these things all seek a greater understanding of reality, we could do better than to be at each others throats over them.

-Eshi