How 'skepticism' been hijacked to mean its opposite

[Winston]

Why do pseudoskeptics lack any skepticism or critical thinking toward whatever they are told by authority/media/government/establishment? Why do they have unquestioning faith in everything that's official, as if secrets and conspiracies didn't exist?

Is there a disinformation campaign going on?

Words like "skeptic" and "freethinker" have been hijacked to mean different things than their true meanings.

Skeptic now refers to someone who ridicules/debunks anyone and anything that challenges the status quo and anything that's official. That is not the true meaning of the word at all. Look up Pyrro Skeptikos and you'll see that he meant something totally different, not an establishment defender. And freethinker now means Atheist, rather than someone who thinks freely.

This is part of our mind control, to get us to believe anything we are told with unquestioning faith. Of course, if you're under mind control you don't know it, cause if you did, then it wouldn't succeed. If it succeeds, then you are UNaware of it.

Case in point. Pseudoskeptics spend zero time truly investigating anything related to paranormal or conspiracies, but instead just dismiss it offhand. That's not what a true skeptic does. That's what a mind controlled person does.

Why do you think that whenever I ask them the honest question, "Why do you believe everything official with unquestioning faith, and that reality is whatever the media/government tells you?" they run away and can't answer it? It's cause their programming programs them to ridicule and deny such a notion. That's why they can't confront it and must avoid such questions. If they really faced such a question, it would undermine their "programming". Think about it.

If they were free of mind control and are totally objective and truth seeking, they would answer that question honestly. Look at me. I answer ALL questions straight on and without avoidance. Why is that? How come others can't do the same?

If you don't want to believe something, fine. But do so cause of the EVIDENCE, and your open minded unbiased analysis of it, not because of some dogmatic belief that everything official is the truth and that no secrets/conspiracies exist.

Meditate on that everyone, and try to break the trance you're under. True freedom and skepticism/freethinking begins in your MIND.

[MrPeabody]

Conversely, just because someone comes up with a theory ridiculed by the mainstream, doesn’t mean they are intelligent or correct. For every Einstein, there are a million quacks. Since it can take a significant amount of time and effort to give a particular subject a fair hearing, it is alright to just say “I don’t know anything about this and I choose not to spend time on it�.

[Winston]

Conversely, just because someone comes up with a theory ridiculed by the mainstream, doesn’t mean they are intelligent or correct. For every Einstein, there are a million quacks. Since it can take a significant amount of time and effort to give a particular subject a fair hearing, it is alright to just say “I don’t know anything about this and I choose not to spend time on it�.

Perhaps, but then again we can't be sure that some wacko out there is really wacko. What if the person hearing voices is hearing something real that is from another dimension?

We just don't know for sure. And quantum physicists are now telling us that reality may be a lot stranger than we can think and imagine.

That means anything is possible.

On my SCEPCOP site, I just wrote a new page in the fallacies section about pseudoskeptics hijacking terms to mean their opposite and pretending to be the opposite of what they are to hide what they really are. I include some speculations and theories as well.

It's very thought provoking. Check it out.

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/hijackingterms.php

[Winston]

A skeptic is someone who doubts what they are told, and questions things with critical thinking. According to Wikipedia, the original meaning of skepticism is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptic

"In classical philosophy, skepticism refers to the teachings and the traits of the 'Skeptikoi', a school of philosophers of whom it was said that they 'asserted nothing but only opined.' (Liddell and Scott) In this sense, philosophical skepticism, or Pyrrhonism, is the philosophical position that one should suspend judgment in investigations.[1]"

And according to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, a skeptic is:

"One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons."

However, a skeptic in Western culture today is someone who uncritically accepts whatever the establishment tells them without question, takes whatever authority says as truth, and ridicules/debunks any opposing or dissenting views. They will defend the establishment version of things like religious fanatics, and will even lie, distort and falsify in order to do so. Their behavior is anything but objective or truth seeking. When the government lies or covers up, they will assist them in doing so, along with the mainstream media of course.

They falsely assume that government lies, conspiracies and cover ups aren't possible because people can't keep secrets (while ignoring whistleblowers, including those that were silenced). Therefore, everything the government says is automatically true by default to them, requiring no evidence or burden of proof. But anyone who believes in a conspiracy, no matter how validly based, is automatically wrong, regardless of the facts or evidence.

This is not the behavior of a skeptic, but of a propagandist establishment defender, or disinfo operative. Yet people who do this call themselves "skeptics", such as Michael Shermer, the JREF crowd, CSICOP folks, and others.

Others have noticed this as well. On my videos and forum, these comments were posted:

"The original definition of skeptic was a person who questions ALL beliefs, facts, and points-of-view. A healthy perspective in my opinion. Today's common definition of skeptic is someone who questions any belief that strays outside of the status quo, yet leaving the status quo itself completely unquestioned. Kind of a juvenile and intellectually lazy practice in my opinion."

"I've never trusted skeptics, for the very reason that they are willing to accept the official version of things without a shred of proof but require unrealistic amounts of evidence to accept any other possibility."

Kevin Ryan, a whistleblower who exposed the fraudulent tests by NIST to cover up the collapse of Building 7 on 9/11, wrote this in his blog after a debate with "skeptic" Michael Shermer:

http://digwithin.net/2011/09/25/skeptic ... ving-brain

"Additionally, my opponent’s performance showed that he is not what most people would call a skeptic, at least not in matters that are important to people. I had suspected this myself, and had to check the definition of skepticism to be sure. What I found was that skepticism is about questioning claims that are generally accepted, or are given by supposedly authoritative sources. Skeptics are not people who simply take contradictory positions without regard for evidence, however, and after rational discussion skeptics usually agree with the case that best fits the evidence.

My opponent was clearly not skeptical of any of the claims made by the only authoritative source on the topic, the U.S. government. He had no response when I asked how each and every member of the U.S. chain of command could have been indisposed for just those two hours on September 11th, or how al Qaeda could have been behind the effective stand-down of the nation’s air defenses during that time. He could not say why the 9/11 Commission left so many of the most important facts out of their report, or what it meant for US government scientists to finally admit that they could not explain the “collapse� of the Twin Towers. His final plea was that we just accept that al Qaeda did it because they said they did it, and we should take them at their word.

It is only on this absurd playing field that we can possibly accept Michael Shermer as an exemplary skeptic. His Skeptics Society is not skeptical of authoritative claims that affect the lives of average people, like 9/11 or electronic voting machines or corporate media consolidation. Instead, Shermer and his group are skeptical of random non-authoritative claims, like those about UFOs, or the belief in God. It seems possible that his skepticism has more to do with supporting business interests than it has to do with reason."

Thus, the term "skeptic" has been flipped to mean "one who accepts what they are told by authority without question and follows the groupthink party line" rather than one who "questions what they are told or thinks for oneself" which is the true meaning of the term. In essence, you are only allowed to be "skeptical" (ridicule and dismiss) of whatever the establishment doesn't want you to believe.

This appears to be a mind control attempt to convince people that skepticism or critical thinking is ONLY allowed when it is used to DEFEND the establishment and official version of things, and DEBUNK all opposing viewpoints.

What this means is that no matter how much proof is discovered that 9/11 was an inside job, or that a high level government conspiracy was responsible for the JFK assassination, a "skeptic" according to "organized skeptic groups", will use his/her "skepticism" to try to dismiss and debunk all conspiracy evidence, no matter how valid.

It is obvious that this is nothing other than a form of mind control by the establishment to get you to accept whatever they tell you, and to falsely believe that authority=truth, when in reality it doesn't of course.

Kevin Ryan made the same observation in his blog when he made this great accurate insight:

http://digwithin.net/2011/09/25/skeptic ... ving-brain

"This strange approach to skepticism is a good example of the growing attempt by some government and corporate media representatives (Shermer also works for FOX TV) to convince us to believe the opposite of what we see and hear. We’re told that the best way to stop terrorism is to start endless wars in the Middle East, and the best way to protect our freedoms is to give up our freedoms. We’re also led to believe, paradoxically, that anyone who questions the government’s conspiracy theory is a “conspiracy theorist�."

For more on this, see: http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/hijackingterms.php

[fschmidt]

Winston, read Orwell. We live in an Orwellian world where most things actually mean their opposite. "Skeptic" means faithful liberal. "Liberal" means opposed to liberty. "Atheist" means worshipping liberalism as a religion. "Marriage" means getting a government certificate designed to break up a couple. Etc.

[lone_yakuza]

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[Johnny1975]

Winston, you're right. I only recently realised that you're the one who started the SCEPCOP thingy. I thought you looked familiar. I've come to the conclusion that we live in 2 parallel worlds. In one, there are people who think normally, question stuff, aren't too extreme one way or the other, and are just generally openminded and interested in truth. In the other are what you call pseudoskeptics, who are beyond reason. http://www.rationalskepticism.org is full of such people. It should be called http://www.irrationalpseudoskepticism.org

[Winston]

Winston, you're right. I only recently realised that you're the one who started the SCEPCOP thingy. I thought you looked familiar. I've come to the conclusion that we live in 2 parallel worlds. In one, there are people who think normally, question stuff, aren't too extreme one way or the other, and are just generally openminded and interested in truth. In the other are what you call pseudoskeptics, who are beyond reason. http://www.rationalskepticism.org is full of such people. It should be called http://www.irrationalpseudoskepticism.org

So true. You mean you found SCEPCOP and this site without the links between them? Wow what a coincidence. The odds of a random person finding both are low, unless they click on the links from one to the other.

[Johnny1975]

Winston, you're right. I only recently realised that you're the one who started the SCEPCOP thingy. I thought you looked familiar. I've come to the conclusion that we live in 2 parallel worlds. In one, there are people who think normally, question stuff, aren't too extreme one way or the other, and are just generally openminded and interested in truth. In the other are what you call pseudoskeptics, who are beyond reason. http://www.rationalskepticism.org is full of such people. It should be called http://www.irrationalpseudoskepticism.org

So true. You mean you found SCEPCOP and this site without the links between them? Wow what a coincidence. The odds of a random person finding both are low, unless they click on the links from one to the other.

Yes I found them independently.