Skepticism

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Skeptics may be born of early exposure and disenchantment with deliberate illusion. When the illusion is successful and creates a warm impression upon the youth then the skeptic’s doubt may falter, and the habit of suspicion and critique fail to develop. But when the illusion is clear, and deceit apparent, the young mind may become disenchanted with good feelings alone, and may want for better reason to believe. Thus is born the skeptic, the product of failed deceit, lost faith and well ruined innocence.

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Do you have a cemetery in your mind? A graveyard to bury old ideas, perspective and certainty. My shovel never rests.

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Scientific study leads to scientific thinking where the whole world becomes a wonderful theater of disproof.

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There are different ways of becoming lost. In the most common sense this refers to losing ones physical way, becoming disoriented and unable to discern the right path. Being lost can also describe the mental experience of losing faith in what was previously assumed true, of doubting our core principals and moving with cautious confusion into places where new ideas and ways of thinking threaten like exotic beasts in an unfamiliar land. That’s the sort of lost I seek. The explorer’s lost. The lost of moving away from the familiar, into regions of the mind where there are no landmarks or maps.

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My first allegiance is to doubt
I can’t broker claims of truth
Ephemeral as whimsy
Writing on sand

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Science is not a system of belief and makes no claims to truth. It is simply the best process we have to know more about less. I’d be just as suspect of a scientist who said he “believed” in evolution as I am with a clergyman who claims belief in the existence of God. Both claims should be accepted in proportion to the merit of relative evidence and required to suffer the continual assault of attempts at disproof and falsification.

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Belief entails truth. Theories by their very definition are nothing more than the tentatively accepted best explanation we have at the moment. A real scientist will cringe when he or she hears an explanation of the real world described as true. Theories are what we use to get by until a better theory is discovered. The theory of gravity served us well until the theory of general relativity was shown to be better. The quantum theory then improved on both of these. Theoretical physicists are now seeking a still better theory. It never ends. There is never any truth. Just an endless string of theories which are adopted and used until a better theory is found. The scientist never rests his hat on any belief. His work is never done. And his doubt is never satisfied

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I thought I saw a demon crouching in a small cave. When I looked closely it wasn’t a demon. Just a rock which resembled a demon.

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I’m alone now in a frightening, lonesome wilderness. There’s a part of mind suggesting Spirits. It’s driven by fear and my wish to get out alive. I even caught myself performing impromptu propitiation. This must be how such things begin.

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I fear credulity as much as a lie.

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Belief is easy
Doubt is the greater trial

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In my effort to dispose of all spiritual capital. Am I revealing something solemn, the very thing I seek to escape?

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I think the concept of “spiritual poverty” may become a cornerstone of my philosophy. There’s such appeal in the virtue of absence. An emptiness of soul. A wasteland of subjective purpose.

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I don’t like this… I never enjoy trains of thought which are seemingly led by unsubstantiated bias. Nevertheless, I’m now gunning for free will.

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Every belief system should be regarded as a work-in-progress. Every reasonable belief system that is… Those which claim the final word on truth (and there sure are a lot of them) should be regarded as museum grade specimens, handled carefully and with gloves (for your own protection) before being put away for storage.

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Instilling fear and the suspension of critical thinking are the methods of those who themselves fear and refuse to think. Refugees of reason huddled in the dark, begging company and offering stale sustenance if only you’ll acquiesce.

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Not only the fact of humanity, but all trace or reminder of our race, must be left behind before we can truly sense there is no God. *

Citations

Reason is the arbiter of virtue. What other force can provide a more accurate or worthy measure?