jab, you forgot the most appropriate quote:
“The sleep of reason produces monsters.”
I didn’t forget it. I never heard it before. :o
Yes. So let’s now all go out and break down the doors of every “raghead”, because they might be terrorists.
These things work both ways.
Feel “threatened” if you like, but remember - some people may think you are a crackpot too. Are you sure that everything you do or say is perfectly “normal”, and could not be construed as “weird” by anyone? You sure about that?
So - be on your guard, man! You are just as “suspect” and as “unpredictable” as the next person.
David B: I had heard some such story about the crackpot “aromatherapy” garbage prior to this, but a cite is always nice. It never ceases to amaze me that the US government will piss our money away on such things. But they are known for that, and we all should be outraged by their rampant waste of tax dollars, and not just because of the “crackpot” stuff.
I’d still like to see some cites showing that HMOs are paying for psychic surgery, though… 
And just where doid I advocate that? Why are you making “slippery slope” arguments? Why do you think a reasonable amopunt of precaution and security will inevitably lead to that kind of scenario? After all, it wasn’t a “raghead” who blew up the Murrah building.
I’m an atheist in a country where more than 90% of the population has some kind of belief in the supernatural. I’m quite certain some think I am a crackpot. however, I think I can defend my beliefs quite well. True crackpot beliefs have no basis in reason.
You think I’m not?
But, Yousimitebabe, if people didn’t believe in superstitious nonsense like aromatherapy or psychics, then the gov’t wouldn’t piss money away on it. (They might piss money away on other things, but that’s another debate.)
You’re kidding, right? This whole thing is one huge damned “slippery slope”. This “what if” stuff, and your assertion that people with “crackpot” (according to you) views are going on to be more and more unstable. If that is not “slippery slope” thinking, I don’t know what is.
People are already vandalizing Mosques (sp?) and harassing people who look Middle Eastern. It isn’t sanctioned by the Government, (and probably won’t be, ever) but people are doing it right now.
Welcome to the club, you are a CRACKPOT!!! A lot of people think you are a crackpot, so you must be! 
That’s fine. I’m sure you can, but I don’t care either way. The point I’ve been trying to make is that no one should “pester” people that they think are “crackpot”. Because of some assumption that if a person believes a certain “crackpot” thing, they will automatically go on to be “unstable” - this is not reasonable.
Oooh. Oooh. You said it, so it must be so!
Who cares? Why be bothered by what other people believe, as long as they leave you alone?
Well, I suppose it’s consistent for you to assume that everyone else is watching for “suspect” types, just like you are doing…
Uh, it’s Yosemitebabe, but I forgive you. I know it’s a “crackpot” username!
Once again, blame the damned government. They piss money away on many things, things that many of us are not aware of. It’s a huge issue, and not isolated to “crackpot” spending alone. It seems to me that it’s more about “pissing money away” than it is anything else. Unless you believe that the “crackpots” in the world having sooo much power and influence that they can twist the arms of a right-thinking, unwilling Government, and force them to spend money on “crackpot” stuff. If this were the case, we wouldn’t see willful and absurd government waste in other areas, but it seems to me that we do. Waste and absurdity in Govt. spending is across the board.
I’ve only seen proof that there are some frauds, not that everyone who has seen or experienced such a thing is a fraud. A large difference, IMHO.
Well, this has already become pointless.
jab1 and others like him have derailed the conversation to why skeptics get hostile and seem to need to be nasty in their skepticism and now it has become another rant against paranormal abilities.
Thank you for injecting phrases like “crackpot” and being nasty. I was attempting to have a debate and discussion, and again I see that it is not possible on this board at this time.
DavidB: I was responding before taking a friend to the hospital for an endoscopy. But thanks for casting aspersions and claiming that I was ignoring something willfully when I was answering him as completely as I could in a short period of time.
One thing I have seen clearly by some skeptics on this board is that they take any lack of answer as a willful act. Things fall between the cracks.
I disagree. I appologize in advance for the hijack about the nature of faith. In his book Faith Healers James Randi identifies three types of faith, with varying degrees of blindness.
He calls type I faith “intransigent faith.” He gives an example from an experiment he ran called project alpha. Randi sent two conjurers posing as legitamite psychics to a laboratory in St. Louis. The goal was to find out if the scientists could detect. None of the scientists detected the fraud, but when the hoax was finally revealed one parapsychologist refused to believe that it was a hoax and insisted that the conjuers actually had special powers. His belief in their abilities persisted despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. This is intransigent faith.
Type II faith he calls “the will to believe.” From the book:
The third type of faith he calls hypotheses based on evidence. When you cross the street after the light turns green you have faith that it will be safe based upon long experience with traffic lights. Scientists can be said to exibit this type of faith. Note that this faith depends on actual results and is always subject to review.
I am pagan. So much for the Yahweh aspect.
Yes, I believe in what I say.
My mind was not made up for me.
Thanks for playing Incorrect Assumptions for September, 17, 2001. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
All I can say is THANK YOU.
In regards to the OP, I agree with most of the skeptics here. Believing in nonsense can be a dangerous thing. Fred Phelps certainly believes in nonsense and I think he is a dangerous man because of it. Miss Cleo speaking on things she know nothing about is also a dangerous person. Sylvia Brown giving medical advice is very dangerous. All of these people are harmful to society. They have a right to believe what they want, but when they start passing that crap off as the truth, I have the right to get angry about it and challenge them.
Yup, everyone’s out to get you, Hastur.
Your welcome. Although, it should be noted that I disagree with you on most all other points. 
Hastur, have you forgotten little ol’ me?
You said that not all psychics were frauds(a positive claim.)
I said show me one, please(a direct, but polite, challenge to said claim.)
?
Sorry…I was typing half blind, (had just cleaned my monitor and it was still kind of blurry) and the u got stuck in there.
You misunderstand my point, though. I’m not saying that people who believe in aromatherapy are forcing this on an unwilling government. I’m saying is, the problem is that too many people DO believe that aromatherapy works, or at least figure “Well, it can’t hurt to spend money on it”, including government officials.
I read a story a few months ago in the City Paper (which is a Washington DC alternative weekly, which carries Cecil, actually.) I could probably see if it was online if you’d like to see, but it was about a woman who had cancer. If she had been treated conventially, with chemotherapy and surgery, she would have had a good chance at surviving. However, instead of doing that, she chose “alternative” treatment, which basically consisted of making sure that energy fields were aligned and using natural herbs to counteract the poisons of the cancer. Not suprisingly, she died. These people, who she gave her life savings to, got away with it. They weren’t arrested, they weren’t charged with fraud, nothing happened to them, even though their actions caused the death of a young woman who could have lived if she had followed standard medical treatments that have been shown to work.
My friend’s father is a fireman/paramedic, and so, a lot of times, he runs into people who need emergency help. Sometimes, though, he finds himself faced with kids who’s parents are Christian Scientists. He’s not allowed to give medical aid to them, even if they need it, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, who he’s not allowed to give blood to, even if they need it. He told me about one time, he found himself with a kid who’s appendix had burst. Under normal circumstances, he would have given the kid a shot of antibiotics and gotten him to the hospital, where a doctor would have performed emergency surgery to remove the ruptured appendix, and suction out the contents of the burst appendix. That kid died in the ambulance, because he couldn’t give the shot of antibiotics, or take the kid to the hospital, so the kid died. He couldn’t have done anything, because he knows that if he did, he would have been fired, sued, and could have gone to jail…he knows this because that happened to coworkers, because we have a society that says that you can believe whatever you want, even if it leads to your death or the death of your family.
Maybe this is a better answer to Hastur’s question…this is why I fight. I fight for people like that woman and that kid, who lost their lives because of sloppy thinking and the belief in nonsense. If either of thse people had gotten real medical treatment, their lives could have been saved. I’m sorry if I sound frustrated, but I am frustrated. I’m frustrated when I see human suffering and people who could be saved, not be saved. I’m frustrated when I see superstition saying that some people are inherently superior to others, and I’m frustrated when we turn away from knowledge because we decide we’d rather not not disturb our revealed beliefs. We have a choice as a society. We can either pursue knowledge and use what we learn to make people live longer, eat better, suffer less, and improve their way of life, and also learn about the wonders, the mysteries, and the miracles of the universe around us, or we can reject knowledge, and doom humanity to a short, pain-filled life, where we live in fear of the darkness and of the shadows of gods, demons, and monsters. This is our choice, as a species, and THIS is why I fight.
Hastur,
I suggest that this thread has not become pointless, and that people are trying to answer your questions. You asked, for example.
and
It’s kind of hard to answer a question about why you think belief in the paranormal is wrong or dangerous without having the assumption that belief in the paranormal is wrong or dangerous. I hope though, that I, for one, haven’t been rude or disrespectful, because it hasn’t been my intention.
I hope your friend is ok.
yosemitebabe wrote:
No, but there have been chiropractors who have “treated” infectious diseases by adjusting the spine, which occasionally resulted in the disease worsening to the point of it being life-threatening since it was left untreated. And for that, I do have a cite: Undercover Investigations of Chiropractors | Quackwatch.
No, of course I’m not powerless to refuse to go to a psychic surgeon. Nor were the victims of these charlatan chiropractors powerless to seek treatment elsewhere. But they didn’t seek treatment elsewhere, did they? Why not? Because the charlatan chiropractors were doctors. Doctors are expected to know more about diseases than their patients. Doctors’ advice is respected, because patients look to doctors as authority figures who probably know more than the patients do about physical maladies. It’s not that the patients were gullible little pseudoscientists themselves, it’s that they took the doctor’s word for it because they simply did not have the training and knowledge to know that there is no evidence that adjusting the spine will cure infectious diseases better than conventional drugs will, and plenty of evidence that conventional drugs will work better.
And so long as pseudoscientist parading as “healers” dominate the popular press, while cautionary skeptics are pushed to the sidelines as “party-pooping non believers,” this situation will not improve.
Isaac Asimov wrote a series of short stories where a diverse group of intellectuals got together for dinner parties in which they would solve various mysteries (I forgot the name of the group temporarily). There was one where a guy was discussing a case where a woman predicted a house fire across the country, and they had concrete proof that she had knowledge of the timing and circumstances of the fire exactly right ahead of time. As he told the tale various members of the group pointed out explanations that did not involve the supernatural. The more about the case the guy revealed, though, the harder it became to explain. Eventually the only possible explanation was a horrible one, that the woman had worked together with a co-conspirator who set the fire himself. At his point it is revealed that the fire was started by a lightning strike. At his point someone concluded that the man was lying. It turned out he made up the story to test whether rational non-believers could be convinced of the reality of psychic phenomena.
That’s pretty much always the case. The reason no rational people believe in the supernatural is that every time someone reports something unexplainable, it turns out there is some form of deception in the evidence. I think one reason believers in the supernatural bother skeptics is that they all are either lying to themselves or have the inability to think things out logically and rationally. Dealing with crazies is frustrating.