Skeptical about skepticism

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I started out writing an entirely different article – one about how we could really use a TRUE leader these days. As I was plodding along, I started describing the life of King Arthur, how he was a born leader of men, chosen by God (?) apparently, how he pulled the sword from the stone, how by doing so everyone believed he was meant to be the king – and then it hit me : no, no they didn’t all believe it. There were some who thought it was a fluke, a mistake, and even went to battle against him to prove their points. Yes, even after pulling a sword – a magical, all-powerful sword – from a stone, a sword that no man had ever been able to budge over the many years it was in the stone – even after doing this, there were STILL skeptics; there were still people who refused to believe. And not only did they refuse to believe, they were willing to fight about it. Yep. Even in legend and myth, where one might least expect it, there is skepticism.

I was enjoying a little thought experiment the other day, wondering to myself what it would take for someone who doesn’t currently believe in something to be ‘made’ to believe in it. I thought about UFO’s because they are a phenomenon commonly referenced by skeptics. I was wondering what it would take to make someone believe that they are real. What if a skeptic saw one in the sky above them, over a period of time, something that was undeniably not a known craft? No, that wouldn’t do it, because a skeptic could say it was an as-of-yet undisclosed secret military craft or something of the like.

Well how about this : the craft actually land, and little green men come out and meet the skeptic, shake his/her hand and everything? Nope, not enough. A good skeptic could again go with the secret military thing, and simply add elaborate hoax to it – that they were short people in alien costumes and that there was no way to prove they were actual aliens. Or they could even go the “hallucination” route – that they had been drugged, and a hallucination had been induced to make them think they were seeing this ET, when in reality, it was nothing.

Ok, so how about this : the UFO lands, the ETs come out, grab the person, bring him/her on board, fly around the galaxy for awhile, then bring them back – that would surely do it right? Nope – that just would not work for the simple reason that the skeptic could fall back on all the previous arguments given, adding or taking out whatever was needed to support his or her argument against the idea that they had been abducted by aliens and taken on a ride in their UFO. It seems impossible, doesn’t it? And I don’t mean the space trip – I mean convincing the skeptic!

Let me clarify too before everyone starts bagging on me : I too am very skeptical about some things. If someone tells me that their house is haunted, or they were abducted by aliens, or they are Jesus – yeah, I’m going to be skeptical and maybe need some proof. However, there are things that I am WILLING to believe, and may even believe without much proof, depending on who it is that tells me, the context of it, and whether or not I feel it’s true at a gut level. All of those things matter to me, almost as much as hard evidence does. Indeed, how much real “hard evidence” is there anymore even? It seems that given the right skeptic, anything can be debunked.

What’s unfortunate about this, as far as I am concerned, is the seeming demonization of “belief.” There seems to be this climate of skepticism so hard and jaded that if a person believes in anything, ANYTHING that is not 100%, without doubt scientifically verifiable, testable and quantifiable, that person is a whack job, and not to be trusted, believed or respected. It’s as if even wanting to believe in something is bad, and if you let on that you just might believe in something, there is someone – or a bunch of someones – out there waiting to pounce on you and tell you the reality of it – what is real, and why what you believe is preposterous and impossible.

Well, I have something to say to all the skeptics out there : I believe in UFOs, aliens, angels, bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the chupcabra, witches, goblins, gnomes, elves, fairies, mermaids, dragons, time travel, wormholes, ancient astronauts, pyramid power, the New World Order, the Illuminati, the 2012 Apocalypse, Wormwood, Nibiru, the Anunaki, and the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny and yes Virginia – even Santa Clause…!

Ok, so I don’t really believe in all those things. But I am WILLING to believe that the existence of any/all of them is possible. And more importantly, if someone DOES believe in any of them, I am not going to make it my life’s purpose to convince them not to – which to me seems what today’s skepticism is all about : convincing people not to believe. And why I ask would anyone want to do that?

For isn’t it refreshing to meet someone, a small child maybe, or even someone at a UFO convention, who believes in one of these things? Doesn’t the world seem just a little more magical, a little more interesting, and a lot more open to the realm of possibility by believing that we don’t know everything, and that there might just be some things, some beings, some phenomenon out there we would consider to be magical or unexplainable?

To all of these questions, I answer “Yes.” And not only that, I take it a step further and suggest (here’s one the skeptics could have a field day with!) that, as one of my favorite sayings suggests, it’s not “seeing is believing”, but “believing is seeing.” In other words, our beliefs can actually contribute to our ability or inablility to experience or perceive certain things. And I for one want to keep all the options open. I mean, who wouldn’t love to see a bigfoot dropped from a UFO onto the back of a Loch Ness monster being ridden by an elf, the Easter Bunny and a goblin chasing after Santa Clause as he swims after a mermaid..? Wouldn’t that make for a much better story than who Kim Kardashian is shagging now? I submit that it would – it truly would.

 

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