Skepticism

Why Notre Dame is Important to All of Us

/ Jim / 3 Comments

 

Notre Dame cathedral fire

I thought I’d wait a few days to write about the devastating fire in Paris of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The reason is I wanted to see how many conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork, blaming of course, Muslims for the fire. I wasn’t disappointed. Of course, yes, there have been numerous Christian churches defaced in recent months, but to try and assign blame of this awful incident to Muslims, seems like a leap. Remember, it was being renovated and without any evidence of arson, it may easily be placed in the category of being an accident.

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Liars: Entitled, and Privileged

/ Jim / 1 Comment

 

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My friend Sarah Braasch has a blog. If you’re unaware of it, here’s a link to it. I’ve written quite a few words about what happened to her. I won’t provide the links here, most of you have probably already read my posts. If you haven’t use the “Search” on the homepage here and look her up. I wasn’t going to write anything about her or her situation, at least in the near term. I thought I had said most of what I could for now. But today, she had a post of her emails between herself and Yale that made me respond, “Wow!”.

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Believing the Narrative (A Sarah Braasch Story)

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Why do people seem to want to believe in something that, even on initial review, seems unbelievable at best? We see it all the time in the media. It’s first propagated online, somehow picked up by the media, and then it seems all hell breaks loose until it’s discovered what we’ve been told is completely false. Yet, even after the actual facts have come out, there are still those that will deny those obvious facts. How is it that media are fooled so often and then have to later offer a correction, or come back and just give a non-apology, apology?

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Weaponizing Words

/ Jim / 9 Comments

 

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I’m always bothered by the weaponization of words. I can’t recall the last time I heard someone called a racist or a bigot and took the accusation seriously. I’m not saying there aren’t people like that, it’s just that those words have become so overused as an attack, it’s not easy in a lot of caes to determine whether or not the allegation is true or not. Of course one reason is that it’s not possible to disagree with someone on any social subject without a charge coming out of the dialogue. This is precisely what many who are known as Social Justice Warriors do in an attempt to shut down whatever conversation there was.

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Tribes

/ Jim / 2 Comments

 

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I don’t identify with any “tribe” as we’ve come to know them. Yes, I’m an atheist, and those that read here regularly, a conservative. But neither of those groups, atheists because I’m conservative, and conservatives based on being an atheist, accept me as one of their own. There was a point when that bothered me, but that was a long time ago. I’d rather be my own person than feel I have to in some way, compromise myself because I have a need to belong.

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Thinking For Yourself

/ Jim / 2 Comments

 

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A video comes to light. In it you see me clocking (punching) a woman. What’s the immediate response? Of course it’s that I knocked out the woman for apparently no reason. Here comes the online mob, who will do everything they can to make me look like someone that should be in jail. But is what is seen the actual story or is the video heavily edited to ensure  I am the aggressor?

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Further Targeted Harassment of Sarah Braasch

/ Jim / 7 Comments

 

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Something I do most mornings, is to check my statistics here. I like to know which posts people are reading and am  sometimes surprised to see that there’s one or two out there, from a month or so ago, receiving some traction. I do this mainly because if I know what readers are interested in, I can tailor future posts to attract those same readers. I find there are some I think would initially receive more clicks, that don’t,and vice-versa. So it’s not always clear to me. Then there are those mornings that have me scratching my head.

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Surviving Hate

/ Jim / 8 Comments

 

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So a friend online posted an article about how to deal with online mobs. As we’ve all witnessed, a tweet, a blog post, or a heavily edited video can, and often does, drive a certain quarter into outrage mode without stopping to think whether or not the person initially making the accusation/allegation is actually presenting the truth, or just what they want the rest of us to believe is the truth. That’s really the morbid side of social media. when one person can destroy another’s reputation simply because they disagree with what was said.

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Perpetrating a Hoax

/ Jim / 2 Comments

 

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I’ve not commented on the Jussie Smo;;ett incident, just as I didn’t with the Coveninton Catholic School initial initial video: we have to wait for the actual evidence of whether something occurs or not to form any sort of opinion. We should, as skeptics, never rush to judgement on anything presented to us a news because as we all know, sometimes what’s initially reported to us as fact, turns out not to be that way at all. But over the weeks, this has become a story that seems to eat up time on television, as well as other news outlets as the initial story unwinds.

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Is it Weather or Climate Change?

/ Jim / 1 Comment

 

 

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It snowed overnight where I live. This morning we’re still getting a small amount. It  hasn’t been a lot, at least not for those of you that live in latitudes where this time of year there are days where you can become snowed in, and if not, it is a pain to have to get to work, or run errands. But where I live, it is unusual. So far, this winter, including this one, we’ve had a total of around 8 inches of snow. Before you start laughing, let me explain.

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