Skepticism

Moving Beyond the Crazies

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As a conservative, I follow and am followed by, other conservatives on social media, specifically Twitter. I do also follow some liberals and progressives, but the overwhelming majority I think (I’ve never actually counted) are conservative. I try not to follow those I consider the crazies from either side but sometimes until I see a few tweets from someone, I have no idea of their specific political opinions. It’s wide ranging, again on both sides of the spectrum from the reasonable (who I prefer) to the downright conspiracy theorists. there seem to be a lot more lately of the later than the former.

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Doing What’s Right, Because it’s Right

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Whenever I see someone in trouble, my first thought is why that person doesn’t hire a lawyer? Of course, there are many reasons, mostly that they may not be able afford to bring representation on-line. Any of us may be accused, defamed for something perceived, even a straight out lie. We should be able to bring forward against those that may have defamed us, only to restore our name and reputation. It costs money to do that, and ther are those that may not be able to afford  representation to actually bring a case against those who should be called to account.

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Ignore the Naysayers

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Something I discovered a while back is that as an atheist, I’m very much supported by others that I’ve either met online or in person. No one that I’ve come to be familiar with seems to have a problem that I’m a conservative, or even thinks that being a conservative, I cannot possibly be an atheist.  That’s been my experience overall. Sure, there are always naysayers but those people probably wouldn’t accept me no matter what.

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Labels Mean Nothing

/ Jim / 1 Comment

 

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I don’t recall exactly when I became an atheist. It isn’t like there was some sort of sudden revelation or anything, and when I did come to that conclusion, there was nothing special about it for me. I never referred to myself as an atheist, at least not initially. If anything, when asked, I would just refer to myself as a non-believer, or sometimes, as someone who was skeptical concerning the existence of gods. I think it wasn’t until I was online, not that many years ago, that I finally called myself an atheist.

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Calling Out Call-Out Culture

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We’ve all been in a situation, one time or another, when someone we socialize with, or a colleague at work, will state something that is obviously false. Of course our immediate instinct is to correct the misinformation because it’s too easy, in this day and time, for that information to go viral on some platform and it becomes a Herculean feat to disabuse others of something they’ve come to believe is true, based on little to no evidence. Recently, we’ve all been witness to a smear campaign, by major media outlets and others, towards a group of Catholic high school boys that went out of control so quickly, that even when evidence was presented to show what was believed dod not happen, there are still people that believe the initial libelous statements – from trusted sources.

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The Strange Case of Sarah Braasch

/ Jim / 3 Comments

 

 

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I don’t think, until recently, I had ever heard of Sarah Braasch. It’s not that I don’t pay attention to the news, I just can’t recall ever hearing about her before. It seems that I must be the only person on the planet that hasn’t. A friend on Twitter began retweeting some of her tweets and of course what I read appears strange because I had no context as to what was actually being discussed. then, the same friend, recommended me to her on Twitter, as well as a few others, because we were good skeptics and wouldn’t  judge Sarah based on what we’d heard, but on the facts. Sarah immediately followed me.

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Jumping to (Incorrect) Conclusions

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Some days go by and when i’m online with social media, I tend to just shake my head. I try to be skeptical when I see something that just doesn’t make sense to me immediately, and wait for further information before I come to any conclusion about the accuracy of what I’ve seen or heard. Not so. much for some others.

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Want to Lower Premiums? Lose the VooDoo

/ Jim / 4 Comments

 

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I have to say that the needle on my skeptic meter just broke. Again. ike a lot of people, every year I have to renew my medical insurance where I work. It only takes a minute, it’s all done online of course, and I choose the same plan I have had for several years now. I haven’t really looked to see if the coverage has changed since I originally opted in those years ago and was interested if there was additional coverage, or, what I was expecting, something the plan no longer covered.

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We’ve Lost Our Objectivity

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Why are so many people willing to believe what they’re told, with little to no evidence whether it’s about politics or religion? I’ve always kind of scratched my head in wonder mainly because I think I’m one of those that is skeptical unless I actually see something more than a single news story or that yes, in fact, Jesus or the Virgin Mary appeared on a piece of toast.

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Celebrity Takes Precedence Over Real Life (and Death!)

/ Jim / 6 Comments

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I have to say I was disturbed recently by the response a friend of mine received from a post she wrote. Many of you know of Courtney Heard, AKA “Godless Mom” and that she is a fierce anti-death penalty advocate. She has been communicating, via mail with a man on death row in Texas for a crime that is suspicious in that none of the evidence seems to prove that this man, awaiting execution, actually committed the crime he has been sentenced to death for and remaining there for decades while his case is being appealed.

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