Solidarity is the Only Way
Okay. We all see the potential of this blog. We know there are dozens of skeptical groups of all shapes and sizes scattered in every country all over the planet. We should also know that united we will stand and divided we will, …well, let’s face it, .. fall. Or if we don’t fall , we will likely stay in the background and continue our perceived roles as another of society’s disparate fringe groups composed of unorganized pessimistic naysayers and intellectual wet blankets. Call me impatient, impudent and if you must even insouciant. Without naming names or outing the Big Boys (and Girls) out there who are in positions to actually do something about our fragmented condition, I’m calling for all out solidarity among skeptics. We need to ORGANIZE! If not on a global scale, at least let’s start with a national front. We need to stop all the infighting and all the political squaring off and get down to brass tacks. Otherwise we are going to be swallowed up by the gathering legions of scam artists poised to pounce like vultures on a wayward society desperately seeking answers in these troubled times.
I fully realize it is easy for a guy who does card tricks and has next to zero clout in the communities I’m calling out to dare to make such an attempt at generating a skeptical manifesto, but if I can’t do it here among the only group of like minds I’m affiliated with, I can’t do it anywhere. Somebody has to see that the emperor has no clothes. We are wallowing in a mire of red tape, egos and mis-communication in an era when we should be able to instantly link up all of our greatest strengths and get out there in the media and kick the woo out of them. What’s wrong here? Am I naive or just being idealistic? Yes, I suppose I am. Call me a dreamer – but I’m not the only one.
Imagine if just The Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic Magazine and JREF managed to form an alliance, begin aggressively attacking the media and the causes we have been writing about here and in countless blogs and magazine articles world wide and stir up the kind of awareness that other groups like Greenpeace have generated? You may not agree with that particular group’s agenda or practices, but understand I’m only using it as an example to illustrate my point: There’s no denying that people know who they are and what they stand for.
If we could put together such a coalition, it would stand as a model for other countries and possibly draw together even more of an international presence. We have the Red Cross for medical and material needs and Amnesty International to protect human rights, why not a world wide banner for skeptics to huddle under? It has to start somewhere.
Another possible benefit that could potentially come out of this convergence of rational thought would be to coalesce into a tight fighting unit any brave souls (like myself) who are willing to go out in front of the media and expose the worst offenders on our lists. Like the crew in “Mission Impossible” or the whale boat confrontations of Greenpeace – this is what I’m after. We have seen people like Penn & Teller champion such tactics on“Bullshit” and it’s clear that “The Skeptologists”are up for the fray on a more scientific level, but until a core group of experienced hoaxers and performers who are willing to stand up and be counted in on a concentrated and consistent barrage of group media blitzes that would be strong enough to grab the attention of ratings hungry shows like “The View” and “Larry King,” we face being left in the dust of history as fragmented blips on the woo radar. Banding together would provide the powerful leverage needed to centralize and make this kind of more militant movement happen. We need to be seen (and maybe even feared) as more than a ten-second bone thrown to critical thinking by the media. I realize that fear is a strong word to invoke. We have had enough of that from the media and government think tanks too haven’t we? Still, there is no doubting that fear can be stronger than money.
Take for example this one experience from my own life: Many years ago when I worked at a spiritualist church, I first heard of Sylvia Browne when she was the golden preeminent seer in Southern California newage circles. When she booked a sold-out performance in a 300 seat convention center at $30 a pop for seats, she was riding high in the minds of those hangers-on who adulated her. I remember with pride how, at the last minute, she canceled out on the performance because word had gotten out that skeptics would be in the audience. As far as I know, Sylvia never re-funded the money she made back to her followers for that show. This cowardly action left a bad taste in the mouths of the people booking the event and went a long way to put a crimp in her Orange County image. Small offensive counter-strikes like this do make a difference.Imagine a concentrated effort put together by our own Delta Force type “agent provocateurs” who could incite, infiltrate and generally annoy people like Sylvia?
Can we knuckle down or will we always be regarded as harmless elitist intellectuls without the resourcefulness and wherewithal to mobilize and get the attention we deserve? Maybe we don’t deserve it?
We are the tip of the spear. Stings, staged confrontations, non-violent demonstrations, street theater, viral Internet swipes and anything else we can think of to be as subversive as possible can eventually erode the confident smirk off the faces of people who have been riding too long on the crest of deceptive claims and borderline criminal activity. Just “showing up” or even starting the rumor or threatening to show up can turn the tide as the Browne incident illustrates. Can you think of a more honorable enterprise? Coordinated group attacks would be even more successful. Committing to band together is more logically progressive because by the time we are up for an assault, projects and interventions like those above will have been more widely researched, vetted, investigated and documented by sharing any information gathered from not just one or two places, but many diverse units pouring their facts into one central hub. We need a clearinghouse of the absurd.
My goal is to be on the lips of the Everyman who will one day stand in supermarket checkout lines across the nation and wonder out loud to their children, “Gee, …I wonder what those skeptic people are up to this week?” Now that’s progress. Lofty goals. Yeah, I know. I keep pitching them out don’t I?
And why not? I can’t help it because I have seen too much of the world through the eyes of a “professional psychic.” I know how easy it is to work that side of the street. I have seen millions of dollars made off the misery of people who never had a clue that anything better was out there waiting for them. Our job is going to be much tougher than fleecing the public with The Psychic Friends Network. We need to talk up to the world, not alienate them. Our own network is doable only if we put the considerable forces we have into a solid cooperative action plan. What else is a committee, a foundation or a movement supposed to do?
In 2007, Skeptic Magzine’s Junior Skeptic Editor Daniel Loxton called for renewed focus on classical skeptical activism in an essay entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?” Released simultaneously as a PDF from Skeptic.com and as an audio essay on Skepticality, this article drew tremendous positive response. Many listeners wanted to know, what’s the next step? How does one become a skeptical activist? Things are definitely heating up.
Rational thought on its own is all well and good, but it’s time to stop so much thinking and get out into the streets and do something. Band together, set obtainable (and legal) goals, then go out and push the envelope. There are people out there right now who are anxious to get on with it. They just don’t know how to go about being effective and get the job done with an “in-your- face” plan that will be seen by non-skeptics or those undecided. Without leadership and a game plan, we are like a boat without a rudder.
If you don’t agree with me, that’s okay. Do your part. Stay in the background and do what you can to support skeptical thinking in whatever way you can. I’ll be working on some of my own personal campaigns in the meantime. Like my previous calls for guerrilla skepticism, I’m working towards something that will reach the largest amount of people possible and to positively change as many lives as I possibly can. Enough of all this dystopian whining. If you are with me on this, email the leaders of your favorite skeptic organizations and tell them what you think.
Of course, contacting the major television networks however you can might also help put the skeptical foot in the door and get “The Skeptologists” on the air. That would be a step in the right direction.
The scam artists aren’t united. The AltMed quacks compete to sell their snake oil, the 9/11 truthers argue whether it was the CIA or the Reptoids who staged the attacks, etc.
What’s a skeptical organization going to do? Tell you to be less in-your-face and parrot the talking points? Have ugly power struggles? Split into factions?
We got a taste of that already from Loxton’s attempt to marginalize people he disagrees with.
Here’s Seth Manapio’s commentary on that.
http://sethmanapio.blogspot.com/2009/04/you-can-go-there-alone-then.html
Man, Seth’s post was right on the nose. And I see people making the same logical mistake. Skepticism by nature is a neutral “philosophy” that use science as a base to question and process ideas and evidence from EVERYWHERE.
Politics, religion, science, economy, and philosophy all should have skepticism applied to them and any idea, evidence, or conclusion should be fair game.
As skeptics, one way to unite is to actually turn back and question ourselves and our own movement and stop people from hiding behind the label of “skeptic” as an excuse to dodge criticism.
I think this is a bit of a misreading of the “What Do I Next?” skeptical activism project. The blog author suggests that the WDIDN project “banned” voices from the CFI, suggesting ominously that “It doesn’t help that Daniel Loxton works for Skeptic Magazine, and The Center for Inquiry publishes a financial and cultural competitor, Skeptical Inquirer.” The blog also asserts that I “cut out libertarian voices.”
On the contrary, the WDIDN panel includes both the Managing Editor of the Skeptical Inquirer and the host of the flagship CFI podcast Point of Inquiry.
Likewise, I happen to know that some of the panelists are libertarians, though there was no litmus test either way.
What I did do was propose for discussion these points (along with over a 100 others): “Remember that ‘skepticism’ is different from ‘atheism'” and “Strive to keep the skeptical movement free from political bias or affiliation.”
Thinking that these points could possibly be controversial, I began by writing directly to all of the panelists (and also an assortment of other leading skeptics) to solicit front-end advice and amendments, adding, “I will also consider motions to cut any of these new sections, if there are any objections.” There were none.
Then I threw it open for the panel to discuss as they saw fit. The results can be read in the WDIDN pdf (points 19 and 73). It might not have turned out to be the case that there was consensus on these points — but there was.
While that sounds nice, maybe even logical and sensible, it is is not very practical.
The so-called skeptical movement is not some kind of static phenomena comfortably free of conflict, disagreement, and absolute boundaries of definition.
That would be a good idea, but it must be open to change, which would render it meaningless in the clouded eyes and cottoned ears of the woo brigade.
I do think you’ve got a good idea in mind, especially with your hopes for an aggressive alliance between the forces of good, e.g., JREF, Skeptical Inquirer et al, versus the forces of evil.
I also feel pretty strongly that one of the first steps you would have to take would be to ask Michael Shermer to shut up about his bloody Libertarian fantasies. It’s all well and good for him to hold such beliefs, but he really must keep them out of the realm of skeptical thought, action, proselytization, and debate. It’s just not science.
Lastly, and perhaps most sadly, such a “movement” would require a lot of dumbing down for the, well, the dumbies out there who would, for example, rather learn astronomy from Ronald McDonald than Phil Plait.
“I also feel pretty strongly that one of the first steps you would have to take would be to ask Michael Shermer to shut up about his bloody Libertarian fantasies.”
Here we go. And don’t forget Penn and Teller. And tell Richard Dawkins to shut up about his bloody atheist fantasies, and tell Ken Miller to shut up with his pro-faith arguments.
You can prove libertarianism just as much as you can prove god exists.
You can prove libertarianism. You can’t prove god exists. How is that “just as much”?
You can’t “prove” libertarianism. It’s an ethical position about how the world ought to be (ie, that individual liberty should trump the common good).
The most libertarians can do is argue that everyone should accept their subjective ethical priorities.
You most certainly can not prove libertarianism. It’s amazing that someone who considers them self a skeptic would even try to make such a claim…
Wrong. Google for Hans Hoppe and “argumentation ethics”
I remember someone on youtube saying that ex-christians are not “true” atheists and should be excluded from the “club of cool godless folk”.
Yeah, we should throw Dawkins out! :rolleyes:
Why should things be dumbed down? As I always tell my colleagues: only the feeble minded do that. There is a challenge in communicating with people and helping them to see that they’re wrong on some topic. When asked to come up with an explanation of some phenomenon for the public, I can take as long as 2 days to write a mere 6 short sentences; in contrast my colleagues who don’t like to waste time thinking come up with a novelette which explains nothing and is absolutely uninteresting to anyone but themselves; I have often torn into such people and told them that their explanations were worse than worthless.
I’m finding it difficult to unite with some local skeptical groups in my area because of politics. I think the key for skeptics to appeal to a wider audience without turning off potential members is for us to stick to critical thinking. Eliminate the political commentary, lighten up on the anti-theism and calmly and rationally talk to people rather than confront, accuse and ad hominem them.
I agree with Jeff Wagg’s comments about divisive topics in the latest JREF Newsletter.
It can be difficult for some skeptics to separate their anti-theism from their skepticism. They view religion with the same disdain they would other sorts of “woo”. Belief without evidence? Dogmatic acceptance of certain ideas? It’s difficult not to attack certain brands of religious thought. Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t get blood transfusion? That’s an easy one to nail. Oh, you believe in a talking snake? Ha! Oh, you think [insert holy book] has no errors or mistakes and is directly from [insert deity]? Show me why that is so!
For some people, skepticism stems from their atheism. For others, atheism is a different topic. This is an area we may have some problems with if we want to work as a cohesive whole.
I agree completely with Ben! A very high percent of skeptics are atheists, considering our small community (relative to the religious population) we rarely meet like-minded people. This means when we do meet another atheist we feel a strong kinship, and we usually bond. All the years of watching what we say, looking over our shoulder to make sure no one is near, all that is just thrown out the window when you get a group of us together. The mouths move and just about anything irrelevant might come out.
I have experienced this many times over as I have formed a local skeptic group, and attend just about anything skeptic I can afford to attend. It’s like a anti-religion fest, finally you can be yourself, not that person who has to guard their words around work and family. Not sure how to explain this clearly, but skeptics and atheists are finally able to relax totally in the knowledge that you are unlikely to offend others.
When a religious person (and there are a few) joins the skeptic community they expect the same “respect” they receive everyday in TRW, and are offended when they are given the same treatment that atheists receive daily in TRW. Its okay for atheists to be slandered and offended, but turn the table on the religious and you will hear them cry foul.
This seems the perfect recipe to to drive away the “proto-skeptics” among them, those who are just beginning to question. If it’s an anti-religion-make-fun-of-the-rubes fest, then you are clearly not interested in changing minds, but in slagging the believers.
((When a religious person (and there are a few) joins the skeptic community they expect the same “respect” they receive everyday in TRW, and are offended when they are given the same treatment that atheists receive daily in TRW. Its okay for atheists to be slandered and offended, but turn the table on the religious and you will hear them cry foul.))
So you see the believers who come to your group as the enemy already, and feel it’s just payback to offend them? Keep in mind that if they have even shown up, they are not likely the people who slander and offend atheists.
It really sounds like you’ve got an atheists group calling itself skeptical (not that it can’t be both, but you should be clear on the point when people inquire…don’t invite someone you know is a believer, make Stupid Christian jokes all night and then act all defensive when they don’t come back).
To be honest, I’m seeing the Skeptical Movement turning into the Libertarians in one way at least….a bunch of passionate people no one listens to because they can’t relate to ideas that are not 100% coldly rational. (I’m not saying we have to accept them, but we do have to understand where people are coming from). Religion is just so deeply baked into our culture it may be that it HAS to be a blind spot for a while.
It’s all well and good for him to hold such beliefs, but he really must keep them out of the realm of skeptical thought, action, proselytization, and debate. It’s just not science.
And you are no longer true to the creeds of freethought. I’m with Shermer on this one and so are other skeptics, like Penn & Teller.
This was ment as a reply to the first comment.
The second, actually.
Yeah, I’m happy to write back to Shermer and say I don’t agree. Apparently a lot of people who read the blog don’t agree with him because his political posts attract the most criticism. On the other hand although the political comments provide ample fodder for skeptical analysis, philosophical debate, and plain good ol’ mud slinging, do they contribute much at all to the blog? It seems to turn the attention from common fuzzy thinking to Shermer’s own personal beliefs.
Yes, good points. I stand corrected, so to speak. It is always better to have the freedom to speak, and let the disagreement roll in afterwards, if it exists.
Mark,
I appreciate the shout out for my “Where Do We Go From Here?” op-ed, and I’m certainly sympathetic toward your call for solidarity. Skeptics are infamous for infighting. I’m optimistic that we’re coming of age in this respect, with more cooperation coming more easily.
I’ve even made some moves toward that goal myself: the recent “What Do I Do Next?” skeptical activism project brought together skeptics from many groups including the Skeptics Society, JREF, CSI, NCSE, and Australian Skeptics — and from media as widely spaced as Skeptic magazine, the Skeptical Inquirer, Skepticality, The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Skeptoid, and the Skeptic Zone.
All the same, what I personally hope for is an era of easy, frequent collaboration, rather than complete solidarity. Honestly, I’m doubtful that the skeptical community could ever be unified under any common banner or mandate — and I think that may be a good thing.
Having many different groups, all with different mandates but all moving in parallel, allows division of labor — and greater focus and depth on each group’s particular area of specialization. For example, I personally support the humanist mandate of the CFI, but we at Skeptics Society cannot do that same work.
Competition between the groups is valuable as well. Yes, the dark side of competition can be poor cooperation, duplicated effort, or a fractured public face — but would any of us have come this far without a healthy wish to better the fine examples set by our distinguished colleagues at other organizations?
I think this is the best reply I’ve seen here.
I think there is a need for a single “skeptical group” that the media and the public could look to for the skeptical take on any given subject, but I don’t think it should (or could) include all skeptics. CSI seems like that group to me. If a reporter has a ghost story in their town it’d be nice if it was common for them to consult a group like that to get their take on it.
JREF and the especially the podcasts seem to serve a different purpose, that of bringing skeptics together.
Michael Shermer is a good example of why we can’t have a single group that includes all skeptics. We don’t have a single dogma or belief system outside of, perhaps, the scientific method.
I think there’s great value in having an organization that all skeptics can point to and say “I agree with those folks”. But I also love the “What Do I Do Next” sense of individual direction.
Some folks will want to promote Libertarianism, some will want to debunk psychics, some will attack religion, some will fight the anti-vaxxers. Some will be in multiple camps, but disagree with others.
I don’t like Shermer’s Libertarian stuff, but I love what he’s done for skepticism. I’m not wholly behind Sam Harris’ view that religion is totally bad, but I like reading his arguments.
We’re a disparate bunch, but I think we can agree on some really important basics while (respectfully) disagreeing on certain points.
I’d just hate to see us split into separate factions because of what are, in the grander scheme, small or minor differences of opinion. I don’t want a Martin Luthor among us to split us into countless factions.
Ditto the “best response so far”.
One thing that I see lacking on occasion in the movement is press releases. If there was someone who was established and known, that could send information to A.P. and other similar news services on a regular basis. They don’t always get picked up but it doesn’t take much to send them on a regular basis. Being seen is a huge factor in spreading information.
That said it is important that information is available for people who see the names and want to find out more online. The last thing I want them to see is a bunch of people in a pissing contest.
Mr. Bourrier is absolutely correct. What the skeptic “movement” (awful term) needs is a single contact point for the media. Right now that role seems split among Penn Gillette, the JREF, and maybe the editors of Popular Mechanics.
So much of journalism is about getting information quickly. One number or email address which every reporter in the country could contact easily when a quote is required would be enormously useful.
And it’s also difficult to overemphasize the importance of press releases. Often a press release will spark a story — sometimes the press release basically IS the story. Right now, every touring snake-oil salesman and crackpot is accompanied by a blizzard of press releases to local media. There should be some opposing releases.
This is something we should be good at. Many skeptics are writers or teachers. Communication is what we do. So why can’t we do it?
Mark, isn’t your end idea to reach, not those who are already used to being skeptical about skeptical things, etc. but those people who are taken in by the scam and woo artists? Skeptics are already, as evidenced by the example by this site, ready to minutely examine any idea into infinity…(to put it nicely), but this is obviously not effective in alerting the general public to the incredible and impossible nonsense that’s out there.
Yes, even `dummies’ like me can learn to discern and to think critically… but one has to be made aware, or get aware. Your plan is to act, not talk (and talk and talk), and I’m with you there, and I hope those who really want to make a difference will not trade action for words. If one gets the info ‘out there’ whatever way, people will, and do, hear.
Keep on.
I am skeptical about your use of Solidarność logo in this context :P Critical thinking is something this organisation could use more of…
But hey! It’s nice to white and red flag here :)
I’m not comfortable with the idea, bro. It is true that that we skeptics aren’t organized into something the caliber of those rabid religious lobby group may make us less politically compelling as a group… but it is also our strength, I think. That skeptics often disagree with each other on certain points and say so about it makes it easy for others to see that we take certain stands because that’s what we individually think is right and not because we are toeing any party line (and that we are prepared to respect individual differences rather than trying to force everyone to think the same way).
I guess… I just don’t think we will really be that much more successful about promoting skepticism if we start acting like the people we are trying to debunk. The beginning of it may be noble and all, but will it really stay that way for long?
The greatest examples of mystical thinking today are not the ufo crowd, the spiritualists, and others on the fringe; the worst examples of misplaced trust deal with government action; people are all too inclined to take whatever the government says as gospel. We go to war on the flimsiest of excuses; when those excuses are proven false, new excuses are made. We undertake vast and terribly expensive “stimulus” programs without any proof that the programs do what is advertised, and much proof that they do great harm. Failure to believe the priest-gods is near to treason, or so we are told.
This site will remain stagnant as long as libertarian politics are confused with critical thinking. Some people here have the attitude that support for the libertarian party is the only rational conclusion a skeptic could possibly make about politics. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If you really want this site to be about scientific skepticism, then you really need to reign in the topics discussed. Libertarian philosophy isn’t a proven science, and many skeptical thinkers can arrive at totally different political view points. That’s why politics and economics are not provable sciences.
I don’t see how supporting a party that had Richard Hoagland at their 2008 presidential convention to give a talk entitled “Do we really need NASA?”, is really part of skeptical thought.
When Mr. Shermer talks about his libertarian beliefs, or his adherence to the free-market, i really don’t see what he’s trying to be skeptical about. It’s not like he’s debunking conservatism, or liberalism, or even an economic model. All I see is someone trying to convince other people that his political, and economical view points are the “correct” ones.
Depends what you mean by stagnant. Shermer’s threads have the most posts.
Yeah but look at the content. It always devolves into a pissing match between libertarians and everyone else.
Try applying skepticism to the beliefs expressed in this post, Beelzebub.
Feynman’s dictum that “Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself” expresses the core of skepticism as well. I admire Michael Sherman’s public arguments from science against (e.g.) creationism, and I don’t care what his political leanings are. With Sagan gone, I feel Shermer’s one of the best spokespersons scientific/skeptical thinking has, as long as he’s addressing scientific issues.
It seems to me that what’s required is some sort of ‘clearing house’ where issues can be tracked/updated. If skeptical groups were affiliated to this in some way then we could co-ordinate action on those issues where we have common cause and wouldn’t need to be involved in issues where we were ‘against’. This should avoid the problem of infighting and factionalism and bring the maximum number of guns to bear on each issue. Maybe this is something that the JREF or CFI might consider taking up?
My view is that the whole needs to be greater than the sum of the parts – this is clearly not currently the case.
Mark,
Your passion is appreciated. But what I think you’re missing is that skeptics can’t unite, in their present state, because they’re approaching the idea of skepticism from different backgrounds, and thus, having a hard time reconciling their differences. For a skeptical movement to take hold, it has to shed the less palatable platforms and focus on eliminating only the most outrageous types of quackery and scams.
I know a lot of Christians who are skeptics, but who don’t like Skeptic Magazine or the JREF or Skeptical Inquirer because they are all atheist in their core beliefs. These Christians are just as interested in seeing people approach life from a more rational, guarded point of view, but they’re not interested in giving up their religion (which is as much a cultural concern as a worldview) to join the cause. In their mind, there’s a world of difference between obvious phony stuff like spiritualism and more mystical experiences like praying to a higher power.
So I was wondering where the anti-smoking organizations get money to run anti-smoking ads. Apparently, from the tobacco companies, as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement
Everybody:
Yes I know what I have advocated is a very tall order. But as some have noted, a general “clearing house” concept or plan is what I think we need. Fighting a collaborative effort to unite the basic precepts we can all agree on is the thing: fake psychics, medical quackery,fraudulant mediums and those areas of obvious nonsense the public should be made aware of. These are certain areas we all agree upon, right? By incorporating a central “agency” or leading edge to winnow out those blatant issues, more time and energy could be focused to exert some push on the media on a daily basis. The other “touchy” matters that seem to be so contentious and separate us: religion, atheism, politics, Libertarianism and any other issues that are not sufficiantly centered on outright fraud could be housed in some other department where people versed in those specific areas could hold their own in what ever ways are decided by vote or committee.
There will still be smaller groups no matter what the larger entities morph into. That’s healthy. At some point they could concievably be absorbed or flow into the Mother Ship.
Well, I’m all for seeing the existing skeptics groups settle on a set of core concerns. I’ve made my pitch for what these should be (see “Where Do We Go From Here?”), and I think you and I agree on these: skepticism should be about testable claims in the realms of pseudoscience and the paranormal.
The funny thing is, the big skeptics groups already agree as well. The Skeptics Society, CSI, and JREF are all officially apolitical, are all officially concerned with testable claims, and all officially without any mandate to promote atheism.
So, in that sense, the skeptical movement already has a unified mission. The next problem is really to get the supporters (and leaders) of each organization to stick to the existing mandate, and to better define the boundaries between these and parallel organizations (such as the CSI’s sister organizations at the CFI, which are concerned with atheism and humanism).
Well it’s not only being united, it’s also waking and asking “what can I do?” Not just reading and attending stuff, but taking real action. Living your skeptic and critical thinking beliefs, and being known as “a skeptic” by your friends and coworkers. Making being a skeptic a part of who you are and being open and proud of it, will make a big difference. I’m known as the “Skeptic” where I work and people will ask me “well what do YOU think?”. Speaking up and taking action is a good first step.
Kitty are you advocating coming out of the closet? As you well know there are many parallels to the gay community. Embracing words like skeptic, atheist, critical thinker and the like is another great step towards understanding and acceptance.
I like your idea of being more actively skeptic, but i think some of the above posters are correct that trying to form a unified front may not be the best plan. I think better education and more individual action is key.
I used to just smile and stay silent when i lived at home and heard some woo woo nonsense from one of my religious relatives that came to visit. Now i never let such BS go without comment. [BTW, how can one be a real skeptic and believe in an invisible friend with absolutely no credible evidence to back his existence?]
I remember one time riding in a car with my brother-in-law and a mutual friend one night when our mutual friend, a grade-school teacher no less, looked up at the moon and announced, “Did you know they’ve discovered there are pyramids on the moon just like the ones in Egypt?” My brother-in-law and i both had a good laugh. When i asked where he heard that, he said it was just common knowledge! He seemed surprised we didn’t know about it. I think just speaking out is a big step forward.