by tabasco1776 » Tue May 24, 2005 11:10 am
Regarding the Laura Bush story, I simply posted it and <br>found it interesting. I didn't propose any backstory or <br>conspiracy theory behind it. <br><br>Not sure why RDR keeps issuing challenges on threads like <br>this, daring someone to come forward with their conspiracy<br> theory on any given issue so that he can enjoy glibly <br>attempting to tear it down, as if we're in college debate <br>club or something.<br><br>Can't we just tuck it in the back of our minds as an <br>interesting squib, and not go to one extreme ("it's totally <br>meaningless and innocent" versus "it was her cult initiation<br>into the illuminati") or another, and leave it at that? <br><br>As for Snopes, I'n not impressed with their skepticism - I <br>don't think they're particularly learned or well-educated on <br>any of the topics on which they pontificate. There are many <br>moments where they are just plain making stuff up, making<br> themselves no better than the hoaxsters they seek to <br>deflate. On many subjects, if there is an unknown, they will<br> fill that gap with skepticism that goes beyond the data (or <br>lack thereof), saying "this isn't true" or "this is a fallacy" <br>when they actually <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>don't</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> know that, and <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>cannot</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br>know that for certain.<br><br>What these skeptics seem incapable of grasping is that <br>skepticism as a mindset, as a worldview, means entering <br>any topic with preconceived notions. And what bothers me <br>is not so much that more people don't share my agnostic <br>meta-viewpoint, but that so many seem incapable of being<br> agnostic. So many seem literally incapable of just saying <br>"we don't know". <br><br>There's a very good book whose title I forget at the <br>moment, but it talks about how people today feel obligated<br> to have an opinion one way or the other about all things. <br>When presented with something, modern man has a <br>knee-jerk reaction to try to rapidly form some sort of <br>opinion on it, to choose a side, creating a false yes/no, <br>black/white, lib/con, rep/dem, true/false, duality from the <br>getgo. A lot of posts of this board demonstrate this <br>unhealthy reflex perfectly. <p></p><i></i>