(September 22, 2016 at 5:51 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: People on the whole are not generally skeptical. We believe many things without evidence. You believe that I had pho for dinner because I told you that I did. We tend to be extremely skeptical about some things, and not at all about other things. There is a breed of atheist who is super skeptical about the supernatural in general, but other things not so much. I myself have come to a lot of conclusions about religion, not from any concern about the evidence, but just because the religious things don't make sense. If someone is playing games with the facts by not bringing evidence that they should be bringing, I may become extremely skeptical, but it's simply not in my nature to demand evidence about everything.
And let's not forget that we tend to be far less skeptical about things that support our pre-conceived biases. It's easy to be critical about things that don't fit our worldview but not so much about things that back up what we've already accepted as true.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
