At what point does Skepticism become cruel?

Watch the movie "Equus." It deals with this exact dilemma, and not in some candy-assed way. Excellent film.
 
MRC_Hans said:
I would say that it is never OK to cheat people, unless it is really for their own good, but who can be the judge of that?
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Members of skeptical organizations and skeptical movements, of course!

One small example is Randi testing a dowser for gold in his office (http://www.randi.org/jr/032902.html). Randi knew that the gold colored coins didn't have real gold in them, but they didn't bring it up because "..by the rules we should do nothing to discourage him."

Other examples are cold readers who pretend (ie. lie) that they are psychic to fool the audience, then reveal that they are fakes afterwards.
 
My mother is a devoutly religious person. Not in a showy or evangelical way, I doubt many people who know her socially or professionaly are aware of her beliefs. She is just a lovely person who agrees very strongly with the Christian principles of compassion,tolerance and love. She is not a stupid person, and believes she has enough personal proof of God's existence to justify her faith.

I disagree with her on this, but I would never try to convince her that she is wrong.Possibly this is cowardice or hypocracy on my part, but I know that arguing with her about it would serve no useful purpose in convicing her she is wrong. (I have no proof that I am right and she believes she has subjective proof that she is right.) More importantly, it would hurt her. I know that her faith has helped her through some difficult times in her life, brings her into contact with good friends and provides her with a network for contributing to the community.

Sure, in my version of a perfect world she wouldnt need religion for any of those things, but here and now it's what she's got. And I dont feel any desire to take it away from her.

Apart from her religion, my Mum is a smart, skeptical person. She doesnt need protecting from any other sort of woo, and her religious beliefs are based on reality as she perceives it. I cant help but feel that aggressively trying to enlighten her "for her own good" would be an unkind and unnessacary act. I'm sure others will disagree.
 
Cruelty is an action. Any venture becomes cruel when the person practicing it knowingly uses it to cause pain. In psychotherapy is it often necessary to introduce painful discussions. In medicine, it is often necessary to use painful procedures in order to heal the patient. Being skeptical and asking skeptical questions is not psychotherapy, and it is not medicine. We should not labor under the misconception that we, as skeptics, are required to cause pain in the mistaken notion that doing so is helpful to anyone. I am not referring to discomfort caused by discussion of difficult topics or by disillusionment. I am referring to intentional, deliberate cruelty.

One of the most cruel things I've seen was John Edward alleging to receive messages from a dead child, thus directly causing pain for the grieving mother. Randi has related stories of faith healers who turned away a crippled child. Skeptics, like anyone else, can be cruel. At least we don't practice cruelty by means of raising false hopes, for money.
 
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Carnivore said:
My mother is a devoutly religious person. Not in a showy or evangelical way, I doubt many people who know her socially or professionaly are aware of her beliefs. She is just a lovely person who agrees very strongly with the Christian principles of compassion,tolerance and love. She is not a stupid person, and believes she has enough personal proof of God's existence to justify her faith.

I disagree with her on this, but I would never try to convince her that she is wrong.Possibly this is cowardice or hypocracy on my part, but I know that arguing with her about it would serve no useful purpose in convicing her she is wrong. (I have no proof that I am right and she believes she has subjective proof that she is right.) More importantly, it would hurt her. I know that her faith has helped her through some difficult times in her life, brings her into contact with good friends and provides her with a network for contributing to the community.

Sure, in my version of a perfect world she wouldnt need religion for any of those things, but here and now it's what she's got. And I dont feel any desire to take it away from her.

Apart from her religion, my Mum is a smart, skeptical person. She doesnt need protecting from any other sort of woo, and her religious beliefs are based on reality as she perceives it. I cant help but feel that aggressively trying to enlighten her "for her own good" would be an unkind and unnessacary act. I'm sure others will disagree.
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Bravo. There is no point or good that can come from arguing with someone about their faith. I’ve noticed that is a real problem with some people on this board to just accept people as they are. They have to jam their ideas down someone else’s throat. Believe what you will and let them believe what they want. Compassion is a good thing. Don’t be jaded by those who have out smarted themselves and lost their compassion.
 
To Carnivore: Well said. You have illustrated what I was attempting to convey quite well.

In 2 weeks, it will have been 1 year since my father passed away. At the end, he made his peace with everyone around him, including his spiritual beliefs.

We had many discussions as to the nature of spirituality, and he could see the skeptical as well as the spiritual side of things... he was a retired science and art teacher. He studied religion for many years, and I mean all of them.

He once said "I don't care if people believe what I believe, I believe it because it makes me happy."

I'll miss him, and whether he is in Heaven, Valhalla, Purgatory, Hell, Olympus, or if the cord was unplugged and there is nothing... it's OK by him and myself.

Regards,

Axe
 
The Painter said:
Bravo. There is no point or good that can come from arguing with someone about their faith. I’ve noticed that is a real problem with some people on this board to just accept people as they are. They have to jam their ideas down someone else’s throat. Believe what you will and let them believe what they want. Compassion is a good thing. Don’t be jaded by those who have out smarted themselves and lost their compassion.
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Some of us used to "believe", and have had those beliefs shattered by merciless reality. Do not assume we have lost our compassion merely because we have outgrown some delusions.
 
Which is more cruel:

A faith healer who makes sick elderly people stand in long lines out in the cold weather while they wait their turn, or a skeptic who points out evidence that the faith healer is a fraud, and suggests that the sick elderly people consult a legitimate physician?

Which one has more compassion, and why?

And, yes, a faith healer did just that: people had to wait in the cold...

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4280217/detail.html
 
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The Painter said:
Bravo. There is no point or good that can come from arguing with someone about their faith. I’ve noticed that is a real problem with some people on this board to just accept people as they are. They have to jam their ideas down someone else’s throat. Believe what you will and let them believe what they want. Compassion is a good thing. Don’t be jaded by those who have out smarted themselves and lost their compassion.
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I think it is a mistake to judge us by our behaviour on internet discussion boards. The picture of the sceptic jumping at mourning visitors on some cemetery has been bugging me all along.

Absolutely everybody who writes in a public forum is submitting their viewpoint to the scrutiny, review, comments and ridicule of others. Out in the real world it is - as far as i can tell - a rare occurrence that a sceptic will enter a church and attempt to convert the congregation.

At the same time it feels as if my opinion that truth carries an intrinsic value is being subjected to a lot more criticism than what I should apparently be dishing out for the believes of others.

Sorry for pouncing on you, it was more convenient than targeted :D
 
The Painter said:
... Don’t be jaded by those who have out smarted themselves and lost their compassion.
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Maybe I just didn't see it, but who did that? And what does it look like? Just in case I find some compassion by the side of the road and want to turn it in to Lost and Found.
 
Axe, welcome to the board.

I have gotten to know the skeptics here fairly well, through the board and at TAM 4 (although I would not be so presumptuous as to say I know everything about them or how they would act at all times) and I doubt that anyone here, would be intentionally cruel to anyone. Nor can I see any one of them going around and "testifying" to the powers of skepticism to all they find. For what I have seen, they are very compassionate, thoughtful and concerned individuals.

The evidence is here in so many threads where people have asked "how do I talk to people about this" or "what do you do in this situation", many, many threads. I think we are all aware of the pain that we can cause if we take away someone's comfortable lies. We all struggle with it. We make choices about how far to go and how much to say, knowing that it may not be easy for the person to hear. Is it ever cruel, perhaps, if the person is in a fragile state, but again, I can not see any skeptic I know doing that.

As far as informing an uninformed person about some bit of woo they believe in, I don't see how that can be cruel at all. If all they have ever heard was the woo, how do you know they won't be very pleased to hear that there is an alternative? How do you know they won't be happy that someone was honest with them and shared information that can help them understand things better? How do you know that they won't be happy to discuss things about it that they had doubts about? It is all in how you discuss the subject. In how you listen to the person and answer them.

Now, if you talk to them and discover they are a "true believer" then what you say will have no effect on them, well besides them taking a dislike to you, no effect on their belief.

If you discover they are truly troubled and too fragile to handle truth, I don't think, again, that any of us would press the issue.

What you see here mostly is us discussing amongst ourselves, rather heatedly at times, our deeply held opinions, our true desire to illuminate and inform. We for the most part, hold high standards for ourselves, we want the truth, pain or no, comfortable lies are not what we want for ourselves.

Any who wander in here, who come with any woo baggage, must come with the understanding that we are skeptics and being our turf, we will expect them to produce evidence for their beliefs and claims. That we will not treat them gently when they dance and dodge and waffle and whine. The gloves are off here. They come here at their own risk and any pain they receive is their own doing.

Just my view from the peanut gallery...
 
Hello, all. I'm very much a newcomer here, and though I've read a lot, I've only posted a few times. But this thread has struck close to home. I've seen a lot of death and illness in the past few years, and have had to help others through it as well as deal with it myself. Some have found comfort in beliefs that I found really farfetched. Sometimes I bit my tongue. Other times, I opened my big skeptical mouth. I found it impossible to make any "rule" about it - so much depended on who I was talking with, and in what context. But I tried to keep in mind two things. (I can't take credit for either of them - the first is from a very articulate atheist rabbi I studied with, and the second my fiancée passed along to me):

1) Be very careful of demolishing someone's belief system if there's little chance that you'll be able to replace it with something better.

2) Before you say something, weigh in your mind three questions about what you want to say: is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

Neither of these are categorical rules. But as guidelines, I've found them really useful. The first one, because people hold onto belief systems for reasons; if it's a deeply held belief, they probably have a good reason; it's probably serving an important emotional need. In an ideal world, the truth would probably serve even better, but it's not an ideal world, and there are lots of situations where it's unlikely you'll do anything other than hurt the person.

The second is an interesting triad of questions, and I find that it's necessary to weight them differently depending on the situation. But at no point have I found them to be irrelevant.

Just the two cents (four cents?) of two smart folks I've been lucky enough to know. And apologies all 'round if I've paraphrased what anyone else has said. (Unintentional if so, and due to rapid reading of this very interesting thread!)
 
Just reread what I posted, and I realized that it sounds like I rarely try to disabuse the woos of their beliefs. In a way, that's true - I think I err too much on the side of keeping my mouth shut. (Probably for reasons of my own neuroses and fears as much as trying to look out for their feelings.) But I'm trying to get better about speaking up. I've realized that in trying to answer those three questions, I need to look not just at the effect my words might have on the other person, but at the larger (though more diffuse) effect they might have in the fight to promote skeptical thinking in the world. It's a question of context, and every time I walk away having kept my mouth shut, I wind up kicking myself. Mouth shut and bruised from self-inficted kicks. Not fun!

Any advice about summoning courage and/or strategies for opening one's mouth in social situations most appreciated. (Or is there another thread for that?)
 
Pyrrho said:
Which is more cruel:

A faith healer who makes sick elderly people stand in long lines out in the cold weather while they wait their turn, or a skeptic who points out evidence that the faith healer is a fraud, and suggests that the sick elderly people consult a legitimate physician?

Which one has more compassion, and why?

And, yes, a faith healer did just that: people had to wait in the cold...

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4280217/detail.html
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Good point Pyrrho. I don't like the wording of the thread title. Being skeptical is not cruel. Cruelty comes from individual people, regardless of education, beliefs, upbringing, etc.
Some of the most cruel people I have ever known were the woo crowd I struggled for years to fit in with.

People can (and should) disagree with each other. It's good and healthy to be able to know and speak your mind. It is cruel when the discussion is continued to the detriment of one or both parties. This can occur from either direction.

It was ok for me and the woo crowd to disagree about homeopathy, or past life regression. It was cruel for the woo crowd to insist that all my troubles were of my own making, in a previous life. It was cruel for the woo crowd to tell me that I was not on the same spiritual path as my then husband, because he was better than me, and so I did not deserve to be with him - holding him back from his true calling. I have many many more examples.

I don't think it was cruel for me to ask about how grounding myself was supposed to fix all that. Or to ask what the reasons were that the men could undertake a native american dreamquest but the women were forbidden. But I was the one who was ostracised for doing just that - asking.

I definitely don't think it is cruel to discuss differing opinions with people, but everyone should have some tact about the situation, and some sensitivity for what the other person is prepared to hear or think about.
 
Why should someone who believes in an afterlife give that up for a belief in nothingness?

What does the skeptic have to offer to the person who believes in magic?

I think the answer lies in why people believe in such things to begin with. I think at the root of all belief in magic is the feeling that we have no control over what happens to us, and we need an explanation for what does control us so we can tap into it.

So I think what a skeptic offers is control over your own destiny.

Thoughts?
 
To expand a little on my previous post, some people might not want to be in control of their own destiny. Or they may have surrendered control at some point in the past and are psychologically dependent on a powerful personality to run their lives for them, having come to the belief (encouraged by that powerful personality) that they are too weak to run their own lives.
 
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