I'm reading The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

[Tobin S.]

I've just discovered this whole skepticism deal. Up until recently I called myself an agnostic, but I wasn't all that serious about it. I was still prone to magical thinking sometimes. On page 300 of Sagan's book he is talking about how skepticism should be tempered with compassion. Leading up to that he had written on page 298:

"In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what their role in it might be."

Then following on page 300 after talking about http://www.csicop.org/ :

"And yet, the chief deficiency I see with the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs Them- the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all those stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, you're beyond redemption. This is unconstructive. It does not get the message across. It condemns the skeptics to permanent minority status; whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted."

I was deeply embarrassed here at DU a while back. I had run across a web site about reverse speech therapy and thought it might hold promise for my continuing mental health therapy. I have a mental illness called schizoaffective disorder. Basically, what the guy who conducts reverse speech therapy does is have several interviews with you where he records everything you say. Then he goes back and listens to all of the sessions in reverse, looking for words and phrases, maybe even whole sentences, that your subconscious mind has communicated. These communications are then showed to you in your next session and are supposed to give you insight into your current behavior and state of mind allowing you to ease your discomfort or get rid of whatever mental problem you are suffering from.

I bought it hook, line, and sinker and then posted about it in the lounge where along came a skeptic. He did a couple of these deals :rofl: then posted some link debunking the whole reverse speech deal. Feeling embarrassed and angered I protested saying he hadn't checked it out for himself. Another one of these deals :rofl: from him and then the thread was dead to me. The thread got a bunch more posts after I exited, but I didn't even click on it again.

It was a serious issue to me that I thought held promise for something that could radically change my life. Now days I'm able to set my ego aside and accept the fact that I'd been conned and maybe some people did think it was funny. I might think some kind of post like that is funny now, but I will remember my experience and use a little more tact than :rofl:

Anyway, I'm new to the group and I hope to be an active participant. Pleased to meet you all.

[uriel1972]

1. I have schizoaffective disorder as well

Welcome to the Skeptic Club. It can be hard to remember tact when faced with all the con artists flim flams and dodgy thinking out there, on a daily basis it can grind you down. You now belong to Big Yak, here's your butt candle and if you're lucky you might get a membership badge.
Cheers
Uriel

[Tobin S.]

2. You will have to explain Big Yak and the butt candle. :)

Where will my badge go? :)

We have a mental health group if you are interested. It's located in the peer support section of the groups. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of symptoms do you have? How long have you been well? I've been symptom free for 6 years. I had the manic depressive cycle as well as psychosis which manifested itself as paranoia, discorporate voices, and a messianic complex. Yep, I was one screwed up dude. But modern science has made me whole again and is probably one of the reasons why I'm posting here in this group.

[realisticphish]

4. Big Yak is the global skeptical conspiracy

countered by the nefarious Big Gnu.

I don't precisely recall why Yak was chosen... I'll have to look deeper in the archives :)

[uriel1972]

5. Ahhh Big Yak and the Butt Candle

It all began a long time ago when someone suggested we sell yak urine as a cure and someone else called them a shill for 'Big Yak' al la 'Big Pharma'. The Butt Candles are a riff on Ear Candles where a candle is inserted in the ear then lit to extract 'the toxins'.
I am relatively well treated, I still get depression and anxiety and the odd voice. I had paranoia, voices and somatic hallucinations, but thankfully no visual ones. I had mania a few times verrry interesting; you have THE ANSWER, you understand IT ALL and when you get better it was all bullshit.
I am on an antipsychotic and antidepressant and I am using a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and acceptance commitment therapy as well. They are for unscrewing my screwed up thoughts left over from the two decades or so untreated mental illness. I have been 'well' for about 5 years.
Cheers
Uriel

[realisticphish]

3. One thing you have to remember

is that we have dealt with hundreds and hundreds of incidents like this. It all becomes old hat, which is one reason for us to take each case a little more seriously.

The other thing is that when someone posts something like that, half the time it's just someone trying to spread their pet treatment, rather than a person who actually was seeking it out.

And if it makes you feel better, I doubt the poster was laughing at you, per se. There's nothing hilarious about mental health, or getting conned. It may have been that your response was in one of the major lines of woo rebuttal (other ways of knowing, you're close minded, but my aunt says... etc). Or, perhaps he was simply an ass ;)

Either way, welcome to the group. Often, recovering woos make the best skeptics, because they've been "on the inside," and have a better understanding of how woos think. And just to be clear, I don't mean "recovering woo" as an insult. You believed something wooish, but finally came around. That's the whole POINT of our movement, to help people change their viewpoints.

:hi:

[Deep13]

7. "Often, recovering woos make the best skeptics, ..."

Right here!

[TZ]

6. Hi Tobin.

I think you know I try not to laugh at people (well until they start the you are an evil faith based scientist big pharma shill who knows less than me cause I google crap..then the gloves come off). I've had a few opinions myself changed since I became a skeptic. I would still like to believe in things like ESP, monsters like Nessie and Yeti, and intelligent aliens but I'm waiting for any real proof outside of scam artists and such.
I'm gonna get teased like hell for this but even as recently as about 5 or 6 years ago, I wondered if vaccines could cause autism..

[Dr. Strange]

8. Hey Tobin, that's an excellent book.

By the way, don't listen to TZ. She laughs at me ALL the time. It's why I had to put her on Ignore, right next to GrovelBot.

[Tobin S.]

9. Yes it is. I read Cosmos by Sagan just before this one

They are the best two books I've ever read. I'm about to start The Dragons of Eden by Sagan next. A friend of mine has also loaned me the Cosmos television series on DVD. I guess you could say I'm obsessed, but I'm really learning something new about the world for the first time in probably 6 years or so. It has been an enlightening experience; life changing even.

TZ, you better watch out for that Grovelbot. I hear he's a perv.