There’s really nothing for me to do here at Skeptical Eye. There’s clearly no evidence that skepticism is the goal of this blog, and it is quite obvious that anarchy is defended religiously by the regular posters and commenters.
I have no interest in picking fights with anyone here anymore. It’s boring. That’s really all I can say about it. I didn’t do it for a few days, I didn’t miss it, and I got a lot of constructive writing done in the meantime. I think I would be a fool to keep posting here, but I thought it rude to leave without explaining my absence (which I doubt anyone noticed).
I want to leave with one final thought, a sort of warning which I have made before. Since it is a warning against a near impossibility, I suppose there isn’t much point. Still, futility has never stopped me.
Many of you won’t have access to the whole article, which is a travesty against the freedom of information that we ought to strive for. Still, a general overview can be read here, while you can view the entire study here, in case you have access to American Psychological Association archives through a university or wish to purchase it (not worth 12 bucks, frankly).
Regardless, this is the gist of what several people smarter than myself concluded after years of research: in regions that lack government stability, religion becomes more powerful.
Choose to ignore it if you wish; most religious people disregard scientific studies without much problem. See you around the blogosphere.
How can it be a theocracy when all they do is talk about individual liberty and you yourself said on my blog you don't get censored.
ReplyDeleteHow now brown cow?
T.C., he means that if we get rid of the State, religion will the fill the void, or basically flourish. He still, unfortunately, has a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchist theory.
ReplyDeleteAt your post he called SE a mouthpiece for anarchy (he could have just said it's an anarchist blog, but he always manages to put a pejorative spin on things), and though it does have an anarchist slant, that's hardly all it's about. I'll have my own post on Bret soon, but he was welcome here or I wouldn't have invited him in the first place. It turns out though, as he admits, that he just wanted to "pick fights" with anarchists, or just post attacks on anarchy (as Francois Tremblay figured out quickly).
But as any causal reader here can see, anarchy is hardly the only thing we post about, and no one has been required to even be an anarchist to contribute here.
But his good-bye statement is very revealing. It shows what his apparent purpose in accepting the invitation was all about; he wanted a platform for a full assault on anarchism without anybody challenging him. I guess he had no posts left in him other than such attacks, because he certainly posted on other topics as well. Since this is also a libertarian blog, he had a wide range of things to discuss, including many where we agree, but I guess he'd rather whine about how "anarchy is defended religiously" here, and how "skepticism" is not the goal of this blog, and then depart with his self-righteous and non-skeptical statism intact. I wish him well.