[Mb-civic] Skeptical about the skeptics

[IHHS at aol.com]

Originally published April 28 2006 
Skeptical about the skeptics: The Health Ranger answers the  skeptics on 
natural medicine
Whenever I really want to be amused, I  spend a few minutes reading the 
latest admonishments and retortments from the  extreme skeptics of natural 
medicine. By "extreme skeptics," I don't mean actual  critical thinkers who apply 
genuine open-minded curiosity to the world around  them, I mean the 
pseudoscientific zealots who berate anyone who believes in  acupuncture, massage therapy, 
homeopathy, herbal medicine, sunlight therapy,  breath therapy, meditation or 
any number of other natural healing modalities.  They think vitamins are 
useless, _acupuncture_ (http://www.webseed.com/acupuncture.html)  is quackery, and  
that all medical treatment should be limited to drugs, surgery, radiation and  
chemotherapy.  
These extreme _skeptics_ (http://www.webseed.com/skeptics.html)  are  truly 
impressive in the depth of their knowledge: There is nothing true in the  
universe that they don't already know. All science has already been discovered,  
they proclaim, and therefore all new "whacky" ideas about vibrational healing,  
energy medicine or nutritional therapy are based on nothing but _quackery_ 
(http://www.webseed.com/quackery.html) . That's why they've  constructed an 
intellectual moat in order to keep all such bad ideas out of the  Church of Logic.  
I've also learned from these omniscient rationalists that there is no such  
thing as mysterious, invisible energy vibrations. I'm not sure how radios work, 
 then, or magnets, or nuclear medicine, or the subatomic weak nuclear force, 
or  quantum computing, or even the vibrating piece of crystal that governs the 
clock  on my computer's CPU, but I'm pretty sure it's only because I'm too 
stupid to  understand genuine "scientific thinking," which is apparently based 
on learning  how to invoke obfuscating scientific-sounding incantations to 
support  conclusions you have previously committed to.  
More importantly, I've also learned from these skeptics that the universe  
operates in pure Newtonian fashion like a giant pinball machine, and that free  
will, creativity, love, intuition and faith are merely illusory notions 
invoked  by chemical balances in _the  brain_ 
(http://www.webseed.com/the_brain.html)  that should be treated with psychiatric drugs. Because, of course,  people 
who actually FEEL anything are obviously irrational and have no place in  our 
pinball machine universe.  
Many of these extreme skeptics, I've also learned, don't even believe in  
their own free will, since _consciousness_ 
(http://www.webseed.com/consciousness.html)  (they've  explained to me) is merely a fleeting projection of a 
physical brain that  operates like a wondrously complex Turing machine. This has me 
pondering an  important question: Who does a skeptic think is offering the 
opinions of  skepticism if that same skeptic does not believe in the existence of 
his own  consciousness?  
By definition, then, the opinions of all such skeptics are of no greater  
consequence than two billiard balls bouncing off each other because even they do  
not believe they exist as conscious beings capable of creating inspired 
thought.  Thus, if you take their word for it, extreme skeptics have the same level 
of  consciousness as, say, your average armadillo. They self-admittedly have 
none,  in fact, making such skeptics about as intelligent as a brass doorknob, 
but far  less useful. A doorknob, at least, can open something. But extreme 
skeptics  remain forever closed to new ideas.  
I once asked a skeptic how he could be sure there was nothing else in the  
universe besides the physical, and he gave me an answer that basically  
translates into, "I intuitively felt so." Normally, I would call such a person a  
complete idiot, but most skeptics are actually well educated. They are clearly  
not idiots. Rather, they are purveyors of self-aggrandizing reductionism who  
suffer under the cult-like illusion that hyper-rational, compartmentalized,  
Descartian logic is the one and only way to arrive at any sort of truth.  
Their belief in the superiority of selective logic bounded by preordained  
conceptual blinders is as zealotistic and pompous as any fanatical religion, but 
 far less believable because to become a member of the Church of Logic, you 
have  to pledge exclusive faith to a system of _philosophy_ 
(http://www.webseed.com/philosophy.html)  that disavows the  concept of faith altogether. What 
the members of this church are missing is the  idea that metaphor, or 
_meditation_ (http://www.webseed.com/meditation.html) , or storytelling,  or dreaming is 
often far truer and a whole lot more interesting than mere logic.  Or that 
food, sunlight and _water_ (http://www.webseed.com/water.html)   are powerful 
medicine. Certainly logic is one way to look at the universe, and  it is a 
useful way for many things, but it is hardly the only way. In fact, for  the things 
that really matter (like happiness, compassion, or love), logic is  
practically irrelevant.  
Of course, skeptics may disagree with this assessment, but even that would  
require some original thought, which violates the beliefs of skeptics in the  
first place. If you're an extreme skeptic, you can't fathom the meaning of any  
of this because you have no consciousness and you don't possess any original  
ideas whatsoever, according to your own Church of Logic. So if you're 
perturbed  by this essay because you're a self-admitted skeptic, then don't sweat it: 
Your  negative emotion is just a side effect of the giant pinball Turing 
Machine in  your head. You'll get over it.  
Everybody else, on the other hand, does exist, which is why we are all  
laughing so hard at the skeptics -- the only group of people in the history of  
human civilization to vehemently argue for their own irrelevance, and then to  
prove it through pompous babble aimed not at any effort to discover real truth,  
but rather to protect their own fragile egos and hollow philosophical  
scaffolding.  
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It's a good thing, then, that extreme  
skeptics don't believe in the mind at all -- only in the brain, a physical 
organ  they say merely creates the illusion of consciousness and has no ethereal  
existence whatsoever: No spirit, no soul, no mind.  
By their own definition, then, extreme skeptics are mindless, soulless  
walking water bags that are no more "alive" than the DNA sequence of a  virus. 
Unfortunately, they still manage to spout words from time to time,  probably due 
to some sort of linguistic reflex action, and annoy the rest of us  who 
actually do have consciousness.  
So the next time a skeptic annoys you with blathering syllables that sound  
like arguments against alternative medicine, just remember: A chicken can still 
 run with its head cut off, but that doesn't mean it knows where it's going. 
It's  only a reflex that appears to resemble conscious intention. Don't mind 
it.  
 
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