Responding to Skeptico - on what rights should be/are

Apart from the length of time this has taken to write, I’ve been delaying this because I wasn’t sure whether to post it or not. I could have just let the Guns and Skeptics flame war rest where it did and let it die even though Skeptico’s closing comments were, almost completely, absolute bull shit. But then I decided I would be damned if I was going to let him have the last word.

He had his say and now it’s my turn. I apologise for the length of this post – it is easier to talk crap than it is to explain why what was said is crap.

Critical thinking and social issues

I've made my feelings known about how many alleged critical thinkers and skeptics abandon their critical thinking (or at least don't apply it stringently) when it comes to social and political issues, and then I saw this interesting article when browsing Pharyngula this morning. It's a good read. I didn't realise that not only is Bill Maher an insufferably smug, arrogant and anti-science tool it seems probable he's a sexist ass too (I avoid everything he films or writes after sitting through some of his shows and reading other articles about him, so I reserve the right to be shown he is definitely a sexist ass throughout the entirety of his material before I remove the 'probable' - I wouldn't want to be accused of quote mining afer all...). That Christopher Hitchens certainly seems to be too was a disappointment, and a surprise I have to confess - I certainly expected better from someone of his intelligence.

Anyway, the article stresses one of the things I was getting at in the flame war on that other post that will remain nameless - we claim to be skeptical, we claim to be critical thinkers, but often times only when it suits us to do so. Here's the money quote for me:

Should't being completely sexist be grounds for calling someones skeptical cred into question? Or is it more likely that when people say they are 'skeptics' they are referring to critical thought aimed toward a very specific set of beliefs rather than the world in general? It seems a lot more likely to be the former than the latter.

My thoughts exactly. And no doubt Skeptico is on his way over to Skeptifem as I write to excoriate another blogger for setting themselves up as a 'True Skeptic' for daring to question other critical thinkers' skeptical credentials when it comes to their opinions on social issues.

This week Oi 'ave been mostly working on ... nothing

No blogging for a while because I've had plenty of stuff to do recently, but there is stuff in the pipeline so bear with me!

There's a long reply to the bullshit that Skeptico left on the 'Guns and Skeptics' post that I've decided to turn into a blog post rather than muck around with Blogger's comment limit. I plan on going back to Conservapedia to start ripping apart their history lessons. I've a rant in progress about the 'God can't lose' principle and the whole indifference of gods if we for a moment assume they do exist. I should probably get around to saying something about healthcare too. And there's always the Bible to blog about.

I'm working on it!