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A semi-apology here. This is one of those tough-talk pieces; can't be helped. This will mean the absence of thousands of irrational people; thousands that our solid-minded members will not have to put up with, not have to deal with; and not have to weed out later.
We do this because it is especially important as an organization begins... to keep it strictly within its intended bounds; to bend the twig aright, so the tree grows sunward. To paraphrase somebody else, we need to build our foundation on solid rocks, not flakes!
So if you currently give credence to one of the listed pseudo-sciences, fear not; rev up your mind, clear that trash that we all accumulate out of it, and... read on, McDuff! But read more than just the stuff that you want to be true. The examined life requires you to examine something beyond yourself!
An open mind, like an open door, lets a lot of bugs and trash blow in along with the good stuff. If you want to keep it open, you have the con-committment of sweeping the trash back out.
However, if you insist on a belief in reincarnation or astrology, rather than reading on, why don't you go see a movie? How about a documentary, like "War of The Worlds", or "Peter Pan"?!
Sure, I've even written some sci-fi short stories that border on fantasy; but I do not mistake fantasy for reality, no matter how much I might want some concept to be true.
The odds are extremely long (to impossible) that you'd agree 100% with the founder of any particular religion. If, with that much agreement, you take theirs, then you have no mind of your own. On the other hand, if you look only for their 100% agreement with your own, you assume that your beliefs are perfect.
We intend Gaia to be open to as wide a membership as possible. However, the vast majority want not be associated with kooks, true-believers, haters, and blamers. These need not apply. They would reduce our membership of healthy-minded people far more than their own numbers would raise it.
This is not a group --like Mensa-- that is limited to the top two percent of intelligence. However, life would be sweeter --and less wasteful of time-- if we limit membership to the top ninety-eight percent of openminded people.
That's a lot, but we must here apologetically but
purposefully offend and upset those very few other people.
Now is the time. So if any of this offends you, then you may
be in that bottom two percent; so don't go away mad....
Madness ... must not unwatched go, so... we'll watch you go.
Again, if you're a person who's insulted by any of this, or the list of true-beliefs in "Our Concerns", there's only one thing to say: "Bye..."
* Ever wave your hand at a tiny fly, for example, and then see a person at some distance look amazed? Like it's you at fault for his not understanding what you did, or why.
What can you do then?!
It's an unfortunate characteristic of the ignorant and/or the blamers to believe that you are stupid for doing something that they can't understand. Well, there's a similar thing that is relevant to our group of people.
The most tiring, boring, deadly-dull thing for any intelligent person to put up with is the ignorant person's claim that the scientist does not have an open mind. The people who make this accusation are generally those who accept fantastic claims without question, & are least apt to listen to anything contrary. Commonly, they'll put some study into the subject, but entirely skip the process of skeptical inquiry. Then, when they have a lot of effort and ego invested, they feel they must defend their investment.
I am supremely disinterested in people's belief systems that consist merely of what they want to be true. I'm not interested in what they want to be true! What --past a psych study-- does anyone care what any certain person wants to be true?
Intelligent people are always skeptical. It was not folly for ancient peoples to be skeptical of the spherical-Earth hypothesis, or that lifeforms evolve, that blood circulates, or that continents drift. It is folly, now that there is proof.
A wise man said: "Doubt is the beginning of wisdom." A huckster said, "There's a sucker born every minute, and two to take him." Both sayings are, more or less, true.
The mere existence of a result does not prove a conjecture as to its cause. The logic is elementary and obvious when there is no proven connection between the events. Therefore, that alone cannot be your reason for belief in the existence of supernatural powers of either good or evil --perhaps UFO aliens of either the E.T. or body-snatcher type.
We know better than to improperly link cause and effect, like: somebody died; therefore the butler killed him. The mere existence of the body --without other proof-- is insufficient evidence to convict the butler.
It can be proven that almost all murderers had eaten mashed potatoes within a week of their deed. Therefore....
To believe something unfounded or ridiculous when there's a total lack of evidence, or when there is evidence to the contrary, is not at all open-mindedness, but quite the opposite.
Ignorance in an intelligent person is more dangerous --and repulsive-- than the intelligence of a stupid person. Also, save me from strong-willed, simple-minded people. What a terrible combination. Give us those who are strong-minded and gentle-willed.
Save me from the arrogant ignorant. These people find it preferable --rather than be open enough to change an opinion-- to pay someone the price of a book or donation to tell them that their ignorant stance is acceptable.
Save me from all those who want to save me.
Sure, we wish we could get to the bottoms of mythic mysteries, from mermaids to Sasquach. But there's no evidence that there is any bottom of the mystery itself to get to! It's more a psychological and sociological study than a forensic mystery. The best study of the current mythologies is a psychological inquiry into the strange kind of mind that buys so easily into such rubbish.
Unethical writers can make up mysteries by the dozen per hour, and other unethical people are in the business of encouraging them by buying and publishing their manuscripts. It would be impossible to disprove any of their hokum. I don't mean that it would take too long, but that disproof is usually impossible. It's a scientific axiom: "you cannot prove a negative." For example: some barnum claims he saw a smooth spherical diamond. It's impossible to definitively search the universe in every nook and cranny, to prove that there's nowhere it could be. (Heck, I can't even find a nook!)
One of the exceptions to the above was bio-rhythms, which they tried to pass off as scientific. In fact, it was close enough to test, and the results came out absolutely random. Not the slightest effect. But by then, they had already sold tons of books, so so what? (Several studies were done. The poorly-done ones showed an effect. Rank the quality of the experiments, and we see that the better the test, the closer to zero the result.)
*The most stupid thing it is possible to say is "belief is a way of knowing". I'm sorry, but I cannot describe the revulsion I feel toward that. There can be no stupider statement than that.
Sure, it seemed to work for the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. When the wizard gave him a diploma, he spouted a geometry formula. It doesn't work for anybody else.
Obviously, Truth is not a synonym for belief. The first is objective, the second subjective. The statement is a glib idiocy (glibiocy!), and a corruption of the word "knowledge". It is a denial... no, a rejection of all intelligence.
There's a difference between a sure belief (a personal, if perhaps unsubstantiated, belief that something is surely so) and knowledge (objective proof by experiment). One is not the other. We have no argument with a person's belief, only their language, and unskilled mental habits. Please label your mere beliefs as such, and keep them separate from what you say you know. It's sometimes difficult, I know; I often fail at it, myself.
A lack of suspicion is a lack of wisdom. Con-men depend on it. Blind acceptance is not evidence, nor should it encourage a feeling of security. If it takes an effort to believe, then that effort is not laudable, it's laughable. Better that the effort goes into an attempt to understand.
The mystic types confuse this: to be unquestioning, as they often are, is not the same as being open-minded! Quite the contrary.
They have no idea how far one must go in that questioning.
The scientist is the one who experiments, studies, re-experiments, confers, re-experiments, publishes, hears the peer-review, re-experiments, reads of how his collegues have repeated his experiments, improves his technique for his next experiment, etcetera, etcetera. And he/she should never say that they "know".
And he/she takes both sides; that is the method. The way an experiment is done is to try to "disprove the null hypothesis". In other words, the attempt is to disprove what his own hypothesis is. If he fails, his idea was--probably--correct. If, however, he succeeds in disproving it, and the work of others also succeeds, then the idea is thrown out. To throw it out --after all that-- is certainly not being closed-minded!
It may sound like the perfect scientist would have to be what would, in past eras, be called a saint. Yes; fascinating, isn't it? Compare this with the pseudo-scientist. He does little if any experimentation. He often goes straight from idea to publication. And his true-believer goes straight from reading to acceptance.
Obviously, the scientist has the open mind, and the mystic does not. Why is so hard for the mystic to understand things? It can only be a desperate last defense of their wrongful investment of effort, silly as it is. It often seems worse than that, and we are forced to wonder about the mystic's state of mind. Mystics live not just in a fantasy world, but a cartoon world. That method of belief is ridiculous and counter-productive.
. . One cause, I'm sure, is this: an imagined experience is
somewhat of an experience anyway, that's one tendency that makes the attitudes and the extremes of mystics, paranoids and the jealous get worse over time. Obviously, every imagined experience will confirm their previous conception, and their problem becomes a spiral. Each effect becomes a cause of the next effect.
. . They don't understand: desire to believe is not
reason to believe. We are totally disinterested in people trying to convince themselves and us in belief systems that they want to be true. We're not interested in what they want to be true! Their mind plays tricks on them: there's no degree of ignorance that can't be compounded by the desire not to understand. What --past a psychological study-- does anyone care what any strange stranger wants to be true? It's also ill understood: the true scientist will not waste his or her time by studying silly claims. Of course not. A new perpetual-motion machine arouses no eagerness. They will wait for evidence. Without evidence, wheels can only spin in the air --there's nothing for an educated mind to do with those claims.
. . The mystic seldom understands that the burden of proof is always on the claimant, not others. Logic demands it. He who claims must come up with the evidence --results of well-done experiments-- otherwise nobody will pay any attention. ...except those who want to believe in something, for psychological reasons of their own. Probably, unhealthy reasons.
Sounds like somebody told them to "get a life", and they didn't know how.
And hey; if you have no identity, maybe a huckster can sell you a previous identity. It was hardly used; it belonged to a 15th century prince/ess who died young. And tragically, of course. If you're nobody now, he'll sell you --for cash, if possible-- the idea that you used to be somebody! It would be sad, if it weren't so deadly boring. It's even quite an effort to spend the time to write this.
. . To believe something that's basically ridiculous when there's a total lack of evidence, or when there is evidence to the contrary, is not at all open-mindedness, but quite the opposite.
. . The "fisherman's ruler" (half-size inches) is a good example --by way of a joke-- of how people can see what they want to see, and claim proof.
. . Merely teaching kids your beliefs --without teaching the skill of doubt-- is scary. It is eating without a stomach --there's no digestion. Get and give some guts! If you teach them to believe something, immediately teach them to doubt it! Widespread "doubtlessness" would lead to authoritarianism, unquestioning acceptance. That makes a person who is a poor citizen, and impossible as a scientist.
. . Doubt, by the way, is a skill. It takes study and development. This education enhances our capacity to participate in reality.
Doubt is the skill by which we become adults.
It may be that shy people dream up more paranormal beliefs
than other people. Maybe they imagine they have greater
powers (at least I imagine so...) or that there are greater powers around them.
. . Remember... inability to explain a mystery is not proof of
magic, or proof of its supernatural nature. It is a simple
definition: something mysterious is merely something that
you're ignorant about! It should feel unacceptable, and
certainly not desirable. That mystery is, perhaps, something that everyone is ignorant about. There's nothing glamorous about that, and there's no reason to stay ignorant. It's self-defeating and, well, stupid to try to stay ignorant by ignoring, discounting, or being blind to available evidence.
Nothing can so prevent you from learning the truth as the belief that you already know it.
I take it as a gradient from conservative/orthodox to openminded; from solitary to social. What degree you choose may depend on your character and on the person spoken to. There will be degrees of other things going on too.
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It's too easy to let ego change a simple disagreement into a criticism. Notice how similar they sound: "X is nothing compared to Z." "I prefer Z over X." The first is somewhat hostile, tending toward a monologue; the second seems rational and is open to another opinion or question; encouraging dialogue.
Preferences are not criticisms or hostile judgements. We all have preferences, but may need more awareness in how to express them. What might be inferred as a criticism, you can rephrase as a question. Instead of saying "You sure screwed that up!", you can say "How could you have done that better?" That would make an enormous difference for anyone, but imagine how much it would influence a child. The first sets a negative self-image; the second prompts thought and growth.
Notice the similarity of these pieces of folk wisdom: "Leave well enough alone", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and "If it hurts when you do dat, don' do dat!"