CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

When is a sceptic not a sceptic? We recently watched a TV program we had recorded in which a group of atheist scientists got together to celebrate their superiority to the rest of us, or at least that's how it came across to us. There was a desperation to their banter which ultimately I found depressing. They extolled us to be sceptical and to use words in the strict meaning of them so as to not cause confusion and sloppy thinking. Let's look in the dictionary According to my Oxford dictionary of Current English a sceptic is a "person who doubts truth of doctrine or theory etc.; person inclined to question truth of facts or statements or claims; philosopher who questions the possibility of knowledge." Of course the amusing thing is that these "sceptics" weren't sceptical at all about their own beliefs, doctrines and theories. They accepted them as god given - excuse me - chemical chance given truths. They were only sceptical about other people's beliefs, doctrines and theories. In fact they weren't even sceptical about them; they simply branded them as wrong! They seem to think that there is only one reality and it is theirs. Hubris indeed. One of my favourite philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson, who studied the science of general semantics, tells us that "Reality" is a word in the English language which happens to be (a) a noun and (b) singular. Thinking in the English language (and in cognate Indo-European languages) therefore subliminally programs us to conceptualise "reality" as one block-like entity, sort of like a huge New York skyscraper, in which every part is just another "room" within the same building. This linguistic program is so pervasive that most people cannot "think" outside it at all, and when one tries to offer a different perspective they imagine one is talking gibberish. from Cosmic Trigger, pg iii   In fact here's a short video clip of Robert Anton Wilson talking about reality.       So the answer to the opening question seems to be "all the time". Even more amusingly one of them said that it was their duty to save us poor souls from our delusions. I don't know about you but that sounds just like every religious fruitcake who has ever accosted me on the street. It seems to me that one person's fundamentalism is much the same as another's; just the dogma differs. Maybe the fate of all fundamentalists is to talk out of their fundaments? What's in a name? I think that to call these people "sceptics" can only lead to confusion and sloppy thinking as they obviously don't act in accordance with the dictionary definition of the word. I propose that for the sake of clarity these pretend "sceptics" adopt the name "septics". After all, septic means putrid, and putrid means full of rot. When is a Chiropractor not a Chiropractor? An even more amusing thing happened (my sides were really hurting that night). One of the cast performed a little skit about taking medical advice from someone who didn't know what they were talking about. The punch line, if you can dignify it with that name, was that you may as well go to a "spine wizard" or "sugar pill pusher". How fantastic! I have my own term of abuse. I'm not a Chiropractor, I'm a Spine Wizard. I like it. Sue likes it. We both might start using it. It has a certain flair, an elegance to it. Let's consult the dictionary again. Wizard: as a noun: a person of extraordinary powers, genius, magician; as an adjective: wonderful. Arthur C. Clarke, who prided himself on being a scientist and rationalist, said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But if you have to choose between science and magic, your best bet is to choose magic because magicians usually know what they're doing. We're going to have to put this on the headed paper.

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