Theme of Zoom Meeting

Theme of Zoom Meeting: Skepticism

For several questions, I have provided underlined links that will take you to related online information. Try coming up with your own thoughts first – then investigate the links or ignore them – whatever you wish.

If the links don’t work with just clicking your mouse arrow, hold down your Ctrl key as you click. Any problems with a link please let me know: rgordon118@tampabay.rr.com

Before our meeting, perhaps take the time to check off the questions and quotations you would like to comment on. I’ve included far more questions and quotations than we can cover in our meeting time. Our conversation can just focus on those items you select.

Questions

1. What does the word skeptic mean to you? To check out the dictionary. Articles updated in the last week from college or university sources related to skepticism.

2. How does the word gullibility relate to skepticism? Are we perhaps more gullible than we realize?

3. Without identifying someone you know -- person X, how is X so skeptical that you want to avoid conversing with X? Can you be a habitual skeptic?

4. How can you influence children to be more skeptical about what others present as truth? Is there value in such influence? How about Santa Claus? A superpower watching over your every action, every thought? The number 13 is bad luck? (Notice how many questions in this discussion guide. Would you be more comfortable if I added a 14^th?

5. How do you deal with a person who is always and stubbornly a skeptic?

6. What are some skeptical questions everyone should ask?

7. A well educated, intelligent, articulate person claims our astronauts never landed on the moon. How might you try to convince that person he/she is mistaken? Or would you consider such efforts as just a waste of time?

8. How has the internet made skepticism more important than ever?

9. Are some people justified in being skeptical of the dangers of climate change?

10. Have you become more skeptical as you have grown older – say, between your early 20s and now? What has caused that change?

11. What are skeptical questions we should always ask when evaluating controversial statements?

12. Can democracy survive if most voters are more gullible than skeptical when seeking information on the Internet?

13. In our discussion today, what is the most important point that you will walk away with?

Quotations

1. “I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!”
― J.K. Rowling

2. “Skepticism is the first step towards truth.”― Denis Diderot

3. “Most people are too silly to be truly interested in anything. They herd together like cattle, and do not know what is good for them.”― Frank R. Stockton

4. “Skepticism is never certain of itself, being less a firm intellectual position than a pose to justify bad behavior.”― Fulton J. Sheen

5. “Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.” -- David Suzuki

6. “People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism.” -- Elliot Richardson

7. “Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good”. -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

8. “In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.” -- Paul Davies

9. “The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism.”
-- Albert Schweitzer

10. “Radical skepticism is no more critical than is credulity.”-- Craig A. Evans

11. “The only new ideas that are not subject to our skepticism or suspicion are our own.” – Cullen Hightower

12. Great intellects are skeptical. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

The End