Friday, September 20, 2013

The Harm Caused by Pseudoskepticism


This post provides explanations and links to supporting information that show how pseudoskepticism does great harm to individuals and to society.

Introduction

Pseudoskepticism is harmful because pseudoskeptics are responsible for spreading incorrect information denying the existence of ESP and the afterlife. In reality, there is overwhelming evidence that ESP and the afterlife are genuine. Preventing people from knowing about ESP and the afterlife does great harm to individuals and society as a whole.

Belief in religion and the afterlife eases grief and fear of death. It deters suicide, and helps people cope with adversity such as unemployment and divorce. People who find meaning in life are healthier, but pseudoskeptics espouse materialism which says that life is meaningless.

Pseudoskeptics obscure the truth of psychic phenomena and this creates difficulties for people who have psychic abilities. Without accurate information about psychic phenomena, people experiencing those phenomena may become afraid or confused, they may think they are going crazy or are evil. They may be persecuted by people who don't believe in any paranormal phenomena. Psychic children may be punished by their parents or teachers who think they are lying. Psychics may be misdiagnosed as mentally ill and given mind-numbing drugs they don't need or they may be institutionalized.

Denying the truth about ESP and the afterlife does great harm to society and civilization. It prevents governments from licensing psychics and accrediting schools that teach psychic development. This directly abets charlatans who pretend to be psychic. Pseudoskepticism inhibits scientific freedom. There are many practical uses of psychic abilities including mediumship, dowsing, energy healing, remote viewing, induced after-death communication (a treatment for post traumatic stress disorder), past life regression, and psychic detectives. By denying the reality of ESP and the afterlife, pseudoskepticism may deter people from availing themselves of these helpful services.

If the evolution of the soul was correctly understood it would prevent ethnic and religious conflicts. If more people understood the life review and reincarnation there would be less cruelty in the world because people would understand that when you harm another person you also harm yourself. If the truth of the afterlife was more widely known, people would be less selfish because they would understand how their actions in this life prepare the conditions they will experience in the afterlife. A correct understanding of the afterlife would help people to understand the purpose of life and suffering. A correct understanding of the afterlife gives people certain knowledge of a better existence in the future. No matter what mistakes someone may have made in life they are never judged or punished in the afterlife but always have the opportunity here or hereafter to atone and work their way up to the highest levels of the spirit realm by helping others.

I want to be clear that I am not saying all pseudoskeptics are bad people. I developed my sense of ethics when I was a materialist atheist which is better for me now than if I did what was right only because I was afraid of punishment in the afterlife. So, I believe there are some lessons best learned as a materialist atheist. People should believe what they think is right, but materialist atheists should not try to spread beliefs that may be harmful to other people and they should not be deceptive about the evidence for ESP and the afterlife.

How Pseudoskepticism is Harmful

  • People need correct information in order to be able to make good decisions about what to do in life. Anytime false information is spread, it is harmful. Pseudoskeptics are mistaken when they espouse disbelief of every paranormal phenomena. There is overwhelming evidence for ESP and the afterlife. The world's most brilliant scientists including many Nobel prize winners believed in paranormal phenomena from their own studies, their own experiences, or the studies conducted by other scientists. Magicians cannot reproduce mediumistic phenomena. Pseudoskeptics are often deliberately misleading. Real skeptics (people who believe something only when there is good reason to believe it) do believe in some paranormal phenomena because of the evidence.

  • Belief in religion and the afterlife offers many benefits. Pseudoskepticism may prevent people from experiencing these benefits.

    • Belief in religion can help people cope with adversity such as divorce and unemployment.

    • Knowledge of the afterlife:

    • People who find meaning in life are healthier but pseudoskeptics espouse materialism which holds that meaning is an illusion.

  • By denying the reality of psychic phenomena, pseudoskepticism makes it harder for people to find reliable information on psychic phenomena. As a result of pseudoskepticism:

  • There are many practical uses of psychic abilities including mediumship, dowsing, energy healing, remote viewing, induced after-death communication (IADC), past life regression, and psychic detectives. By denying the reality of the afterlife, pseudoskepticism may deter people from availing themselves of these services. (Induced after-death communication is a treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome developed by a veterans administration psychologist. Past-life regression is an immensely helpful treatment for some psychological disorders.)

  • Pseudoskeptics persecute psychics and scientists who want to study paranormal phenomena which inhibits scientific freedom.

  • Pseudoskeptics do harm because they obscure the truth of the afterlife.

    • If the truth about the evolution of the soul was more widely known, it would reduce ethnic and religious conflicts.

    • If the truth of the afterlife was more widely known, people would be less selfish because they would understand how their actions in this life prepare the conditions they will experience in the afterlife.

    • A correct understanding of the afterlife would help people to understand the purpose of life and suffering.

    • If the truth about the life review and reincarnation was more widely known, it would reduce cruelty because people would understand that when you hurt another person you are also hurting yourself.

    • A correct understanding of the afterlife eases mental anguish because certain knowledge of a better existence in the future gives people hope. No matter what mistakes someone may have made in life they are never judged or punished in the afterlife but always have the opportunity here or hereafter to atone and work their way up to the highest levels of the spirit realm by helping others.

References

In several posts on this blog, I have explained how pseudoskepticism is harmful.

  • Skepticism, The Big Lie. Activist Skeptics and Atheists are a Danger to the Health and Well Being of Believers

  • Charlatans, Demagogues, and Scientists

  • Materialism: Meaning is an illusion. Science: People need meaning to thrive

  • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part II

  • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part V

  • The Science Scam

    Excerpts

  • Skepticism, The Big Lie. Activist Skeptics and Atheists are a Danger to the Health and Well Being of Believers describes research that shows belief in religion and the paranormal contributes in many ways to the health and well being of people. Such beliefs ease grief, ease fear of death, deter suicide, and help people cope with all sorts of adversity in life such as divorce or unemployment. Pseudoskepticism which incorrectly denies such beliefs, may prevent some people from experiencing all those benefits.
    Many people come to a Spiritualist church for the first time when they are suffering from grief because mediumship is part of the Sunday service. Some of these people are suffering from extreme grief from the death of a spouse or a child. Losing a child is one of the most difficult of all things to have to experience in life. During church services, I've seen and heard with my own senses the comfort and relief that a communication from a deceased loved one can give to another person.

    Imagine a child conceived in love, who you carried in pregnancy, gave birth to, fed from your own breast, and raised from infancy. Who you taught to walk and talk and took to their first day of school and had birthday parties for. Who you loved and who loved you and trusted you completely in their innocent childlike way. Imagine your hopes and dreams for their future. Now, imagine their life is cut short, maybe by a sudden accident or a lingering illness. Actually, you can't imagine the grief and sense of loss a parent would feel in that situation. Now try to imagine what it is like for that parent to know that their child's existence has not been cut short but that their child is living with Grandma in another plane of existence, and they can still know about each other and communicate words of love.

    I've been there during Spiritualist church services and seen and heard a medium provide this comfort to people suffering from extreme grief. I knew the medium, I knew the church, I know it wasn't cold reading or hot reading and I know the information the medium gave to identify the spirit was specific, detailed, and impossible to guess by chance.

    So I also know the harm that can be done by skeptics who never had this experience and who don't know what they are talking about when they try to convince someone else that it is all a delusion or a fraud.

  • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part II discusses some the problems encountered by people who have psychic experiences. Because of pseudoskepticism people may be afraid to talk about their psychic experiences, they may be ridiculed or considered evil by others. They might not understand what is happening to them and they may fear they have a mental illness because pseudoskepticism makes it hard to find reliable information on paranormal and psychic phenomena.
    ... read this post by a new member of another forum:
    Hi,

    My name is -----,

    I found out a year ago that my daughter and I have psychic abilities. I am so happy to have found this forum. It is very isolating (and shame producing) when you are seeing, hearing, smelling,and feeling things that other people don't seem to. I am just glad that my daughter, who is 11, has similar experiences.

    I am coming to terms with these abilities, although I cried for many months, was angry, terrified and angry at God because I have always felt different from other people to begin with.I was extremely sensitive.

    How many tens of thousands of people go through this needless anguish because the truth of ESP has been prevented from being accepted by all sectors of society?

  • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part V includes examples of how pseudoskeptics inhibit scientific freedom by persecuting people interested in paranormal phenomena.
    In this excerpt from A Conversation with Dr. Raymond Moody by Sharon Barbell, Raymond Moody tells how his own family committed him to a mental hospital because of his research into the afterlife.
    SB: Have you encountered any resistance to this research from colleagues, friends or relatives?

    RM: That has been so funny. One thing is that my family had me put into a mental hospital about it, and I suppose you can call that a form of resistance (laughter). And so it was a really funny situation. And of course the people at my college thought that I had lost my mind.

    ...

    The next example shows how pseudoskeptics will persecute and ostracize a Nobel prize winning physicist like Brian Josephson for being interested in paranormal phenomena. If they persecute a Nobel prize winner, what chance does an ordinary scientist have of expressing or pursuing a similar interest?

    From How to Run a Conference at Brian Josephson's web site.

    Certain invitees to a workshop on the Foundations of Physics received from the organisers letters withdrawing their invitations. The letter to Brian Josephson asserted:
    "It has come to my attention that one of your principal research interests is the paranormal ... in my view, it would not be appropriate for someone with such research interests to attend a scientific conference."

    ...

    Richard Sternberg explains how he was persecuted for authorizing the publication an article on Intelligent Design that had passed peer-review in a journal he edited.

    Because Dr. Meyer's article presented scientific evidence for intelligent design in biology, I faced retaliation, defamation, harassment, and a hostile work environment at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History that was designed to force me out as a Research Associate there. These actions were taken by federal government employees acting in concert with an outside advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education. Efforts were also made to get me fired from my job as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

    ...

    ... when the psychic medium George Anderson was a teenager, he was bullied at school and punished by his teachers because of his psychic abilities. His parents took him to a psychiatrist because they didn't understand what was happening to their son. George was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on Librium and then Valium which caused him to sleep up to 20 hours a day. The psychiatrist told his parents to take him to a state run mental institution. At the institution one psychiatrist recommended electro-shock treatments. A second psychiatrist disagreed and was in fact alarmed at the prospect of institutionalizing a child in an adult facility because he would probably be raped by other inmates. Due to the actions of the second psychiatrist, George was spared institutionalization although he was kept on mind-numbing drugs.

  • Charlatans, Demagogues, and Scientists explains how pseudoskepticism actually enables charlatans who pretend to be psychic because it pushes paranormal phenomena into the fringes which makes it harder for people to get reliable information about psychic phenomena, and prevents government from licensing psychics the way plumbers and doctors are licensed.
    The charlatans who pretend to be psychic are small time operators. Compared to the scientific scam they haven't influenced society significantly. But the scientific scam is also partly responsible for the harm done by these charlatans who pretend to be psychic. Because scientists dissuade people from believing in psychic phenomena, they prevent the government from developing a licensing process for psychics like there is for doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and electricians. By pushing the psychic industry out of the mainstream and into the shadows, they make it harder for people to get reliable information on the industry. By calling everyone a fraud they obscure the fact that psychics are genuine and the charlatans are only pretending to psychic.

    If scientists had allowed themselves to take up the study of psychic phenomena such as mediumship the way Nobel prize winning scientists such as Charles Richet, Pierre Curie, and Marie Currie, and many other scientists such as Sir William Crookes, wanted to, much harm would have been avoided.

  • Materialism: Meaning is an illusion. Science: People need meaning to thrive tells of research that shows that people who have meaning in their life are healthier. Materialism which incorrectly holds that meaning is an illusion may cause some people to feel life is meaningless and they might be less healthy because of it.
    A new article in theatlantic.com provides more evidence of this. The article explains new research which shows that having meaning in life is good for your health. In that case, materialism may be harmful to some people because according to materialism, meaning is an illusion. Some people might find it hard to have meaning in life if they believe materialism is true and that meaning in life is an illusion. The research also showed that that happiness comes from selfish taking, meaning comes from selfless giving, and that meaning is healthier than happiness.

  • The Science Scam explains why pseudoskepticism causes suffering all around the world. The correct understanding of the afterlife which has been corroborated by near-death experiencers and mediums, would help to end ethnic and religious conflicts as well as cruelty and selfishness.
    The science scam is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated in the history of humankind and it has done incalculable harm to individuals and to our civilization. This hoax has been carried out by scientists who deny the true nature of human consciousness revealed by the existence of ESP and the afterlife and it has been going on since at least the 1860's.

    How many billions of people suffer unnecessary grief for lost loved ones who are not really dead but are continuing their existence in another dimension? How many billions of people live in fear of death unnecessarily because they are ignorant of the empirical evidence showing there is an afterlife? How many people suffer unnecessarily from ethnic and religious conflicts that would cease if everyone knew the true nature of the soul and its evolution? How much cruelty continues to be inflicted on victims that would never be inflicted if people understood that when you hurt another person you also hurt yourself? How much selfishness continues to exist that would cease if people understood that you prepare the conditions you will experience in the afterlife by the actions you take in the physical life?

    All this suffering continues to occur because some scientists refuse to give up their self-appointed role as the sole source of knowledge about the universe and their artificial and unscientific attachment to philosophical naturalism as the only way to obtain knowledge about the cosmos. This leads them to reject the many independent forms of evidence for ESP and the afterlife which show that human consciousness is not produced by matter, not produced by the brain, but can and does continue to exist after the death of the physical body.

    • In the sections below, you will find links to my blog, web site, and outside sources that explain:
    • The evidence for ESP and the afterlife.
    • The history of the science scam.
    • Notable scientists including several Nobel prize winners who resisted the science scam.
    • The causes of the scam.
    • Why the science scam is so harmful to individuals and civilization.
    • What citizens should do about it.

      Recommended Reading:

    • Causes of Pseudoskepticism

    • Why Pseudoskeptics are so Committed to the Information War Against Paranormal Phenomena

    • Why are Most Scientists Skeptics?

    • Study Suggests More People Willing to Believe in ESP When Told It's Been Scientifically Disproven

    • The History of Important Scientific Discoveries Initially Rejected and Ridiculed.

    • Powerless Pseudoskeptics

    • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part III

    • What Kind of People are Pseudoskeptics? Part IV

      Copyright © 2013 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.


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