Why The Skeptic/Sceptic Community is Dying (And Why You Shouldn't Care)

Why The Skeptic/Sceptic Community is Dying (And Why You Shouldn't Care)

In order for a community to be long-lasting and stable, and in order for a community to function as a community in more than just name, it must:

1. Have a defining characteristic or feature that such a community can be based upon. The more solid this characteristic is, the better, i.e. an activity or an interest is a better basis than a loose idea.

2. Be self-reflective and only insular to the degree that it is accessible by people who meet the formal/informal criteria, i.e. the loosest definition of a person within the group 'gamer' is 'you have to have played a game.' etc.

3. Hold values and beliefs that pertain to point one, such as a positive attitude towards gaming to return to the example previously used.

The Sceptic Community's defining characteristic or feature is that people within it are self-proclaimed sceptics. The issue is self-evident, there is no assessment provided on a logical or rational basis and thus the standards of entry or the bar of which one must meet is easy to step over. Everyone is sceptical of something.

A Christian fundamentalist can be sceptical that his friend is qualified to fix the plumbing in his Mega Church, a Creationist is sceptical of the Islamic interpretations of Creationism. Under this rule, all people are within the Sceptic Community.

Now if we add the qualifiers 'Must be of doubting faith/little to no faith/atheist' we hit a rock. What basis are we using for this assessment? The standard set by the pre-Old-Guard atheists, The Four Horsemen? If we are attempting to hold onto the values of the 2007-2011 atheism, we have failed miserably.

The Four Horsemen were extraordinarily rational gentlemen who didn't spend their days fighting pointlessly on Twitter or Gab, or Facebook. They spent their days reading everything, consuming information like machines, building up their knowledge base, developing their ideas and destroying weak religious arguments.

Compared to them, there is no comparison between what they sought to do, and what the people within the 'Sceptic Community' are doing today; half of its members are woke hipsters trying to be smart, and the other half seem to be gender-benders obsessed with race and sex. It is the thin slither who participate in neither who get silenced in the fray of it all.

So the thin slither of logical people who work hard to function within a system desperately trying to crush their ideas, within a system in itself designed to silence their ideas are, guess what? Being silenced by both the 'Alt-Right' and the 'Alt-Left' members, whom so desperately proclaim themselves as the next Harris or Hitchens. You're not, and no one ever will replace them. Get over it and let the movement die.

But of course, all of that is 'Just, like, your opinion, man' so let's use some facts. Cohesion between members of the community is at an all-time low, with almost no one identifying with the movement and also holding the same ideas. Ideological diversity is one thing, but another is complete ideological discordance and chaos, with half of the community hailing Trump and half of them hailing Hillary, spending every waking second writing stupid little hit pieces and selling them for pennies.

Within the ranks of the Sceptic Community, you have Steve Shives, a devout feminist, he self-identifies as a logical and rational person, is he wrong? Well if you say he's not in the community, then he equally can say you aren't, either. And using the identifiers alone, his identifying with the community is enough to make him a part of it.

So even on the most basic points, the Sceptic community is toxic, insanely cannibalistic, and holds no identifying values to speak of. We have thus eliminated point one and three.

Point two is easy to destroy. The borders of the 'Sceptic Community' are crumbled to pieces, you need only say the words and you are a part of it, as I have discussed. There is no barrier to entry. The result is hoards of people attacking each other's throats, constant social media fights, and calls for fans to dox and ruin the lives of others.

Not to mention every single channel focuses on different topics, and attacks the 'wrong elements' of the wrong group and boom, an instant flamewar.

So to conclude, I don't even think there is a sceptic community any more. I think it's just the shattered remains of a movement. Serves as a perfect reminder as to how not to be a movement that is effective at anything. Even during Gamergate there was an incredible amount of toxicity from both sides, both sides that would logically be identifiable in all ways as members of the sceptic community.

People seem to have it in their heads that if the 'Sceptic community' dies, then we will be thrown back to the age of religious extremism. Look around you, it's been receding for years and quite frankly at this time, I think there are better and worthier, more dangerous targets than some Christian guy with a funny hat. Try taking on the Muslims.

Try taking on the SJWs. And I assure you, you don't need a community to do that, I was doing it long before a lot of people identified as the title, and we did just fine. Think for yourself. Come to your own conclusions, and stop letting identities rule your life.