Whenever I really want to be amused, I spend a few minutes reading the latest admonishments and retortments from the extreme skeptics of natural medicine. By "extreme skeptics," I don't mean actual critical thinkers who apply genuine open-minded curiosity to the world around them, I mean the pseudoscientific zealots who berate anyone who believes in acupuncture, massage therapy, homeopathy, herbal medicine, sunlight therapy, breath therapy, meditation or any number of other natural healing modalities. They think vitamins are useless,
acupuncture is quackery, and that all medical treatment should be limited to
drugs, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
These extreme skeptics are truly impressive in the depth of their knowledge: There is nothing true in the universe that they don't already know. All science has already been discovered, they proclaim, and therefore all new "whacky" ideas about vibrational healing, energy medicine or nutritional therapy are based on nothing but quackery. That's why they've constructed an intellectual moat in order to keep all such bad ideas out of the Church of Logic.
I've also learned from these omniscient rationalists that there is no such thing as mysterious, invisible energy vibrations. I'm not sure how radios work, then, or magnets, or nuclear medicine, or the subatomic weak nuclear force, or quantum computing, or even the vibrating piece of crystal that governs the clock on my computer's CPU, but I'm pretty sure it's only because I'm too stupid to understand genuine "scientific thinking," which is apparently based on learning how to invoke obfuscating scientific-sounding incantations to support conclusions you have previously committed to.
More importantly, I've also learned from these skeptics that the universe operates in pure Newtonian fashion like a giant pinball machine, and that free will, creativity, love, intuition and faith are merely illusory notions invoked by chemical balances in the brain that should be treated with psychiatric drugs. Because, of course, people who actually FEEL anything are obviously irrational and have no place in our pinball machine universe.
Many of these extreme skeptics, I've also learned, don't even believe in their own free will, since consciousness (they've explained to me) is merely a fleeting projection of a physical brain that operates like a wondrously complex Turing machine. This has me pondering an important question: Who does a skeptic think is offering the opinions of skepticism if that same skeptic does not believe in the existence of his own consciousness?
By definition, then, the opinions of all such skeptics are of no greater consequence than two billiard balls bouncing off each other because even they do not believe they exist as conscious beings capable of creating inspired thought. Thus, if you take their word for it, extreme skeptics have the same level of consciousness as, say, your average armadillo. They self-admittedly have none, in fact, making such skeptics about as intelligent as a brass doorknob, but far less useful. A doorknob, at least, can open something. But extreme skeptics remain forever closed to new ideas.
I once asked a skeptic how he could be sure there was nothing else in the universe besides the physical, and he gave me an answer that basically translates into, "I intuitively felt so." Normally, I would call such a person a complete idiot, but most skeptics are actually well educated. They are clearly not idiots. Rather, they are purveyors of self-aggrandizing reductionism who suffer under the cult-like illusion that hyper-rational, compartmentalized, Descartian logic is the one and only way to arrive at any sort of truth.
Their belief in the superiority of selective logic bounded by preordained conceptual blinders is as zealotistic and pompous as any fanatical religion, but far less believable because to become a member of the Church of Logic, you have to pledge exclusive faith to a system of philosophy that disavows the concept of faith altogether. What the members of this church are missing is the idea that metaphor, or meditation, or storytelling, or dreaming is often far truer and a whole lot more interesting than mere logic. Or that food, sunlight and water are powerful medicine. Certainly logic is one way to look at the universe, and it is a useful way for many things, but it is hardly the only way. In fact, for the things that really matter (like happiness, compassion, or love), logic is practically irrelevant.
Of course, skeptics may disagree with this assessment, but even that would require some original thought, which violates the beliefs of skeptics in the first place. If you're an extreme skeptic, you can't fathom the meaning of any of this because you have no consciousness and you don't possess any original ideas whatsoever, according to your own Church of Logic. So if you're perturbed by this essay because you're a self-admitted skeptic, then don't sweat it: Your negative emotion is just a side effect of the giant pinball Turing Machine in your head. You'll get over it.
Everybody else, on the other hand, does exist, which is why we are all laughing so hard at the skeptics -- the only group of people in the history of human civilization to vehemently argue for their own irrelevance, and then to prove it through pompous babble aimed not at any effort to discover real truth, but rather to protect their own fragile egos and hollow philosophical scaffolding.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It's a good thing, then, that extreme skeptics don't believe in the mind at all -- only in the brain, a physical organ they say merely creates the illusion of consciousness and has no ethereal existence whatsoever: No spirit, no soul, no mind.
By their own definition, then, extreme skeptics are mindless, soulless walking water bags that are no more "alive" than the DNA sequence of a virus. Unfortunately, they still manage to spout words from time to time, probably due to some sort of linguistic reflex action, and annoy the rest of us who actually do have consciousness.
So the next time a skeptic annoys you with blathering syllables that sound like arguments against alternative medicine, just remember: A chicken can still run with its head cut off, but that doesn't mean it knows where it's going. It's only a reflex that appears to resemble conscious intention. Don't mind it.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams launched NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video site featuring videos on holistic health and green living. He's also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Friday, April 28, 2006
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