The dictionary defines a "skeptic" in
its nonreligious aspects as an adherent or advocate of skepticism
or a person disposed to skepticism. "Skepticism" is defined as an
attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in
general or toward a particular object; the doctrine that true
knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; and the
method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt or criticism
characteristic of skeptics.
However, take any website or magazine
devoted to skeptics and skepticism and find that these skeptics
are skeptical about only one thing: Anything, anything at all,
that challenges the status quo, that in any way opposes the new
religion of Empirical Science, a religion founded on the teachings
of one man, Sir. Isaac Newton, who believed that he could prove
that which can not be proven, that gravity, the most dynamic force
in the universe, is an inert property, like color or hardness, of
matter, that objects travel in straight lines unless forces act to
alter that travel, that white light is made up of all colors and
that light is arranged in the order that it comes out of the
prism. In the ensuing three hundred years since Newton took over
The Royal Society and proclaimed that the unprovable can be proven
by creating a concept that mathematically predicts a fact, and
then finding that fact mathematically, Empirical Science has
produced a set of non provable beliefs dealing with the creation
of the universe and the creation of life that ignores the most
basic facts of our existence, the mechanical nature of the forces
that cause the motion in our existence, that causes objects to
fall, the planets to rotate and orbit, the sun to move around the
galactic center and more basic movements such as the structure and
motion of light, electricity and magnetism.
Because the explanations for the basic
forces that cause motion in our existence are explained away as
the result of either being a inert property, the result of
historical events that are no longer subject to physical
examination, swirling masses of gas or The Big Bang, or simply by
giving them names, the strong force, the weak force, the religion
of Empirical Science devotes its time to creating "facts" that can
never be directly examined, dark matter, black holes, chaos
uncertainty, things for which any explanation is acceptable
because no explanation for the nonexistent can ever be challenged
and its High Priests are driven to set up gatekeepers to make sure
that logical challenges to the Empirical belief system do not gain
general currency.