|
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
One man being dead is not an 'extreme claim' at all. In fact, the people downplaying this issue as such are completely right - it's just one man - why celebrate?
To doubt the veracity of the claim is to doubt the authority from which it has been issued, one that has supplied DNA evidence toward it. Do you believe that they are mistaken, or do you believe that they are lying to you - that is what separates conspiracy theorists from casual skeptics in this scenario. Furthermore, even if you were provided with photographic evidence - do you believe you are totally qualified to know what you are looking at? Or do you believe the photo might be doctored? One can apply the same criteria to "DNA evidence", no?
There is a point where skepticism becomes listless, and this point is probably different for everyone. It becomes necessary for one to put forth an issue of motive when they are to call into question the claims of an authority consisting of thousands of individuals all cooperating with one another. |
yeah, I don't really want to get into it, and I personally don't care either way. I never met osama, he's never been more than pixels to me- But my point remains valid- the burden of proof is on the people making the claim.
If domesticated said it was bullshit, conspiracy theorist style, burden would be on him to prove it, since that is a positive statement. However, asking for proof of another's statement is not, in itself a claim, but a request for verification of a claim. I think that is a crucial difference, and its one people always misrepresent/misinterpret when dealing with skeptical problems...
It is doubting the authority it came from; there is an extremely large base of evidence for doubting the american government, historically, and more recently- anything to do with terrorism is extremely shady. No civilian has any facts, but they are expected to believe conclusions. No intelligent person believes Conclusions without premises. If you personally take faith as your premise that's fine, but most people (of any relevance in intellectual fields anyway) don't take analogical proof as certain...
the problem with skepticism is it CAN become a slippery slope. There's no reason to believe and image is more certain than DNA resuslts, you're totally right. Speaking on behalf of domesticated however, he gave clear, rational reasons why DNA results seemed pretty stupid (what is it compared to etc), and gave his condition of proof as a picture. Not at all unreasonable proof imo-- again, if you're throwing the anti-skeptic argument at an imagined scary skeptic that would not be enough, but domesticated said photo, so I'll leave it at that 
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
On what grounds do people think the president of a highly bi-polarised country would put his reputation on the line for a lie like that? Should it be blatantly false, why would political rivals that would do anything they can to oust Obama suddenly praise his actions? I had this conversation with 3 people today... and I must've talked about Osama with 4 or 5 people at best
Scepticism isn't a sign of intellectual rigour when you overdo it. |
1: You and I are not politicians. We don't know wtf is going on in politics (allegiances, backroom meetings, etc). That's totally fine, but what this means is that you don't know, and neither do I, but you are basing your beliefs about politics on an entirely erroneus assumption (who knows what it is... most likely that liberal politicians follow the liberal agenda, help people etc). The Skeptic is generally more likely to require solid proofs before defining his or her beliefs, therefore basing beliefs on solid grounds.
2: You're conjectures are not based on any fact at all, but a belief based on a gloss of interpretations... Would US politics benefit more from having a common success, or from one party gaining a lie that they can use to oust the other? there's no one answer. There are thousands of people talking about millions of things, all of which we are seperated from by a billion layers of ambiguity. We're not now, and never have been in a meeting where they talk about shit, and even if we were, government decisions aren't made in a bubble, or by one person/group. ****
3. Claims are never baseless... Rationally defining choices/options is based on some belief about the past (why would political rivals that would do anything they can to oust Obama suddenly praise his actions?- What makes you think that's a better option than shutting their mouth and soaking up some national pride?)... You're here making MORE claims to back up your original claim which remains undefended...
Either way, domesticated never made a CLAIM! he never said it was a cover up that everybody was going along with, he said where's the proof?
very, very different.
**** Nationalism trumps national fighting. The US will always band together against an international enemy over their own little squabbles for national power... Sure the opposition could use this against Obama if it was false (which i don't think anyone is saying), BUT they would be far more likely to love the nationalistic sentiments heading to all government right now, having 'beaten' 'the enemy'
EDIT: Either way, I think this skeptical shit just got out of hand, I can't speak directly for domesticated, but I think he just said it should be validated from an objective source (american experts give us the DNA lulz) before he would believe it, and then got carried away with kev & others 
___________________
-Everything I Say is a Lie-
Last edited by EgosXII on May-03-2011 at 03:10
|
