Guest DWA Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 I am having a hard time understanding how indoorsmen can consider a life outside in search of an animal painful and disappointing. I mean, anywhere near as much so as trying to make people See Reason who know that you aren't. You know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer102492 Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 (edited) My husband is a skeptic, so I can tell you what it's like for him after all this has happened to me since May 2013. He believes that I saw something, but doesn't know what I saw. He believes that his brother and I heard something howl at us twice, but not convinced that it was a BF. He read the other reports from this area, but it happened to someone else. He believes that I heard rocks hit the house on three different occasions, (because I woke him up), but thinks it could be something else. He believes that I heard tree knocks on a couple of times, but he said that it could be anything. He believes that our friend thinks she saw BF standing 40 feet from us, but he doesn't know her well. He KNOWS that these experiences have made a big impact on me, (and now him too lol). So the only thing that will make him believe, is to see it. I think it's only a matter of time that it happens. Then I'll be happy to report back what the skeptic says about it then! Good thread. Edited January 17, 2014 by Hammer102492 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JoelS Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 I don't know how to answer this. I've heard things that I can attribute to nothing else. Akin to the Samurai Sounds, and out of range of the vast majority of humans. In a timbre and tone that I've never heard from a human voice, recording or live. I've heard howls that were not made by known animals in the locations where they were heard, at least that I've been able to discover. I'd really like to see one. I have no interest in bringing them to general knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer102492 Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Trust your gut. You know when you know. Where there's smoke, there's fire as the saying goes.... but that doesn't work for some people. For me it does, but I'm not a skeptic any more. It's just hard to actually open your mind and think that these things are real. I get it. It's not easy. What is easy, is to just go back to how it was before, or just believe that it isn't real. That's the easier path, and sometimes more comfortable. Hey, whatever works for you is cool. I have no quarrel with the skeptics. I won't say you are nuts, if you don't say that I am nuts. It's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 So you're saying that it is the easier path to be a skeptic, and the harder path to believe? What about it just being a different path applying critical thinking? Jeez you proponents are so brave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer102492 Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 (edited) For me personally, it was WAY easier to not believe. After what I have experienced, I sometimes wish that I had never had it happen. It's changed me and the way that I look at my surroundings. Ignorance was bliss. ...and I don't mean to say that anyone that doesn't believe is ignorant. Just saying what it was like for me. I have a boogie man living in my back yard. It's kind of cool, but it also kind of sucks. Edited January 17, 2014 by Hammer102492 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Stan Norton Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Does 'critical thinking' (such a self-congratulatory term!) mean that any other answer must be the truth because you know sasquatch doesn't exist? That would appear to be the very polar opposite of being a sceptic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DWA Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 I'm not sure how "critical thinking" became "accepting whole the opinions of people I know nothing about but their credentials, while ignoring utterly a large body of consistent evidence and not bothering to think about how pure science is conducted." But actually, that is what the scientific mainstream considers "critical thinking" now, so I guess. Science has started moving away from examination of evidence toward unthinking scrapping of what makes one uncomfortable. OK, maybe it hasn't. Most scientists have always avoided practicing science like the plague when it doesn't suit them. That's just human. So, WSA, as usual, the proponents answer your question to the jot and tittle, the antis, not really at all. I mean, I'd think I'd have the answer by now to the question: If there's a website that affirms, based on extensive evidence collected by, you know, the guy who started the website, that My Little Pony and all his pals come to life every night and run the world while we sleep...why would I want to haunt that site for 4,000 posts trying to make those nuts see the light...? I'm not sure I am aware of a more...let us say, unusual...mindset. And I'll never figure out what it fulfills to do that. Critical, it ain't. It's about as uncritical as anything I am aware of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSA Posted January 17, 2014 Author Share Posted January 17, 2014 No DWA, I think the skeptics did a very good job of giving me their take on themselves, and I really appreciated that. It was not my intention to start another evidence, skeptic v. proponent thread at all, or to judge another's definition of success. We all need to have places here where that is not the main topic, I believe. I just wanted to know what most hope to get out of it all, if anything. I'm eternally curious about why people do what they do. That includes myself...I think I was fishing for some motivation for my own participation here, and help myself to define my mission as it were. What I've concluded so far is this medium is a very, very poor tool for coming to any hard conclusions about this phenomenon, and I don't care which side of the discussion you take. It is a very, very good one-stop shop for the latest news and information, but it pretty much ends there for me. There can be no real substantive progress on what that information really means given how polarizing it obviously is, and I don't mean that as a slap at anyone who contributes. It just is, is all. The screen will always come between us and the reality we're trying to see. I for one might have had other expectations at one time, but I've gotten over that. That said, there are plenty of people out there who have waked up to a hunger to know what we all here know, and as a source for that, it will always serve a purpose. Hats off to the moderators and contributors who keep it chugging along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darrell Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 As a proponent I've never understood this, as a bad day of squatching beats a good day at the office anytime. Roll in some other outdoor hobbies like hunting, fishing, etc and it just becomes icing on the cake if you find something compelling out there..... My point was these men, unique as they were, went to their graves never finding what they spent their lives searching for. Some, like Dahinden and Krantz, sacrificed marriages, family, and careers in their belief that they would be the one to find bigfoot. It has nothing to do with a life spent enjoying the outdoors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSA Posted January 17, 2014 Author Share Posted January 17, 2014 I'm being as neutral as I can be on this topic gentlemen. In keeping with that, I am forced to admit that there is enough success and failure in this field for everyone to get a slice of each. Part of this exericise is to try and spark a broader understanding of that, but not to judge who gets the bigger piece. It is just not for any of us to say, I would say, who is spending their time more wisely. Remember too....you can't discount the possibility that we ALL are wasting our time and energy here, or (more likely to me) none of us are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiefoot Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Much of the time I hear, "I'm a critical thinker and I'm smarter than you are..... nanernanernaner." But I'm sure that's just my insecurities coming out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darrell Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 ^As humans we decide what is critical and what is not when applying developing our beliefs and opinions. What might be a critical process to me may not be the same for you. That is why we should celebrate our individuality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSA Posted January 17, 2014 Author Share Posted January 17, 2014 I hear that indiefoot. We are all guilty of doing that, to some degree, at one time or the other here. Nobody is ever going to take kindly to that, no, and we lay waste our days in the process, IMHO. I think it might come from an urge to have closure on each and every piece of evidence we are presented. If you can argue it into a corner, well...there's your closure, right? But even if you do succeed in getting it crammed into that box, somebody is going to come along and let it loose again. Rinse and repeat. We are all not very well equipped to ever just go, "Hmmm...that is a mysterious event/photo/sound...whatever, and I'm not really sure I can say what it means." Instead, we all fall all over ourselves to prove we know....but really and truly, we can't. This observation describes our opponents and proponents equally here, I think. For each person who jumps to stick a pin in any proponent-backed evidence, there is a proponent who never saw a piece of evidence that didn't constitute proof....and we have all positions on that spectrum in between. As our buddy Dr. Phil would say,"How is that working for us?" Do the majority of us here enjoy this process as it is? If we don't like it, why don't we change it? So, I am examining that here by simply asking, "What do you hope to achieve?" Me, I'm realizing that my broader, stated list of success definitions might be achieved simply by what I learn here. Going toe-to-toe on what this or that piece of information should, or HAS to mean? Not so much at all. Like all of you, I'm more than competent to decide what the information means to me. Anyone would resent being told what to think about it, we all know that. If I do state a position, I try to keep in mind it only has validity for me, and anyone who voluntarily agrees with it. I'm not at all interested in consensus building or forming a political party around anything, least of all around this subject! As I said, I think the politics of identity...especially as they evolve from events in this world you can't directly control... is a hazardous undertaking. ^As humans we decide what is critical and what is not when applying developing our beliefs and opinions. What might be a critical process to me may not be the same for you. That is why we should celebrate our individuality. Well stated Darrell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LarryP Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 So you're saying that it is the easier path to be a skeptic, and the harder path to believe? The easiest path is when you know and then there's no path to follow anymore, unless you just want to continue. What about it just being a different path applying critical thinking? Denialism is the exact opposite of critical thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts