The Animals Are Skeptical..

To keep things light hearted and because its way funnier than ranting about dick heads all the time..

Ex JREF Forum Members Tell It How It Is

Couldn't have put it better myself..

Truth is, the JREF Forums have become (or maybe they always were) too much about friendships and hanging out and too little about skepticism and critical thinking. 

It’s actually hard to become popular as a critical thinker because all too often it means going against the grain and questioning sacred cows, like the Skepchick party. There’s definitely an “in” crowd there. It’s not too hard to get accepted so long as you play along and don’t actually approach things skeptically. 

It’s more a social club than a forum to discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly and lively way (like it says at the top of every page).  

In fact, Community is the single busiest forum in terms of posts. Humor has more posts than at least 20 other forums on the board. I think that says a lot about the board and TAM.The reason I was banned from the JREF Forum was for defending myself. Repeated posts were being made by Forum members with specific accusations, not suggestions, of mental illness against me. Since I am certifiably not afflicted by those conditions, accusations of such come across as they also probably were intended, as personal attack.  

My objections against these were denied, so to illustrate the inappropriateness of making mental health accusations against Forum members, all I did was simply to link to a post where one of these Forum members discusses her own issues with schizotypal disorder.  

Other JREF Forum members are permitted to make rude and unfounded accusations against my mental health when they run out of arguments against my claim, but I am not allowed to link to a post where one of these Forum members discusses her own and admitted mental health disorder. This illustrates a clear example of the corruption that lies within the management of the JREF Forum, which is run more like a social club, rather than being the representation of skepticism which it once pledged to be.

The Truth About The JREF Forum

A few home truths about the majority of regular JREF Forum posters. 

Week by week we will bring you the best, the funniest, the most clueless, autistic, sycophantic and downright delusional cast of characters from the online comedy cult of chain-wankers, that is the JREF "skeptics" forum. 

In the meantime here's part of a conversation from some ex-JREFers that nails it exactly..

"About the forum: as far as I'm concerned, the people who post there, for the most part, are know it alls who think they are smarter and more enlightened than other people. "

"They claim to 'question everything,' as a skeptic is supposed to do, yet their skepticism seems to be limited to bashing and criticizing anything having to do with religion or belief in God, and the vast majority are defenders of standard liberal orthodoxy (government is good, Conservatives 'hate' science, we must give up our freedoms to protect the environment, etc.)" 

"As an atheist, they're basically circle-jerking themselves for being "status-quo" atheists aka "skeptics."

"I suspect many of them are people "recovering" from aspergers syndrome. Hal, an former admin, was pretty mentally unstable. James Randi is alright, but the forums there are fail. "

"There's nothing more annoying than a skeptic who is not skeptical of his/her own correctness and intelligence. Skepticism - best served with humility." 

"For a bunch of "super intelligent", self described "skeptics", I have yet to see more rigidity of thought and adherence to the status quo, whatever that may be, than that place."