Thought of the day

Thought of the day

If the ghostbusters are not afraid of “no ghost” then why do they scream so much and run away from ghosts?

Well I wasn’t expecting that

You people are crazy! I mean that in a nice way though.

Yesterday when I set up the donation page after Karl Mamer (the conspiracy skeptic) said he wanted to donate some funds towards buying me a ticket to the amazing QED conference I did so thinking I wouldn’t get much.

I though perhaps I’d receive a generous £40 or many £50 to help with the cost of my ticket from different people. Which would be awesome and in my head I had calculated how much I would have to put back each month to put towards the overall cost once the kind donations had been added.

I was really excited and genuinely grateful at the kindness of people I had only met online.

So imagine my surprise yesterday evening when I checked my email inbox to discover that I had received over £150 in donations from people.

Tickets cost £99 so I was able to buy a ticket which was awesome. This was late last night and shortly afterwards I went to bed and forgot to close down the donation page and link.

I woke up this morning to find even more money in my donation fund. Enough to cover the cost of my accommodation, which blew my mind.

I have now closed the donation page – after less than 24 hours, because I cannot believe how generous people were. I am so grateful to everybody who helped me. It means the only thing I have to worry about paying for is my travel cost and that’s going to be fine.

It also means I was able to add a few days onto my accommodation stay so I will now be able to visit some sites in the North that hold some significance to my heritage as well as meeting friends I have only ever spoken to online. I am so excited.

I genuinely cannot thank you enough. QED here I come!

Donations…

Earlier this year some very kind people on twitter started a campaign called ‘Get Hayley 2 Tam’ and were offering to pay for my ticket cost etc.

I politely refused because I felt awful about considering taking other peoples money.

However, today I recieved some rather persuasive messages from the lovely Karl Mamer asking if he could donate some money to help me get to the QED conference being help in Manchester next February.

I had hoped to attend, you see, because a lot of my friends are attended or organising it and there is a fantastic line up, but because of my financial situation I couldn’t justify spending that money on the conference and associated costs.

So I agreed to accept a donation from Karl and set up the donation page on this blog (look at the top). I still feel terrible, but just wanted to blog to say thank you to Karl and, you know, if you’re feeling generous…

All donations are recieved with much happiness and smiling.

Also, you get added to my cool list over there>>>>

Maybe I was overreacting…

After my last blog post I’ve recieved a lot of feedback on the blog and via twitter and facebook. I love blogging because of the points people make.

I’ve realised I have probably overreacted in the last blog post because although there are some serious image issues within skepticism as a movement or as a community or however you want to refer to it, there are good points as well and in my annoyance and anger I over looking these completely.

I apologise if I offended anybody, especially the decent skeptics out there that I am proud to be associated with and call my friends because that wasn’t my intention.

I was just gutted that last week people I thought of as my friends chalked me up as the bad guy in their minds because that isn’t the way I want to be seen. I saw a video from an antendee who said “I realised at the conference that not all skeptics are stalkers or trolls on forums…”

what a horrendous way to be viewed! I realise that a lot of the time we cannot help the way that people view us because in their minds anyone who opposes their beliefs is a bad guy.

But for people I think of as friends to think I was a skeptic and that meant I was mischievious was a bit upsetting. Since last weekend I have been a lot quieter on twitter and facebook and my blog because I been watching people and the way they talk about (and to) people who have beliefs or ideas that aren’t evidence based and it’s annoyed me to see some instances where skeptics (some of whom are the noblest of the noblest of skeptics) have been really quite nasty in their attitude and behaviour.

It’s really not my place to tell people how to act and I’m certainly not writing this and intending it to be part of the ‘don’t be a dick’ meme because that has been done to death.

However, I think it’s worth pointing out at this point how I came to be involved in skepticism. Somebody asked me if I had written about it and I couldn’t find anything on my blog.

In 2005 I started ghost research from a very belief orientated point of view (even though I didn’t think I had). I held beliefs in ghosts, an afterlife, reincarnation, angels, demons, possession, mediums, psychics, dowsing, seances, table tipping, glass divination, psychic protection curses…

Then one day a prominent skeptic pointed out that some things on the website of the team I belong to were factually incorrect and that if I went to some certain websites or read some certain books I would see how we’d come to the incorrect conclusions.

That’s a brief summary of the conversation, but there was no mocking – just a discussion.

To begin with I felt quite insulted but (thankfully) the seed of doubt had been put in my mind and a few days later I went back to that email and I started visiting the recommended websites and I bought or borrowed the books and I started to see that they were correct and I was wrong.

It wasn’t a nice feeling, in fact I felt stupid and I kept my findings between me and my co-founder until I could decide what we should do with the team. In the mean time we carried on investigating as we had done before. With all the silly methods and theories, and I saw first hand how we had deluded ourselves all along.

Is suddenly became clear that it was us moving the tables and the experiences we were having were influenced by our beliefs and expactations.

That was in July 2007, and here I am today.

There is a serious problem with skeptics as a collective, and that is that some people don’t know how to behave properly when dealing with people who don’t believe the same as they do. It’s a shame because they do harm for anyone who identifies themselves as a skeptic.

I’ll round this blog post off with some comments I recieved on twitter that are food for thought. You should also read the responses on my last blog post.

Although I overreacted, the points I made still stand. Skeptics have a real image problem and sometimes I am embarrassed to be associated with certain people who refer to themselves as skeptics.

EvilEyeMonster: @hayleystevens My skepticism is a method, not a position. Even the best skeptics have to remove their hats to truly enjoy a sci-fi movie.

HelenRBrennan: @hayleystevens I read your blog. I wonder if it could be summed up as “being right is no excuse for being rude”?

endless_psych: @hayleystevens it’s a difficult trick to manage to continue to criticise or challenge someones beliefs without generating some conflict

Ben_Hardwidge: @hayleystevens Your post has just shaken some sense into me and prompted me to apologise to someone I called an idiot last night. Thanks

The skeptical community & I

The Rather Friendly Skeptic

The title of this blog is not a guarantee. I have been known to be a complete bitch at times, I can also be quite rude and abrupt. However I usually try to be nice and polite and was once described as ‘intellectually sympathetic’ regarding the way I talk about (and to) people who hold beliefs that don’t have evidence to support them.

My aim isn’t to change peoples beliefs, my aim is to use skepticism in my own life. I will discuss beliefs and topics with people who hold opposing beliefs to mine but I will not ridicule them or shove my beliefs down their throats.

Changing your beliefs is a gradual thing, for any skeptic to ridicule somebody because of what they believe is disgusting. Yet it happens and it gets justified and that makes me angry.

The Rather Friendly Skeptic

I no longer identify myself as part of the “skeptical community” or the “skeptical movement” that is so vocal on places like twitter, facebook and on various blogs and forums. This is because there are people in that “community” whose behaviour and attitudes are disgusting and if I remain part of that “community” alongside them then they are representing me.

I am a person who uses the tool of skepticism in everyday life. I am not a skeptic to be popular or cool or build my ego. I sometimes think the way people idolise some skeptics and hang on to their every word is quite farcical.

It’s also weak and pathetic. There are some ‘skeptics’ who make my flesh crawl with disgust. I would truly love to let them know what I think of them but then I know what the backlash from their followers would be like.

How scary is it that skepticism is sometimes similar to religion?

Earlier this year somebody who I regarded as a bit of a skeptical hero revealed their true colours and I was forced to regard them in a completely different way. Embarrassingly enough, prior to me finding out about certain beliefs they held that I opposed I would have supported everything they did or said.

How disgusting of me.

The Rather Friendly Skeptic

On August 20th, 21st and 22nd I was in Warminster, Wiltshire helping to set up, run and participate in the Weird ’10 paranormal & UFO conference. One thing I noticed a lot there was that people held certain views of skeptical people. Bad views that actually made me quite sad.

I regard a lot of people who were there as my friends and yet only some of them understood where I stand with my skepticism and that shocked me into realising I was going wrong somewhere.

My first love has always been paranormal research and ghost stories, yet that very community that I belong to don’t understand where I stand on the topics I love because of the misrepresentation from other skeptics they’ve had dealings with.

First and foremost I am, and I always will be, a paranormal researcher. It doesn’t bother me if my skeptical friends don’t understand that or “get it”. Often, people involved in the skeptical field see my ghost research as quirky or quite funny and yes, after I get into a discussion about it they do find it interesting but they very rarely “get it”.  I do though.

Therefor I have decided that from now on I will be focusing more on my ghost research and less on the skeptical community. Some wont understand by that because they don’t have a true understanding of what skepticism is but that is their loss.

I will still be part of the Righteous Indignation podcast and I will still blog and be around on twitter and facebook etc. but I will not partake in the circus that the skeptical community has become simply because a lot of people who call themselves skeptics are representing me and other people who also call themselves skeptics, and they’re not painting a pretty picture.

& that is that.