An Anatomy of Skepticism

Every thoughtful person must ask, "What do I know?" The two most explosive fields, religion and politics, are notably filled with strident and conflicting claims. Close analysis in clear language reveals that no one knows what he or she is talking about. Because of the challenge of unexamined assumptions, of unclear cause-and-effect relationships, and of the rarity of reliable sources, a person who wants to be open-minded cannot avoid adopting skepticism as the least embarrassing philosophy. Some discoveries made in this book:

*Reason appears to prove nothing

*Intuition is probably a delusion

*Facts are slippery

*Religious people yearn for suicide

*Why socialism cannot work

*Where conservatives screwed up badly (as they admit)

*The equation STAR+2R+R3=GPS explains the cultural history of the world

*Shakespeare was a skeptic

*Dante's curious insight into love

*Passing the Magic Johnson test

*Tom De Lay does not realize that relativism is as American as apple pie

*Hamlet, who never existed, is more real than you or I.

Here is a sample observation: "People believe in God because the Bible tells all about him, and they believe in the Bible because God wrote or inspired it. This is a classic case of the Fallacy of Circular Reasoning."