What makes a "Skeptic" different than a "Believer"

[Kitsune]

I will likely trip on my own tongue in this because this is extremely hard to word well. I touched this a bit on another thread but decided to make a new thread and put it in SLAM

What makes a skeptic different than a non-skeptic.
I know many believers who have gotten far better grades in school, much more complete education, and are generally are more successful as far as their income than I have been.

Is there anything which people have seen which separates skeptics from believers?

My classic example, which I posted on another thread, is my niece. She was always a straight "A" student. From what I understand, not just an "A" student but high end "A" grades. In comparison, I was a low "B" average student. Stories I have been told is that even as a little girl, she was a perfectionist about tying her shoes properly.

Sometime in her life, maybe around ten years, she decided to become a Mormon. She seemed to have become a true believer accepting the bible and the book Mormon (I guess somehow dancing around the various contradictions.) Later in life, she went to BYU which the school seem to program her to marry and produce multiple children. To be honest, I feel in spite of her education, which is much greater than mine, she failed in life because she in the end became not much more than a baby factory.

If I completely flubbed trying to ask this, I am sorry.....

[Stark]

If you're trying to ask why people who believe in something dumb can get good grades, you're an idiot. Famous astrophysicists believe in god. Doing well in school is a result of work or discipline, not critical thinking. Believing in something stupid doesn't make you unable to do algebra.

The amusing anecdote of someone who was driven by xyz to work hard in school but then made terrible life decisions later is so commonplace that it's hardly worth commenting on. Turns out being good at maths or science doesn't mean you don't make bad decisions.

[Starglider]

Religious belief boils down to a broken axiom getting stuck in your reasoning system somehow. There are various ways this can happen, some of which impact normal reasoning (e.g. chronic wishful thinking) and some of which don't. The ability to question your axioms, ask why you mind is structured the way it is and reject any crap that's worked its way in there is a rather specialised one - most people don't have it and get by ok without it. This comes up in AI discussion surprisingly often; general AI is actually the only field I know of where religious belief (or at least the mindset that supports it) is a serious, direct handicap (and even there, you wouldn't notice if you stick to 'emergent' techniques').

[Zixinus]

What makes a skeptic different than a non-skeptic.

What makes a fanatic different from a non-fanatic?

"Non-fanatic" is too wide definition. Same for you.

Or if you are asking for a definition of sceptic: a person that is doubtful of any claim not supported by empirical evidence and/or rational reasoning.

Because that's what the word means. "Sceptic"="Doubtful". Or so I was told.

There are many types of sceptic and the above is merely the definition you are aiming for.

My classic example, which I posted on another thread, is my niece. She was always a straight "A" student. From what I understand, not just an "A" student but high end "A" grades. In comparison, I was a low "B" average student. Stories I have been told is that even as a little girl, she was a perfectionist about tying her shoes properly.

Sometime in her life, maybe around ten years, she decided to become a Mormon. She seemed to have become a true believer accepting the bible and the book Mormon (I guess somehow dancing around the various contradictions.) Later in life, she went to BYU which the school seem to program her to marry and produce multiple children. To be honest, I feel in spite of her education, which is much greater than mine, she failed in life because she in the end became not much more than a baby factory.

You assume that school she went trough developed and tested rational reasoning in her. That may not be a case, depending on the type of school, country and educational system.

Some schools, like mine, focus on repetition. Keeping my rant short, the idea is that if the student can parrot what's written in the textbook or more commonly, what the teacher told, that equals to knowing the lesson.

Of course, if you ask the student to utilise that knowledge, that's a different story.

Also consider that dedication can substitute smarts on some level, especially high-school level. If you try and try hard enough, even ask for help and generally obsessive about getting a high mark, then you can get an A+ while the mathametist to-be gets a B or C because he was too lazy to prepare or was staring at some pretty girl or something.

[Darth Wong]

What makes a skeptic different than a non-skeptic.

I presume you're speaking of innate tendencies and abilities, in which case the answer is "nothing". Skeptics and believers are probably more differentiated by their educational and child-rearing background than their innate abilities.

I know many believers who have gotten far better grades in school, much more complete education, and are generally are more successful as far as their income than I have been.

On the larger scale, the most religious parts of the country tend to be the least advanced and prosperous, and the same applies on a global scale. Your particular sample must be non-representative.

Is there anything which people have seen which separates skeptics from believers?

It's not that important whether you call yourself a "skeptic" or a "believer". What's important is why you are skeptical (or not) about a specific idea. The broad categorization of "skeptic" is pretty much useless; a lot of religious fanatics are "skeptics" about global warming, for example.

Even if we assume that we're talking solely about religious beliefs, it is more important why one believes than whether he believes. A guy who believes in God only because he's never given the matter any serious thought is a lot different from one who will argue Sola Scriptura with you until he's blue in the face. An atheist who rejects God because he doesn't like his local churchgoing crowd is a lot different from one who knows what an "ontological proof" is and why it's flawed.

My classic example, which I posted on another thread, is my niece. She was always a straight "A" student. From what I understand, not just an "A" student but high end "A" grades. In comparison, I was a low "B" average student. Stories I have been told is that even as a little girl, she was a perfectionist about tying her shoes properly.

Sometime in her life, maybe around ten years, she decided to become a Mormon. She seemed to have become a true believer accepting the bible and the book Mormon (I guess somehow dancing around the various contradictions.) Later in life, she went to BYU which the school seem to program her to marry and produce multiple children. To be honest, I feel in spite of her education, which is much greater than mine, she failed in life because she in the end became not much more than a baby factory.

"Failure" is a concept which cannot be evaluated without reference to goals. If her goal was to become a baby factory, then she is not a failure. And contrary to popular belief, it is not necessarily brainwashing that makes girls want to become baby factories: they are genetically programmed that way. Having said that, one could argue that people like this are bad for society, but that's not the same thing as being a failure. One could say that an investment banker who made a hundred million dollars by playing the system and then got out of the business with a huge bonus from TARP money is a huge success, but he's also a douchebag who represents some of the worst aspects of his society.

[Kitsune]

In this case, I am mostly talking about religious skepticism than any other area although a basic skepticism in the whole supernatural area. I was not always such a skeptic either.

Well, when I was thirteen, I was confirmed Lutheran and I did believe in God and Jesus but always had problems with some rules. In my twenties, I tried various religious beliefs although they never really work. It was probably more wishful thinking than anything else to be honest.

In truth, my parents were probably quite poor as far as being parents. Something I do kind of wonder, for example, is if I had gone to church since a little kid, would I be in a Jesus trap, stuck believing in what the church told me.

What you state about success or not being a success has some value but somewhere you get those values. You have to decide that in order to be a success you need to have many children.

BYU (Brigham Young University), which I mentioned in my earlier, according to a Mormon I used to know, is nicknamed by Mormons themselves "Breed them Young" University and there seems to be an active effort in the University along those lines. Utah does have the highest birth rate by population of any state.

[Darth Wong]

BYU (Brigham Young University), which I mentioned in my earlier, according to a Mormon I used to know, is nicknamed by Mormons themselves "Breed them Young" University and there seems to be an active effort in the University along those lines. Utah does have the highest birth rate by population of any state.

People may be overestimating the effect of the BY indoctrination. If you're in a culture where all of your peer group has lots of kids, you will feel pressure to have lots of kids, even without any kind of formal indoctrination at all. By the time you get to university, you've already internalized a shitload of cultural programming. You already have an idea of what a happy family is, and a (perhaps subconscious) idea of what you think yours should look like someday, if you visualize yourself in one at all.

[Feil]

The difference between a skeptic and a nonskeptic is that the former has a bullshit detector that works, while the latter has one that works intermittently at best. The difference between a smart skeptic and a stupid skeptic (or a sophist) is that the latter's bullshit threshold is too low. The difference between a religious skeptic and a religious believer is that the skeptic applies his bullshit detector to religion.

Other, implied questions have been covered handily by other posters.

[Kanastrous]

When you place an appealing proposition before a skeptic, he asks for supporting and contrary evidence before he'll believe it.

When you place an appealing proposition before a believer, he'll choose to believe it - if the appeal is sufficient - whether there is supporting or contrary evidence, or not.

[Mayabird]

BYU (Brigham Young University), which I mentioned in my earlier, according to a Mormon I used to know, is nicknamed by Mormons themselves "Breed them Young" University and there seems to be an active effort in the University along those lines. Utah does have the highest birth rate by population of any state.

People may be overestimating the effect of the BY indoctrination. If you're in a culture where all of your peer group has lots of kids, you will feel pressure to have lots of kids, even without any kind of formal indoctrination at all. By the time you get to university, you've already internalized a shitload of cultural programming. You already have an idea of what a happy family is, and a (perhaps subconscious) idea of what you think yours should look like someday, if you visualize yourself in one at all.

The Mormon brainwashing and cultural indoctrination starts the moment the baby pops out, not in college. The environment of the university follows that of the culture of the people who founded it, run it, and go to it. The males aren't even supposed to start college until after their two years of getting doors slammed in their faces, and they're already supposed to be married when they're doing that.