Skeptic in a family of believers.

[Stupot]

Bit of background:

In one sense, I was quite lucky growing up. Mum never forced us to go to Church, and despite calling herself a Christian whenever the subject came up, my sisters and I always had complete free reign over our own beliefs.

I dabbled in things religious and spiritual as a kid but ultimately logic prevailed and [with a little help from Dana Scully] I became a firm skeptic. These days, anything remotely spiritual, while I might find the subject fascinating, basically ends up on the ‘nope' heap.

I'm a twin (not identical, luckily for my sister), so of course the inevitable question we always get is “oooh, do you have a psychic connection?” The answer is no. That's not to say there haven't been a number of very convincing coincidences over the years (like the time my sister got an unexplained pain in her ankle and we worked out it was the exact time I had fallen off a fence and twisted my own ankle).

Some more background:

My twin sister is convinced she is psychic. Not just about the twin stuff but about loads of things. She recently had a dream about an Angus breed of dog and then a few days later our cousin (whose surname was Angus) died. That is an admittedly weirdly specific detail for a dream, but to her it's proof.

My younger sister doesn't go as far as claiming to be psychic. But she does love crystals and reiki and weird energies coming out of nowhere.

My mum believes some really odd things. She's convinced herself that little robins who come to say hello in winter are actually her mother and father coming to visit her. She thinks they come to her in other ways too.

My aunt also claims to be frequently visited by my nan and grandad. But she full-on sees their full-body apparitions. And my mum just unquestioningly believes her.

Now:
I went back to the UK the other week. It was great to catch up with my family (who I absolutely love and miss every day, by the way). The first thing they did was tell me about my sister's Angus dream. Like, it seemed important to them that I heard this story.

Another thing you should know us that my wife and I are expecting a baby boy in November. My mum and I were talking in the kitchen and suddenly she started talking about my [late] grandad. She told me that he's going to want to meet my boy and that I should look for signs and be open to the possibility that he might visit me. It was clearly something she had been wanting to say to me. She knows I don't believe that stuff and I think she's a little upset that I don't.

I said the truth, I'll be open to everything, I always am (Thank's Mulder), but I instinctively analyze everything through a logical, grounded lens.

I went to the toilet and while I was in there I heard my mum and sister talking. Mum explained that she had tried to talk to me and get me to ‘be more open' and it seemed like something they had been talking about before I came. Almost like they were trying to stage an intervention on me for my addiction to being reasonable.

It was the first time in my memory that mum had ever made a conscious effort to change my belief system (or lack thereof). It felt weird. I'm not the sort of guy to get into an argument and fall out with his family over this kind of stuff. What's the point in arguing about it?

But one thing happened on my last day with my sisters. We were in Worthing. We walked across this bit of green. My sister points out a white feather. “See, it's a sign. I think it's Iain (Angus, the cousin who died)” I had to point out to her that there were quite a lot of white feathers. You see, Worthing is what you might call a seaside town. There are a lot of seagulls. I had to say to my sister. Not every white feather is a sign from heaven. Sometimes, you're just in a town with a lot of seagulls.

Is this what my mum means by being ‘open'? Rejecting the most obvious explanation in favour of the exact least obvious, just because it would be nice to think that grandad is watching? It doesn't make any sense.

Part of me wants to sit them down and teach them a few basic fundamental facts like “That isn't even the same fucking Robin as yesterday. Nan can't be in both of them” and “seagulls molt” and “by the way, that psychic you visit predicted I was going to have a girl in 2016 and instead I'm having a boy in 2019. They are charlatans!”

But the other part of me knows that they have been through a lot of shit over the years (our whole family has) and this kind of thing is clearly what brings them comfort, so I'd be a jackass to try and change their thinking. But that's why I was so put out by my mum trying to change my thinking.

The point
Not sure really. Just felt like getting that off my chest.
Do you have any similar stories or situations with your own families? Have you fallen out over it?

Let's keep it purely about spiritual/psychic things. I don't really want to get into religion or politics.

[fernewelten]

Perhaps facts might not be at the core of the matter. After all, facts are either true or untrue irrespective of whether you believe them or not. So if your crowd needs to make you “believe in” some fact, e.g., that the earth is flat or ball-shaped, then perhaps it might be less about the fact of the earth shape and more about sharing a belief. If that is so, then getting to the truth of the facts probably won't resolve the situation.

I've read somewhere about elderly somnambulants waking up in the middle of the night and being caught in some fiction that seems very real to them. For instance, they wander through all the rooms and open all the cupboards looking for their husband that had died years ago. The recommendation in that article was that one shouldn't put the focus on the wrong fact  â€" “Look Mum, your husband has been dead for a decade now!” â€" but on the impeccable intent â€" “It's very nice that you're still attached to your husband and thinking so much about him; and I'm sure that he would love to still share his life with you if he was still there. But I'm afraid he died in April 2009.”

The circumstances aren't quite the same, but that might be a way for you and your crowd to relate, too. After all, their intents are not in question: It's very nice that they want all the best for their grandchildren and that they want to keep their best remembrances of Grandpa alive in their memories. So you needn't really focus on whether he might be sending messages through the bodies of doves flying by. You and your crowd might be able to relate on the intent and then agree to differ on the facts.

Good luck, and you know, this might be the first inkling for a great novel  , or even adventure game! 

[Khris]

If you don't want to be confrontational, just politely change the subject whenever they start talking about this. In my experience it is absolutely impossible to reason people out of beliefs like that, because they are irrational by definition. Nothing rational you will ever say to them will change their minds, ever. You can only reach actually curious fence-sitters. Never true believers.

Whenever I've heard about how somebody actually stopped believing supernatural nonsense, it was always either their own curiosity, followed by them actually questioning their own beliefs, or it was them watching other people having a discussion, and seeing how their own side's arguments don't hold any water, but from a distance that didn't cause them to go on the defensive. I'd wager that never in the history of humanity has a "skeptic" ever directly talked a believer out of their belief. Believers in the supernatural are capable of amazing mental gymnastics, and it will only ever end in frustration and anger.

If they don't respect your stance and keep trying to "convert" you, politely change the subject to your own beliefs, namely flat earth.

[Mandle]

I have a similar scenario going on with a long time friend that I love and always want to be a part of my life.

The problem is that she believes she was placed in a special program, while she was in army basic training, to develop Psychic Soldiers.

While the rest of us, her friends and family, know that she had a nervous breakdown due to the stresses of army training and was discharged and placed in a mental care clinic, she believes that this clinic was the training facility for her powers.

I saw her a year or so after she had been released and was on medication and under regular therapy sessions and she looked me in the eye and told me she understood it had all been a fantasy. I believed her and still believe that she also fully believed so at the time.

Now, about ten years later, she has seriously regressed. Not only does she believe in her delusions again but, when I questioned her about her confession that it had all been a fantasy, she told me "I only said that so you wouldn't think I'm crazy."

I asked her, in detail, what her "training" had involved and what her "powers" might be, but she only got angrier and angrier the more her story fell apart under scrutiny.

Eventually she rage-quit the conversation claiming that speaking about it further might get me assassinated as well as her.

Currently she is writing a whistle-blower book about the entire thing in which L. Ron Hubbard met with Aleister Crowley, who taught Hubbard the rituals needed to contact certain forces and obtain the wisdom he then passed on through his writings.

Earlier, it seems, a secret task-force of Nazi Vril Society members infiltrated outback Australia during WW2 and made contact with an Aboriginal named Elea Namatjira, a famous painter, and learned from him the rituals needed to unlock powers that could make one a literal God on earth.

These teachings were all absorbed into the army's Psychic Soldier program which she unwillingly partook in.

Now, I think this whole story is marvelous and I kind of envy someone who lives their life in such an amazing world like they are on a permanent vacation in Total Recall.

But I worry about what might happen if this all goes too far and causes physical harm to herself or some innocent person she views as a threat.

She currently believes that the powers that grudgingly allow her her normal life will have her assassinated before they will ever allow her tell-all book to see the light of day.

I'm worried now if this whole thing is approaching some vital crunch-time where she must play out the fantasy to the full before the book is finished and that people could get hurt.

My instincts tell me not to over-react and that she is a good, kind, and non-violent person and that nothing bad is likely to happen.

I thought of meeting with her parents and bringing up my concerns but that seemed to me like a sleazy thing to do behind a friend's back.

For now I think I will just leave it be unless things seem to be escalating.

I hope that's the right decision.

[Snarky]

I agree with Khris that you're not going to get anywhere with rational arguments, and I think fernewelt's proposal for looking to the feeling and intent behind the beliefs and finding common ground rather than arguing over facts is a good one. I have some relatives who, while otherwise quite brilliant, have certain… eccentric beliefs, and I'll try to follow the advice myself. (Not that it's something I've had to discuss much with them up to now.)

“That isn't even the same fucking Robin as yesterday. Nan can't be in both of them”

Why not? If a ghost can inhabit one robin (which presumably was conceived and hatched like any other bird), why could it not inhabit some other robin on another day?

I mean, I agree with you that I don't think that those birds are in any literal way your grandparents, but it seems to me that it's not really about the mundane "fact," but more a matter of viewing the world numinously: as something filled with signs and wonders to awaken us to or remind us of certain truths. To take the robins as a sign of your grandparents' ongoing existence and love only requires a subjective decision to interpret them as such.

Gene Wolfe, a devout Catholic with a number of eccentric beliefs of his own, ended his Book of the New Sun with a lovely passage expressing this worldview (spoilers within):

Spoiler

If the Eternal Principle had rested in that curved thorn I had carried about my neck across so many leagues,
and if it now rested in the new thorn (perhaps the same thorn) I had only now put there, then it might rest in
anything, and in fact probably did rest in everything, in every thorn on every bush, in every drop of water in
the sea. The thorn was a sacred Claw because all thorns were sacred Claws; the sand in my boots was sacred
sand because it came from a beach of sacred sand. The cenobites treasured up the relics of the sannyasins
because the sannyasins had approached the Pancreator. But everything had approached and even touched
the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a
relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not
walk shod on holy ground.

[close]

I don't find it possible to actually believe this myself, but as Hemingway wrote, “Isn't it pretty to think so?”

[Danvzare]

I know exactly what you mean. My family are a little more eccentric with it though.
There's my dad, who doesn't believe in any religion, but does believe there's a "creator" of some kind.
There's my sister, who believes in anything related to pagans (although she doesn't mention it much nowadays).
There's my brother (who admittedly is 10), who believes in everything.
And then there's my mother, who had a mental breakdown a few years ago, and hid behind religion and Christianity to avoid getting help (she claimed she was hearing the voice of a demonic ghost who was claiming to be Jesus Christ). All this despite not believing in Christianity before the breakdown (like my sister, she was into the pagan stuff). She's a lot better now thankfully. (It took her nearly killing herself to finally receive some help.)
And then of course there's all of my extended family, who are all religious in someway. My grandmother and my aunts (on my dad's side) are Jehovah Witnesses for example.

And then there's me. Who has witnessed all of this. I used to consider myself very open minded, but now... I'm a 100% pure skeptic.
But the thing is, I'm a skeptic who wants to believe there's something more to life than what meets the eye, even though I know without a single shred of doubt, there isn't anything more.
I've noticed a similarity between region, tarot, astrology, ghosts, ect. And I just can't unsee it. But I never preach about how others are wrong, because quite simply, some people need to believe in something to get through the day.

Thankfully, except for that thing that happened with my mother, none of us have ever butted heads. If anything, we've all either had quite meaningful discussions, or avoid the topic entirely, as there's no reason to bring it up.

[Khris]

I know without a single shred of doubt, there isn't anything more.

That's not really something a skeptic would say, especially not a 100% pure one (i.e. one who questions everything). That's something only a fundamentalist would say.

[Danvzare]

I know without a single shred of doubt, there isn't anything more.

That's not really something a skeptic would say, especially not a 100% pure one (i.e. one who questions everything). That's something only a fundamentalist would say.

Looking up fundamentalist, I only get results for people who unquestionably believe in their religion.
I unquestionably believe in nothing. So I understand your point. Skeptics question, they don't believe. Thanks for that correction.

Clearly my definition of skeptic was wrong. 

[cat]

@Danvzare OT: I really like your open-mindedness. That's also what I like about your webcomics (the political and society topics, I'm not that much into the games you reference)

[Jack]

[Stupot]

Thanks for the responses so far. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely still get along with my family and we've never clashed over these differences. As Fernewelten suggests I don't really argue against their wacky claims. They already know I don't believe any of that stuff and it's probably a source of some frustration for them as it is without me doubling down with detailed description of how cold-reading works.

It's also, I suspect, partly because I live abroad. They have all this time together to egg each other on and share coincidences and talk about them as if they are signs from heaven without really questioning what they're saying. So I think Snarky had a point that they're probably just simply trying to include me in sharing some of the things they see about the world. (And it's surely no coincidence that they all smoke a certain type of plant, which I don't.)

Mandle, your story is fascinating but also heartbreaking. And quite scary too because that kind of thing can happen to any of us for any reason. The human mind is so fragile. I hope your friend gets the book finished, and better yet, published, without any drama. If so I will buy a copy.