Welcome to Utah Skeptic!

My life has undergone a transformation. A year ago today I was at the end of my rope. I felt like a failure that was never meant to accomplish anything in life. I finally came to the realization that I had to change. I come from a place of anti-social self-deprecating behavior that turned me into a miserable person. I trashed blogs that I wrote during that time period because they were petty attacks at the world, which were secretly petty attacks at myself. Today I have come full circle. I have turned a video game addiction into a love for business. I own three businesses, something I never thought would be possible, and they are rapidly growing. My lifestyle has completely changed and so have my beliefs about the world.

Setting aside for a moment, all those amazing changes I've made in my life, there is one side of me that I've never been able to express. I stumbled upon a podcast called "The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe" and I found myself completely at home. This podcast's cast consists of doctors, scientists, and logical thinkers alike.........dare I state the obvious, skeptics. Until I discovered this podcast I had no clue that there were more people who thought the same way I did. There is an entire skeptical community! I don't know that the word skeptic 100% represents my frame of mind, but with the social world the way it is today I suppose someone like myself would have to be labeled "skeptical".

The hosts of the podcast discuss relevant topics and philosophies for nearly two hours every week. They come from a place of logic, reason, fact, and follow the scientific method for everything they do. These people are SMART! My entire life I have felt like the people around me were half awake. A lot of that was myself trying to make excuses for why I couldn't get anywhere in life, but even now there is a part of me that is saddened by the superstitious beliefs that whole communities share in! As the title of this blog suggests, I live in Utah. I've always felt out of place here. Since I turned my life around it doesn't bother me so much anymore. I feel that for the first time in my life I can think logically about these things instead of letting it anger me. A truly happy person cannot be easily affected by the actions of those around him/her and that is what I'm trying to be. So instead I aim to enlighten. I aim to show the world that there is one Utahn that has hope for humanity's future, and isn't going to wait for everyone's deity, be it a god or some other out-worldly manifestation to show them the way.

I have never been religious. I am sure that comes from my parent's, who also weren't very religious. When I was young my dad's job brought him to this state and it has been my home ever since. It is a beautiful state with plenty of things to do, but the dominant religion here, as most of you know, is Mormonism. To this day Mormonism rubs me the wrong way, but I'm not just going to run to the other side of the spectrum and just do a bunch of Mormon bashing; all that accomplishes is creating two polar opposite factions, neither of which has anything intelligent to say. I intend to be very blunt in this blog and I can't stand trying to be politically correct. I feel like an accomplished enough writer that I can convey a point and provide a decent context for that point so that it cannot be easily misunderstood. I warn you, if you have opposing thoughts on anything I discuss here and you cannot convey them intelligently and maturely, leave now. I will not apologize for anything I say unless I truly feel that I misrepresented my point. The goal here is not to offend anyone, but I'm not going to beat around the bush either. If you are easily offended, save yourself the trouble and stop reading right here.

I can sum up my entire goal here by preemptively making a counter argument against the one point most people are going to use against me going forward. Many of you that disagree with things I say are going to use this line....."Live and let live, what others believe doesn't affect you or anyone else. Who does it hurt if they have a different belief than you do?" Let me first start by saying that I am a huge proponent of live and let live. If it's truly not affecting anyone else, fine. However, most of the things that bother me do indeed affect others. The superstitious and religious beliefs that get intertwined into our daily lives and spread through society end in all sorts of disasters.

There are two levels by which the "social norm" of today affects other people. The first way I'll call "direct effect". This is when the actions of one person directly affect another, or others. Things like the anti-vaccinationist movement are an example of direct effect. Superstitious conspiracy-mongers believe that vaccinations are a government conspiracy or that they will cause the very disease they are trying to prevent. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and the science on vaccines is impeccable. The effectiveness of a vaccine at preventing disease is fact that cannot be disputed, yet I never cease to be amazed at how much play the anti-vaccinationists get.

I had a guy tell me that he didn't vaccinate his kids for polio last year because there were 8 cases of polio in the US and 7 of them were caused by the vaccinations themselves. This is a classic case of gobbling up the media version of a statistic that is completely misread and often taken completely out of context. The statistic he used actually disproves his point. He used the statistic to say that there were 7 cases of polio caused by the vaccine so obviously the vaccine can cause the disease. In fact the statistic shows that there were ONLY 8 CASES of polio in the entire United States last year. Polio is a highly contagious disease. Something is putting a stop to it and a guarantee it's not doing nothing. Taken at face value his theory is already debunked, however, you can be sure there was even more to that statistic. I would be willing to bet that at least 6 of those 7 vaccinated kids (if not all 7) had some underlying condition that made them susceptible to the disease; and all that's if the statistic is even true in the first place. The media always leaves out those parts of statistics. I will discuss more on this in another blog, I have very strong feelings about what anti-vaccinationists are doing to the world. They rely on "herd immunity" wherein they don't get sick simply because the rest of the "herd" is vaccinated already. Just remember, the media can make statistics say whatever they want. Find out the facts first, and find them out from several different sources before you settle.

The second level by which people are affected by believing crazy things that have no basis in fact is "indirect effect". An example of indirect effect is organic food. Organically grown food, meaning no pesticides or other chemicals used to keep the food clean or preserved during growth, is a huge myth. Organic food is a highly successful marketing ploy that tricks thousands of people into buying a specific product because it was "organically grown". Studies have shown organically grown food to be no more nutritious or less harmful than food prepared in the traditional fasion. I will list references in future blogs, but this is just a quick example. This belief does no immediate harm to any one person, but as a whole it perpetuates a state of public illiteracy on that subject and much more.

Even some of the most educated individuals can be fooled when the media reports on things that are in no way based on fact or logical reasoning. That stuff is in front of us everywhere we go and it should stop. In my opinion, the media should be obligated to do more extensive fact checking. The problem though, is that the media is ratings driven. If it gets good ratings then they air it. The other problem is that there are so called scientists and doctors that have a PHD in their field but push nonsensical theories. Each person's motives are different. Some of them are trying to sell a product, others can't accept the fact that one of their theories were wrong, etc. The media gets a hold of these "experts" and they serve only to further confuse the masses.

People being allowed to believe things that are complete fabrications only leads them to believe in other things that are total bunk that have direct effect on other people. For instance, an organic food person might transition from food into medacine and buy into the natural cures myth that saturates the media. They take these homeopathic remedies and run with them. Pretty soon we have stories about people that refuse to get medical treatment for an easily curable disease and die because they think their natural remedies will save them and that modern medicine is a conspiracy. I have often heard the medicine of today called "westernized medicine". I loathe that term because it suggests that modern medicine is but one alternative and there is another way. There is no other way. Leave the science to the scientists. Don't believe the junk people tell you about natural remedies and 101 cures the government doesn't want you to know about. If you really believe that the government wants people to die from cancer just so they can make a pretty penny then you need some help. Besides, if the government is so good at cheating us out of our money then why do we have such huge national debt? Homeopathy among other things sounds great. It sounds like a miracle come true. Homeopathy is nothing more than diluting real medicine to the point where it is no longer effective. More on Homeopathy in another blog, but suffice it to say that even the most harmless superstitions have real consequences.

Now you know what this blog is all about. I look forward to expressing my opinions in future posts. I plan to talk more about what it's like to be a thinking person among an entire state of "true believers".

- Alex