| Message | skep⋅tic [skep-tik] –noun 1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. 2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others. 3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, esp. Christianity, or of important elements of it. 4. (initial capital letter) Philosophy. a. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible. b. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind.
cyn⋅ic [sin-ik] –noun 1. a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view. 2. (initial capital letter) one of a sect of Greek philosophers, 4th century b.c., who advocated the doctrines that virtue is the only good, that the essence of virtue is self-control, and that surrender to any external influence is beneath human dignity. 3. a person who shows or expresses a bitterly or sneeringly cynical attitude.
Most skeptics like Randi et al are actually cynics. Which one are you? |