Reply #248: There seems to be a conflation of 2 separate things on the believers' part

[BlooInBloo]

(1) Withholding assent from truthout's claims, and

(2) Dissenting from truthout's claims.


As clearly as I can muster: withholding assent IS NOT THE SAME THING as dissenting.
They aren't the same.
They aren't the same.
They aren't the same.

Your phrase "will always assume the worst..." appears to be directed at someone who DISSENTS. But the dissenters seem to me to be but a small portion of the skeptics.

The vast majority of the skeptics, imo, are made up of those who are (merely) withholding assent - presumably, like myself, because of the lack of publically verifiable evidence.

We believe ill of NO ONE. We believe that intellectual honesty REQUIRES that we withhold assent until evidence is presented. It has NOTHING to do with "believing the worst, nastiest thing" of ANYONE. No matter how much you try to paint it that way.

There do exist reporters whose word I would accept without verifiable evidence - Hersch and Waas come to mind. So I'm not against the very *concept* of evidence-free assent. It's just that FOR ME, the author of the truthout article isn't one of those writers. Maybe he will be someday, maybe not. But that's not an insult to the writer - 99.9999% of writers don't get that kind of "carte blanche" from me.