Mystery Solved!

I proudly tout Mystery Solved! as a comic that is both inspired by and driven by skepticism. With that in mind, I thought that you, readers, may be interested in what brought me to skepticism and why it’s important enough to me to allocate the considerable amount of time and resources necessary to produce this comic and why I have asked my friends to offer their time and talents to it. If you are not interested, then no biggie–especially as this is certainly self-indulgent to some degree or another. I certainly have my beliefs about politics, philosophy, economics and so on but skepticism is the most important issue to me because its proper application is crucial to each of our everyday lives. It gives us the necessary tools to make good decisions for ourselves and reject those things that may be harmful to us.

That’s a pretty bold assertion—at least to those who do not consider themselves skeptics or have a different definition than I. So, for the sake of clarity, allow me to define “skepticism” as I consider it. This should help keep matters clear when I talk about my journey into skepticism and give a clear context to you as a reader. Ready? Here goes:

Skepticism is the practical application of critical thinking skills, the scientific method, logic, and reasoned inquiry. It most certainly is not cynicism, which implies pessimism and contempt. A skeptic is someone who applies skepticism and may be an evangelist for skepticism along with the subcategories of science, reason, and so on. To my mind a skeptic could also be described as one whose thinking is a by-product of the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Agree or disagree with that particular definition and context all you wish, what’s important is that is the context that I am using it in here.

Now that we’re done with the formalities I offer you my journey into skepticism.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated with matters of the paranormal and Biblical stories, though I don’t know that I would have ever considered myself particularly religious. This fascination first really manifested itself when I was in the second grade and the Robert Stack hosted Unsolved Mysteries came on the air. Later I discovered shows like Mysteries of The Bible, Sightings, and re-runs of In Search Of…, and an embarrassingly long list of ghost, Nostradamus, and UFO “investigative” shows and specials. I never actually saw any of the Arthur C. Clark stuff or James Randi’s Psychic Investigator, though I did track them down as an adult.

As I was watching these shows, particularly Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings, I never actually outright believed any of the stories about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or ghosts, though I was fascinated by them. I did, however, totally buy into the stories about UFOs and was more than a little intrigued by the religious miracles and prophecy about the future. What can I say? I was a kid and those were things that I wanted to be true.

I wanted there to be alien visitors who could reveal the future to us and prove the religions of the world to be correct and their magic true.

For as much as that is what I really wanted, there was always something nagging me at the back of my head. My memory’s not good enough to tell you exactly what those persistent thoughts were, but suffice to say they were doubts. Doubts that sort of gradually began to eat away at most of my beliefs about the paranormal (except for the religious ones) and encouraged me to side with and be more interested by the bits of token skepticism and actual science that popped in all of those paranormally driven programs that I spent so much time watching.

But even as I began to grow and become a slightly more critical thinker in my early teens I still wanted to believe and held on tightly to trivial superstitions, like only using certain video game controllers or having a lucky this or that. I also held on to some very non-trivial superstitions, like those associated with religion.

As a brief aside, earlier I had noted that I never considered myself particularly religious. That is certainly true in that I never had a desire to be a part of any organized religion. I frequently, and openly, questioned its necessity as a child and resisted going to church at all costs—both because I would rather stay home and play and because I didn’t see the point of it all if one worshiped at home, or was strong enough in their faith. However, I did firmly believe in prayer and the power and truth of prophecy in the Bible—essentially those things that were hammered on over and over again in my beloved paranormal TV shows.

I make no apologies for this period in my youth, that’s simply how I thought then. It just so happens that I was incorrect and naïve in my thinking at the time.

It was when I was 15 (possibly 16) that I finally had a revelation, so to speak, and began applying all of those nagging questions that I had been passively pushing away and ignoring. Unironically enough, it happened on, and was the direct result of, an occasion where my mom had made me go to church and attend the church’s after mass youth group class.

To be continued…