Ironically, Yazata wrote quite a detailed post earlier in this very thread about why he thinks you are so deceived to believe in all this. And I replied briefly to that post.
I don't recall ever saying that MR is deceived. I was expressing my own
sympathy with what I take to be MR's motivations. I share them. MR wants to believe that the universe is still capable of being wondrous, that everything hasn't already been assigned into a nice little scientistic box. So he looks to phenomena that he thinks don't fit comfortably in the boxes.
I just happen to think that he's looking in the wrong place for that mystery and wonder. I find it in the realization that the intellectual underpinnings of our whole intellectual edifice are still shaky and uncertain. Some of the little boxes don't look nearly as robust when it's realized that their justification is still controversial. (That's an even more radical challenge to scientism than MR's problem cases, if you think about it for a moment.)
In your case, it's fairly easy to see how you deceive yourself to believe in all the woo. The why is the more interesting question. To really get into that, we'd probably need to know quite a lot more about you as a person, your upbringing, your personal history, your education and so on and so forth. It would get pretty personal, and my guess is you wouldn't want to open yourself up in that way here.
I already wrote about MR's motivations in the post that you are apparently referring to.
One thing is clear: you consider it very important to your vision of yourself and your place in the universe that all the woo you believe be true, to the extent that you're completely closed to any suggestion that you consider the alternative.
What interests me just as much as MR's motivations are the motivations of those who fight him so violently. What's
their motivation? Why is it so important to them to believe that everything is safely tucked away, that everything already fits into a nice little explanatory box? Why is it so intolerable that somebody disagrees? Why doesn't everyone who disagrees with MR just say "I disagree with that" much as I did up in post #996? Why all the combat? Why is everyone so eager to silence MR, to insult him, even to burn him at the stake (ban him) for heresy?
The world no doubt will seem a less threatening place when everything is accounted for in one's world-view and all exceptions rendered impossible. People might even feel a sense of omniscience at second-hand, if they believe that they are associated with the sacred gnosis that explains everything, even if they can't understand all the reasoning and justification themselves. Certainly they will feel superior to all the outsiders (Fraggle's "retards") who don't stand within the charmed circle.
You're willing to lie to yourself lest giving truth a chance destroys your sense of your place in the world. You even call yourself "Magical Realist". This stuff is important to your self-image.
How do you know he's lying to himself? You're sneaking in your own assumption that every intelligent person will naturally agree with you. So if anyone disagrees, they must be doing it knowingly and dishonestly.
It's one thing to believe nonsense because you know no better. But you have the advantage of having been carefully tutored here in the methods that you could use to really investigate this woo for yourself. And yet you show no interest in doing so - quite the reverse, in fact. You run a mile at the merest suggestion that you do so.
I'm not prepared to accept that generally speaking, Sciforums is any position to "tutor" anyone in "methods" applicable to justification of belief. Those that might be, like Sarkus and CC perhaps, aren't among MR's enemies. All that the board's louder and more self-assured participants can do is express their own opinions on the subject.
It's especially ironic when we have post after post on the board announcing the philosophy is bullshit. (The sainted Feynman said so!)
What would "genuous" skepticism look like?
The word "genuous" is new to me. If we take the 'dis-' off 'disingenuous', wouldn't we have 'ingenuous'? (Which doesn't exactly mean the opposite of 'disingenuous'.)
I think that honest and intelligent skeptics need to stop saying that there is "no evidence" for ufos being alien vehicles. There are thousands of ufo reports, so that's just wrong. Some of them seemingly are reports of metallic objects that fly in formation with aircraft and so on, reports that certainly make it appear that some of the ufos are vehicles under intelligent control. Now obviously, all of those reports are defeasible. Perhaps thay are the result of people misinterpreting things or jumping to conclusions, or even filling out sketchy recollections with their imaginations. I lean towards thinking that way myself, but I haven't actually demonstrated it in MR's cases. And that guess of mine certainly doesn't justify saying that there is "no evidence".
What we might have here on Sciforums are people who are
unwilling to accept any evidence. People whose minds are preemptorily closed. I think that's how MR sees it.
A more charitable interpretation might be that there is '
no evidence so far that I feel convincingly justifies my believing that ufos are alien vehicles.' That's more defensible I think. It's closer to my own views. Of course it raises the question of what kind of evidence would be sufficient. (And the fact that we aren't convinced isn't an argument that ufos can't be alien vehicles either. They could be, even if nobody believes it.)
MR plays a valuable role here on Sciforums in introducing the problem cases, cases where all the easy certainties don't necessarily apply, even if nobody else wants to consider them.
None of that justifies the hostility and outright hatred with which MR's expressions of heresy are received. None of it justifies that accusations of lying and of nefarious purposes.