Okay, I keep finding worthwhile things to comment on in this skepticism essay. This one shows an essential element of why people who call themselves “skeptics” generally piss me off.

Skepticism does not mean dismissing everything as impossible or fantastic, it means disbelieving anything until sufficient proof of it has been presented. The important things about being skeptical are therefore understanding rational argument and understanding fallacious and fraudulent argument. … We purposely disbelieve everything until we are convinced.

Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. … Prejudice causes error and injustice.

The thing that gets me here is he spends all kinds of time in this essay talking about logical arguments, and rational thought, but then refuses to see illogical arguments which underly his own thinking. In the above passage, the author flatly states that prejudice is making judgements without having considered the facts. But just before that, he says that what skeptics do is to disbelieve everything categorically until it is proven true with facts. So essentially, he is admitting that skeptics are prejudiced, because they make (negative) judgements before looking at any of the facts.