As to belief, I'm the worst of both worlds. A skeptic with a healthy dose of cynicism on the side. I use the three "C"s a lot. And watch out for the fourth "C" - Complexity. Just because its complex, doesn't means its any less BS. Just because its wrapped in the superficial trappings of the scientific method, with lots of numbers to back it up, doesn't necessarily make it so.

I find it funny that people who believe in things for which there is no objective or verifable proof, (The "I believe because I Know" arguement) label skeptics as not being "open minded". Skeptics (or sceptics, The QED is clearly THE souuce. And I hear its going/is on-line)IMHO, are fairly open minded. We just have a criteria we apply to the world. That criteria demands some proof, a semblance of consistancy and congruency with other demonstated facts. I liked the illustration about the easter bunny and easter eggs. I "know" the Easter Bunny brought my eggs, no matter what happened to the rest of the world. Or that any of the various can rise ologies, isms or the like are as valid as the Theory of Special Relativity.

As I see it, reductio ad absurdum, if you provided proof, in the form of varifiable experiments, comprehensive theory and so on, that the Special Theory is wrong, then I'd accept that. If I Provide the same level of proof to demonstate that astrology doesn't even rise to the level of certaintity of systems that pick winning lotto numbers the likely response is "yes but..... And somehow skeptics are closed minded? The mistake is that being a skeptic is a way of looking at the world, rather than a way to categorize it.

It is not the belief itself, so much as the underlying assumption that annecdotal evidence, fuzzy logic and the like, make it so. It teaches that facts are coequal with opinion-disguised-as-fact. Retreating into the "we just don't know enough yet" begs the question. The question should be, "what do we need to do to find the answers?

I don't think people who are enamoured of astrology, alien abduction, christianity, tarot,and the like, also believe in eugenics, racial purity/superiority or the dark side of pseudoscience. I do maintain that the type of thinking that allows either is similar in kind.