Perhaps if I outline my view of how scepticism works in this kind of situation, it may help explain the sceptical point of view...
There are all different kinds of sceptics - they are just people, and they vary in their approach and opinions. What they have in common is that they have decided they will apply the criteria of scientific method to phenomena that are not already clearly part of known science - i.e. that have not already been validated by the criteria of science (btw validation or proof in science is always provisional).
In evaluating a claim, quality of evidence is crucial - the quantity of information only tells you there is a lot of something going on, not what it may be. Only good quality evidence can tell you what is going on, and without a well controlled experiment, good quality evidence is extremely rare.
Unfortunately, unless they are running a scientific experiment themselves, they are trying to evaluate information provided by a third party, usually anecdotal, which has not been obtained under controlled conditions. As we know, anecdotal information can be extremely unreliable, and the more we discover about how the brain perceives the world, how memory works, and how anecdotes are communicated, the more we understand why this is so. As the great physicist Richard Feynman said, "Science is about not fooling yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool".
So it is necessary to be extremely careful when evaluating such information, and to try to gather as much first-hand detail and corroboration for it as possible. This insistence on detail and corroboration can be annoying to the provider, but is necessary - as in medicine, you want as much good information as possible before making a diagnosis.
Science is the study of the natural world, and the question that is asked is 'Given what we already know about the natural world (i.e. current scientific knowledge), what is the most plausible explanation for the this information or evidence?' At this point, the sceptic must try to assemble possible explanations and evaluate them.
Now plausibility is subjective, it's a judgement call, but there are guidelines and rules-of-thumb to help with the judgement. Chief of these is that an explanation should not contradict established scientific laws - for example, a claim of a true perpetual motion machine would contradict the First Law of Thermodynamics, which is a foundation stone of physics and has never yet been found to be wrong - so almost any other reasonable explanation will be more plausible. Other guidelines include questioning whether there is a plausible mechanism - i.e. do we know of something that could produce such an effect in those circumstances? Also, Occam's Razor - prefer the simplest explanation, and, of course, experience - i.e. is the information sufficiently similar to that encountered in other evaluations that we can use what we learned previously.
So where the information is detailed enough to make a judgement, and an explanation doesn't apparently contradict basic physical laws, has a plausible scientific mechanism, matches previous experience, and, all else being roughly equal, is simpler than other explanations - this explanation will take priority. The fewer of those criteria an explanation satisfies, relative to other explanations, the lower its priority.
Strictly speaking, even the highest priority explanation is just 'plausible' until a properly controlled experiment can further confirm it.
Many interesting phenomena can be produced by known means (e.g. magicians, illusionists, mentalists, etc.), so where a phenomenon is similar to what can be done by these means, and alternative explanations fail one or more of the criteria above, the known means generally becomes the preferred explanation (e.g. Uri Geller's spoon bending).
A major problem with evaluation of claims is that it requires a good knowledge of theoretical and applied science, scientific method, psychology, deception, illusion, etc. Very few people are more than superficially competent in all these fields, so evaluation really needs to be a collaborative effort.
In general, when looking at unusual phenomena, the quality of evidence is extremely poor in scientific terms, so that it often isn't possible to do more than a superficial analysis. As Carl Sagan said, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence', which is basically 'the crazier an idea sounds, the more it will take to convince me it's true'. In the absence of high quality evidence, a sceptic will look for plausible mundane explanations, because experience and the history of scientific experiment on these phenomena typically shows mundane explanations to be the most plausible.
None of this means that extraordinary phenomena are not happening, or that all necessarily have mundane explanations. It simply means that given the quality of evidence available in most cases, the mundane explanations are, by default, the most plausible; and until there is good quality evidence otherwise, it is reasonable to pick a known mundane explanation over an insufficiently evidenced 'exotic' explanation.
We must also acknowledge that as human beings, sceptics are not always rational, logical, emotionless creatures of science, so they will become frustrated by repeated claims without good quality evidence to evaluate, or that contradict physical laws, or by unscientific or 'magical' thinking, or by ignorance of or refusal to accept the unreliability of human perceptions, memory, and anecdotes. This can make them likely to dismiss claims without sufficient consideration, or mock the proposer for their lack of knowledge.
That's how I see the sceptical approach. Please excuse the verbosity.
Don't apologise, you didn't make me angry at all - I was just explaining why I think the heated exchanges between people with different beliefs occur. I think it's important to try to understand what happens when 'cultures clash', and why. I try to remain relatively impartial in these things. I have a sceptical predilection, but I've been taught to try and see things from the other person's point of view. It's surprised me how often there has been a complete lack of understanding or misunderstanding of viewpoints on both sides.
