Is skepticism a new religion?

sort of...,back in time ,here's an example;In 1772 the prestigious French Academy of Science appointed a committee to investigate reports of what are now called meteorites. After long deliberations and examination of much evidence, the conclusion reached by the committee was that with which they started:" there are no such things as hot stones that have fallen from the sky because there are no stones in the sky to fall " (sounds familiar,huh?). Reports of the phenomena must have other explanations – delusionary “visions,” stones heated after being struck by lightning, stones borne aloft by whirlwinds or volcanic eruptions, and so forth. So great was the prestige of the committee and so convincing its arguments that museums all over Western Europe threw away their meteorite specimens.(as good as it gets...and still!)