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Introduction: How to reason
Section 4: All the evidence
It's easy to prove anything if you pick and choose your
evidence. Good reasoning means including all the facts,
even if they destroy your theory.
Have you seen the evidence that proves the US government carried out 9/11? Look at the hole in the side of the Pentagon; it shows that the damage caused by the impact was
far too small for a Boeing 757.
(The picture above compares the width of the plane with the actual burning building.)
There's more. Look at the way the towers collapsed, including the fall of WTC 7 late in the day. That could only have been caused by a controlled explosion.
How about flight 77 (the one which crashed in a field, supposedly brought down by passengers attacking the hi-jackers)? Why was there so little debris? Crashed planes always scatter debris over a wide area.
It's true that proponents of a 9/11 cover up have a lot of evidence to prove their point. The problem is, there is also a lot of evidence to prove them wrong. Of course the hole in the side of Pentagon is too small to be made by a 757 gliding in from the side. But look at the building from the air and you see a very different picture. The plane crashed into the building from above, which explains the relatively small damage caused to the outer walls.
Other evidence, ignored by the cover up theorists, confirms that the fall of WTC 7 was due to the damage sustained by the building
by the debris from its neighbors. And the debris resulting from flight 77 is entirely explained by the official explanation that the passengers fought for control of the plane.
For a year or two, selective use of the evidence allowed the 9/11 cover up idea to gain traction among the more
credulous, but
a thorough rebuttal of their case, most notably in the March 2005 edition of
Popular Mechanics
magazine closed the case for all but a few dedicated conspiracy theorists
whose voices can still be heard howling on
How good is your reasoning?
Can you distinguish lies from truth? Or a good
argument from a false one? Can you when tell someone is trying to pull
the wool over your eyes?
We keep physically fit by exercising regularly and eating healthy
food. The same is true of our minds - we need regular mental exercise and a good diet of
solid facts and logic.
This chapter offers basic reasoning skills to help you understand the contradictions
that lie at the heart of all religion.
Does God exist? Before we try to answer that question we
need to have a clear idea of who or what God is. How do we
describe God? What versions of God are on offer?
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the internet.
The lesson from the 9/11 "cover up" is simple. It's easy to prove anything if you pick and choose your evidence. Good reasoning means including all the facts, even if they destroy your theory.
(The 9/11 cover up theory also fails another basic rule of reasoning - apply Occam's Razor and the commonsense test.
We'll come back to that point in
Section 8.)
Later on this website we'll see how to apply this principle to God, but here are two examples to consider: (a) for Christians who believe that the Bible is literally true: how did
koalas get to Australia
after the Flood? and (b) for atheists who reject the idea of a Creator, how does evolution explain the development of the
bacterial flagellum?
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If God existed, he would...
admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create
recognize that eternity is meaningless
deny both heaven and hell
disown all men and women who speak in his name
denounce the harm caused by religious "morality"
help the human race to thrive without him
If God existed, he would be an atheist.
What is the difference between science and faith?
science is certain of nothing and requires proof of everything
faith is certain of everything and requires proof of nothing
Which do you trust?
"I know there is no God"
or
"I believe there is no God"
???
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