Wikipedia’s entry on critical thinking has a nice set of questions to ask which I think are readily adaptable to spiritual and occult research and especially conversation:
- What do you mean by_______________?
- How did you come to that conclusion?
- Why do you believe that you are right?
- What is the source of your information?
- What happens if you are wrong?
- Can you give me two sources who disagree with you and explain why?
- Why is this significant?
- How do I know you are telling me the truth?
- What is an alternate explanation for this phenomenon?
There’s just so much power packed into these questions. They are so simple, but can teach you so much and can be so potentially devastating in an argument. Great stuff.
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4 Comments
Sounds like conspiracy theory to me.
I might add though that most conspiracy theory once it has asked and found a possible answer for them, seems to conclude that this is *the* answer, simply because it’s possible and they thought of it.
In other words, if you really want to use critical thinking skills, you have to ask yourself these questions, just as you’d ask anyone else.
Why do you think that? I consider myself a conspiracy buff, but I know I have no idea what is really going on. I entertain multiple possible explanations for events. Sometimes I can’t come up with any good explanation, but I still don’t believe the mainstream explanation. Does that mean I’m not a conspiracy theorist? Is there a name for what I think? Or are we just setting up a strawman version of conspiracy theory?
So, failing to ask these questions is uncritical thinking. Right?
Critical reading and thinking are two skills that future society needs in abundance. With the readily accessible information now just a google away for the least critical of thinkers, society could come to a stand still. What would result from forcing everybody to vote, for an example?
Here’s a conspiracy for you. What if the NSA took over the root name servers on the ‘net and redirected queries to server farms loaded with replica sites full of misinformation? All those people that you hear answering authoritatively that: “they say this†or “they say that.†would be in the power of the government.