Critical thinking

The ability to imagine alternatives to events that have already occurred distinguishes humans from other creatures and machines—artificial intelligence has not yet succeeded in creating a device that can devise counterfactual scenarios. The fact that we can travel in an imaginary time and rewrite our actions and their outcomes can prove to be an advantage or can lead to dysfunctional emotional and cognitive...

The false dilemma fallacy presents an issue as if there are only two ways to solve it—often, two opposite ways—when, in fact, there are more ways than that. The conflict between the two ways presented is also false.

The moment we distort a person’s intention, statement, gesture or action for our own personal gain we are using, consciously or unconsciously, the straw man argument − a frequent fallacy.

Many of us probably know at least one manipulative person — or perhaps we’ve even caught ourselves falling into that category. But do we really know when this tendency to control or influence others becomes harmful? And more importantly, how can we deal with manipulative people?

The fact that we are able to anticipate most of the consequences of our actions is undoubtedly a blessing. However, we can also allow fear or over-cautiousness to make us anticipate events that are not likely to follow. This edges us toward a common error of judgement: the slippery slope.

"Intelligent, scientifically trained people no longer believe (or can no longer believe) in God."

Even if we have not been to Eden, the longing for innocence draws us back to a time when we had not yet tasted the forbidden fruit.

When we think we are immune to disinformation, we become easy prey for those who manipulate us.

Critical thinking is not a cure-all, but it proves very useful in dealing with, clarifying, and solving some decision-making problems, as well as the thought and belief disputes which occupy our minds.

"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US President)

Needing to process a multitude of complex information in a short amount of time can lead to erroneous reasoning. When a conclusion is supported by weak or irrelevant arguments, the reasoning falls into the category called non sequitur—does not follow, or irrelevant argument.

By their very complexity, situational moral decisions demonstrate that there is an absolute good that we seek. Moral principles work together for the absolute good.

The appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) is an error in thinking which argues that a conclusion is true because there is no evidence against it, or that a conclusion is false because there is no evidence in its favour.

"Logic suffers from a great logical fallacy: it believes that reality itself is of a logical nature. If it encounters something that cannot be understood logically, it will claim that this something doesn't exist, but only appears to exist..." (Lucian Blaga, Horizons and Stages)

“Yeah, I understand what you’re saying about Christianity. I’ve been there, a long time ago, but now that I’ve moved on, I have a different relationship with the universe and things are going much better for me on all levels.”