Posted: May 06, 2010 9:13 am
Moridin wrote:Though-provoking post PJG, but I am afraid that you still did not answer my question. Also, I do not think that you are strictly honest in saying that your position is purely agnostic. If so, why have you spent arguing dozen after dozen of pages arguing for popular truther positions using popular truther arguments and assertions?
So, what would falsify your position?
We are not going away. You cannot squirm your way out of this one; we will simply keep asking.
I will humour you but if you like, my answer will only show that you have misunderstood my "position" since it is not a case of "falsification", it is a case of getting satisfactory answers and you don't seem to understand this. I fully accept it may be my inability to get the message across, but I am not sure how to say it in any other way.
The "falsification" of my "agnostic" position in the case of the collapse of the buildings would be a satisfactory answer to the question of the cause of the microspheres - including, either, verification that the samples to date were anomalies or an explanation of the cause of them if the samples were representative as to how limited ordinary office fires and gravitational collapse could account for them.
The "falsification" of my "agnostic" position regarding whether a plane hit the Pentagon would be properly verified video footage from one or more of the 84 (?) CCTV cameras confiscated by the government. I would probably be pushed towards acceptance by release of the final seconds of the flight recorder - this is probably too late now.
The "falsification" of my "agnostic" position regarding whether the plane in Shanksville crashed or was shot down would be acknowledgement by someone in the air force that it was shot down and they did it - or CVR evidence that the hijackers were flying the plane when it crashed.
The "falsification" of my "agnostic" position regarding whether the US government were operating some sort of cover-up or even were actively involved would be complete disclosure of information (other than individuals' names which may endanger them or their families) which was denied the 9/11 Commission, FEMA and NIST with samples from the buildings/dust etc being given to independent laboratories.
You see, one of my big questions, if it really was 19 fundamentalist nutters with zero connection to the government and their only motive was "hating America's freedoms", is why on Earth would the government destroy evidence, restrict access to evidence, block investigation - people resigned from the 911 Commission over this - and confiscate evidence from private companies/citizens - as they did with the Pentagon videos? It doesn't make sense. But it isn't "evidence" FOR complicity either -therefore I am "agnostic".
Also, there are loads and loads of things that are unverifiable - either way. On these I am agnostic in the true sense of the word, I think they are "unknowable". I'll give you a few examples - and I have many:
Was it "fundamentalist Islamic hijackers who hated America who flew the planes into the buildings?" I don't know. The official "evidence" includes a passport that miraculously escaped destruction of the plane, the "inferno at the crash site that weakened the building" and initiate the collapse and the collapse itself. Is that possible - yes it is possible. Could the passport have been planted? Is it possible? Yes it is possible. If it was not planted, then the official story holds up. If it was planted, the official story collapses. I don't know which it was AND NEITHER DO YOU. Would you believe someone who, in ten years say, came out and said they had planted the passport? I probably would not but nor am I convinced that it survived as the official story claims - it is POSSIBLE, but I find it unlikely. It seems even more "unlikely" in view of the fact that, according to the official story, not one of the four black boxes from the two planes that hit the buildings were found - not found at all - you know, not crushed beyond use, not found in bits, nothing. That seems "odd". Is it possible that they were missed - when passports and fragments of bones were found? Yes, it is possible so I remain, as in most of the official vs. truther claims, agnostic.
You ask me why I have remained on this thread all this time, it is for two reasons. First, I am genuinely interested in 9/11 - I have spent a great deal of time reading about it and trying to come to a conclusion with regards to which side of the fence I sit on - and I sit on the side that thinks there are questions that can and should be answered before it is "put to bed" and so I support a new investigation. However, the second reason is that I am interested in the psychology of belief - I did confess at one point that I am a psychologist by training though my (paid) work is nothing to do with that now.
My "specialism" is the origin of religious belief and, having been researching 9/11, I noticed the uncanny similarities between the defence of religious beliefs and that of the "official story" with regards to 9/11. One of the interesting things about the development of religious beliefs appears to be (and you probably know this) the transference of the (all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing) parental "protection" of the child into adulthood, once the (dependent) infant recognises that its human carers are not all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing - they are human. What I have noticed is that some atheists transfer this need to the government. The origin of the word "patriotism" is "father". The need for this (government) father, (as opposed to the "God" father) to be all-powerful, all-knowing and, perhaps most important of all, all-loving, is as strong in a "patriot" as the need for God to be those things in someone of religious faith. One of the things that people seem to find most unpalatable about 9/11 is the mere possibility that "their own government could murder its own citizens". This is clearly nonsense - governments have been "disappearing" people as long as there have been governments, they have certainly been sacrificing their young men in armies for millennia.
I won't go on. You see - motive is all. My interest in 9/11 was sparked by the apparent evidence of a government involvement, but my motive for remaining on this thread has been mostly because of my interest in the psychology of those who want (need?) their governments to be benign.
OK?