In a world which seems increasingly plagued by myths, illusions, delusions, confusions, trickery, fraud, dishonesty, deceit, duplicity, and blatant lies, how can we distinguish what is true from what is false? For many centuries skeptics, rationalists and freethinkers have relied on critical thinking as a guide, and they continue to do so today.
Critical thinking is a method of arriving at the truth through a rational consideration of facts and evidence, coupled with logical reasoning and analysis. The most successful critical thinkers are experienced and mature observers who have gained a reliable understanding of how the world works, who are capable of collecting and examining facts objectively, and who are able to make logical deductions based on those facts so that they arrive at a correct understanding of any state of affairs which has caught their attention.
Let us take a practical example. Mountain gorillas live in the thick tropical forests of the Virunga Mountains where the borders of Rwanda, the DRC and Uganda meet. Suppose someone claimed that the gorillas shared their habitat with wild horses. What would a rational response to this claim look like? In the first instance a rationalist would ask for evidence. Are there any photos of horses in this environment? Have any skeletons of horses been found there? Are there any reliable witnesses who have actually seen horses living there? The rationalist would also consider whether it was likely that horses would be living in thick forest. Surely horses would struggle to make their way through the vegetation and would be unable to flee from predators. It would not be rational to believe a claim which is not consistent with known facts both about horses and about tropical forests.
But suppose someone claims that they have been to the Virunga Mountains and saw wild horses there with their own eyes. Although it seems very unlikely that the claim could be true, let us keep an open mind for a moment. We might ask ourselves whether the person in question has been truthful in the past. We might also ask whether they are actually speaking on the basis of first-hand experience. Is any there evidence that they have in fact been to the Virunga Mountains? Can they, for example, give a credible account of how they travelled there and can they describe the tropical forest accurately. In short, is their account consistent with known facts.
Freethinkers rely on these methods when considering claims that miracles have occurred. Such claims are invariably hearsay rather than first-hand testimony. The claims are generally inconsistent with known facts, and clash with a rational understanding of how the world works. So which is more likely – that someone is misinformed, deluded or lying, or that a miracle has actually occurred?