9/11 Conspiracy Theory Posters

[X]

I saw one of these toady, outside a bus stop on campus.

I cannot express in words just how offensive such presentations are to me.  They lie about, disrespect, and sometimes outright insult the victims of that horrible day. 

If there is to be a presentation on this asinine hypothesis that the U.S. Government was behind 9/11, I feel it is our duty to be present, to be armed with the facts, and to tear apart every single falsehood and fallacy used by these miserable little shits who present the lies, distortion and misinformation as fact to further their pathetic and revolting ideas.

I can link up some very good websites that debunk the myths used by these lowlifes, if anyone is interested.

And let me state right now that anger is the only possible reaciton to these fools, once you understand what they are saying, and see why it is wrong.

[trevor]

What a coincidence!  You mention this poster just as I'm writing an article for the Manitoban on conspiracy theories.  What bus stop did you see the poster at?  I would love to mention that in my article.

I agree, though, we should really go to this talk armed with knowledge and compassion.  What day/time is it taking place?  I would also be interested in good links if you have them; I've seen a few things on the conspiracy theories that made me pretty sick, but I haven't looked into it very deeply.

Once we know the date/time, I'll post something on the main page; it's important to show the difference between skepticism and paranoid hysteria.

[X]

There is nothing on the poster regarding demonstrations, talks or movies.

It just shows a picture of the towers right after one of the planes hit, and asks something to the effect of "Was the govenrment involved?".  Hence why I said "If".

It's a ploy to generate interest, in my opinion, and one which warrants keeping an eye on because I rather doubt whoever is behind this would put up open-ended posters without following them up with a conclusion.

At any rate, here are some links:

WTC Lies
Screw Loose Change
911 You Judge
NIST
The Commission
Popular Mechanics

Many of the sites listed link to more sites.

[trevor]

Hm, no demonstration or talks, eh...

Well, I say we should still do something.  Perhaps make a poster of our own and put them beside those posters.

[cold]

I'm with you X, anger does not even begin to describe my disgust for this. I have researched and read many articles on why 9/11 happened. I have zero compassion for these dipfucks, they might as well be nazis as far as I'm concerned. There are people who actually believe this stuff, and that's what really disturbs me, because at the end of the day just about every aspect of 9/11 can be broken down to cold engineering.
Unfortunately, I see no difference between these conspiracy theorists and Christians spreading the gospel, it wouldn't matter if you punched them in the face with the facts they still wouldn't get it.

I study a lot in material sciences and it's interesting because a lot of what happened @ 9/11 is discussed thoroughly in my classes and textbooks. Really the only thing I've had any success with was converting people who think 9/11 was a conspiracy, not christians though.

good luck with that though, should make for some candid debate.

[X]

The one I saw is at the Faculty of Music bus stop.  I couldn't remember how the stop was designtated, so I checked today,

[brian]

Before I say this, I want to say that I haven't read the conspiracy theories yet, so I don't know much about them, but...

I don't think we should be getting into political issues like these when they aren't really connected in any way to religion.

And I don't think we should be this harsh on them (calling them dipfucks and miserable little shits and nazis and stuff).  They are right about one thing:  Whether they did it or not, Bush and/or the people around him are essentially using 9/11 for nefarious political purposes similar to how Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag for his nefarious political purposes.

[Brennan]

I've seen these conspiracy theories. I find that they preemptively conclude that the government is involved on insufficient or otherwise irrelevant evidence. Example, NORAD standing-down on 911 is not evidence of involvement.

[X]

Before I say this, I want to say that I haven't read the conspiracy theories yet, so I don't know much about them, but...

I don't think we should be getting into political issues like these when they aren't really connected in any way to religion.

And I don't think we should be this harsh on them (calling them dipfucks and miserable little shits and nazis and stuff).  They are right about one thing:  Whether they did it or not, Bush and/or the people around him are essentially using 9/11 for nefarious political purposes similar to how Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag for his nefarious political purposes.

Brian: I respectfully disagree.

  It may be a political issue, but it does fall under the umbrella of "Skepticism".
  And regardless of whether or not Bush used to the events of that day as a stepping stone into Iraq (just for fun, Brian, do a little research into what Saddam's reign was like), the people who preach these theories show a great amount of disrespect to the victims of that day. 
  If you want to understand why I feel justified in calling these people what they are, then watch this video.  It is a phonecall from Kevin Cosgrove.  It startes from when he gets through to 911 up until the South Tower collapses.  Kevin was on the 105th floor.  It is not easy to listen to.
But it illustrates whay I get angry at these people.  They conveniently forget about the thousands who died, and use this even to further their anti-government agenda.

[brian]

I simply think we shouldn't get involved because it doesn't really fall under the idea of religious skepticism.  If we were to include skepticism of any historical or political issue, we would risk losing our focus and it would make people of certain political persuasions feel uncomfortable with joining and getting involved with our group.  I just think political and historical issues not connected to religion are beyond the scope of our group.

Also, just to play devil's advocate here, they aren't really forgetting about the thousands who died (I remember seeing one on the news whose wife or son or something was a victim), that is why they are asking questions.  You aren't really making rational arguments when you just throw up a video of a guy who died.  Personally, I think most of the ones I have read about sound out to lunch, but they at least bring up some important issues regarding politicians exploiting tragedy for their own purposes (and regarding Iraq, it was never about making things better for the people, and things seem to have gotten worse since the invasion, with 70,000-800,000 civilian casualties depending on who you talk to, and US mercenaries killing Iraqi civilians with impunity).

[trevor]

So I guess I never made this clear, as I thought it was self-evident, but we're not an anti-religion hate group.  Yes, we are anti-religion, but skepticism is about questioning everything, not just religion.  If I had to say that we were against one thing specifically, it would be bullshit, not religion.  Of course, religion encompasses a lot of the bullshit that's out there.

Like it or not, religion is itself a political issue.  Even if you are conservative in your political stance, people are going to think that you're liberal if you don't have a 'personal god.'  That's just how things are; religion is used as a political tool.  I would wager a guess that most of us in the group are liberal, but it's certainly not a requirement -- I, for one, would like to see as many different political views as possible to spur good discussion.

When we see this kind of insensitive bullshit being thrown around, I think it's a natural reaction for a skeptic to be upset, and certainly colourful language and harsh analogies are going to come out.  A weakness of humans perhaps, but it's important to realize that our discussions on the forums are different than what we would put into the public sphere.  We wouldn't post a rebuttal poster next the 9/11 conspiracy theory poster calling them nazis.  We would make reasoned arguments that let people know that conspiracy theories are not a part of skepticism.

To be honest, if people are thinking of joining this group just to shit on religion and have nothing else to offer, then I would be glad to scare them off with something like this.  I made this group to bring interesting people together and share our knowledge; denial of supernatural beings just seems to be the one issue that most smart people can agree on.  I mean, you do have a point, that people may think that we are not focused just on denouncing religion.  But, I would say that this a good thing.  Many people have skeptical thoughts and are against a lot of the crap we see out there, but are still not ready to say that there is no god.  Getting involved in fighting this kind of crime against truth could entice those kinds of people to join.  Perhaps Brian has a point that the group is being marketed incorrectly.  The blame would fall on me there; changing our marketing is something we should perhaps talk about at the next meeting.

[wordwan]

I have to admit it never occurred to me to see the word 'skeptic' as strictly religious. I agree with you, Trevor, and though, granted, coming to a forum and seeing someone swearing is hard to gauge unless you know the person, I think (knowing what I've seen of this group, in real life) that pulling a few "Penn and Teller" reactions WORKS for me.

I think it's that low-keyed, "let's not get excited" reaction that worries me, sometimes. I find it interesting to meet some real life entities that are SO low keyed in public and foul mouth bears, on a list.

I think that's one reason I first reacted as I did to this forum. MY experiences of temperament on forum has leaned towards the dweebs who like to vent and vent and vent...

To the distaste and growing apathy of the more enlightened (perhaps? Wrong word?) who do not yelp.

Do any of you know of Harlan Ellison? He reminded me of me, when I first found out about him. There is a Penn and Teller "we will speak no bullshit before its time" quality about him.

Thank you.

Heather, so swear away, X!

[X]

I only swear when I feel it adds the necessary emphasis to what I'm saying.

But thank you.

[wordwan]

X, as do I. As do I.

If you've never heard of Harlan Ellison, I invite you to take a look at this man's oeuvre. He's PRETTY cool, and he's done a lot of the kinds of skeptical/myth busting things we can only talk about. He too, expressed the point to 'swearing when it mattered' and yet not letting it rule one's method of communicating.

I met him, in 2001 on his namesake's forum. I got to play with him in the grass as I am here playing with you now. He had issues about the 'purpose' of this so-called communication device, called the Internet and he changed his mind a tad.

I got a chance to read a whole lot of his work--he writes short stories, mostly, that pack a real punch--and he, quite simply, made me believe I can be the kind of writer I want to be, without losing my moral core. Quite the chap.

Thanks.

Heather