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I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was trying to discuss a certain phenomenon, which is universal, and thusly belongs to the philosophy forum. The phenomenon is well-known and has been studied for a long time. I'm talking about the familiar situation of people holding obviously false beliefs. What people think is true often differs from what is actually true.
One intereseting approach to studying the phenomenon is trying to see how these beliefs are formed. I've constructed a virtual situation demonstrating how our brains might trick us into believing something that is untrue. What followed was a real-world example of the same self-deluding process. Another interesting example is how people in France preferred to believe that Dreyfus was guilty even though it was proven beyond all doubt that he was innocent.
We should fight this phenomenon, and there's no better place to start than in our own silly brains. To see if you're building a false belief, try to see why you enjoy certain political articles you read. If you enjoy them because you feel that they have educated you and have shown you the truth, then all is good. But if you see that you're enjoying it because it greatly fits together with your emotions - then something is smelly up there, in your mind.
My closing claim was that most of the people who think that Bush and the CIA were behind 9/11 were in fact lying to themselves. They trust a less-probable possiblity because it fits perfectly with their current emotions regarding Bush. Don't let this happen to you.
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"Always do right - this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
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