"9/11 ... Miracle or Demolition?"

I recently had lunch with a friend, a couple of days after September 11^th.  My friend is a Republican and a conservative Christian.  He also happens to be a construction foreman for commercial buildings.  He seemed to be the right man to ask the opinion of, about the falling of The Twin Towers, on 9/11.  My friend said, “When I saw the plane hit the first tower, then the building go down, I thought those terrorists won the Lottery (about a 800,000,000:1 chance), but when I saw the second building go down, my thought was demolition.”

When I saw the towers go straight down onto their footprints, at the speed of a freely falling body, my first thought was, “Impossible.”  I’m not a gambler.  Bin Laden gave a speech shortly after the event in which some say he took responsibility for the aircraft, but he thanked Allah for taking down the buildings.  In other words, he thought it was a miracle.  Too bad we shot him through his Teddy Bear, and then dumped his body in the ocean within 24 hours.  It would have been interesting to see him tried for the crime.

We all saw the two airliners slam into the two towers.  Most, if not all of their fuel ignited at the time of impact.  A short time after that, each building fell straight to the ground, as fast as a freely falling body and landed right on its own footprint.  Miraculously, there seemed to be no iron beams to slow down or tilt the fall.  This is a problem.

Two explanations have been offered for the event.  One is that each floor would not support the weight and force of the floor above collapsing on it.  This would have resulted in: “plop …… plop ….. plop …. plop … plop .. plop . plop . plop . plop . etc.”  The problem with this theory is …  it went, “whoosh”  with no hesitation.  The second theory offered is that fuel from the aircraft flowed down the beams, lit then instantly melted them.  Lots of problems here.  How much fuel was remaining after the initial explosion?  How could the fuel remaining flow evenly down the beams, in order to ignite all of the way up and down the beams, so that the building would go down as straight as an arrow and all at once?  The buildings were hit from the side.  Why would they not fall to the side?  This jet fuel can burn in an engine all the way from New York to California without melting the engines.  It is mixed with oxygen in exactly the right amount to give the most heat and energy to the explosion.  These engines are made of pretty much the same material as the beams in the Towers.  How did that fuel melt those beams?  The building’s floors are fastened to the beams.  How did the fuel flow so quickly past the floors in order to remove the beams from top to bottom?

I don’t see Bin Laden’s miracle happening.  And, I have trouble with the government’s explanations.  No miracle took place on 9/11 in New York, but there was some excellent quality demolition on that day.

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”  - Mark Twain.   There is a disagreement on Twain being the source of this quote.  From my standpoint, that is of little importance.  The quote is a true statement.

Cheers, Old Buz

Comments are welcome.

"Born An Agnostic

“Born an Agnostic and with God’s help, I will remain one.”  I would like to have that on a T-shirt.  For those who would smile, hello.  For those who would look perplexed, the thought could offer a tiny step out of the fog of religion.  My quote is a statement that contradicts itself, as The Bible often contradicts itself.  An agnostic has questions, but few answers.  The religious have answers, but few questions.  I would contend that a questioning mind is a healthy one.  It is less judgmental and more open to new information.

The Atheists that I have encountered contend that there is no God.  I find that statement as close minded as, “There is only one God and He is The God of my bible.”   Intelligent design makes sense to me.  Not the Intelligent Design of the Right Wing Christian, but the idea that the systems that we see in action in our universe, are not random.  A good example of this is DNA, found in all living things.  Even a quick look at this system indicates that it is not random and that the DNA system preceded the survival of the fittest theory.   The DNA of a critter was in place long before it had a chance to survive or fail.  It couldn’t have existed without it.   The word “Intelligent” is problematic.  I think that to the “Intelligent Design Folks” that the word somehow relates to human intelligence, as it does to the Gods of the bibles.  The Gods that I have read about in the bibles don’t have the brain power to design the universe.  They take advice from the tiny human brains that wrote the books. Moses: “God, I don’t think that you should kill all of your people for worshiping false idols.  It will make you look weak when compared to other gods.”  God:  “Yup, Moses, I guess you are right.  Can I just kill half of them?”  You see, Bible Readers are as gullible as Atheists.  You folks who have Faith in your Bible, but haven’t read it, should read it.  There are some good laughs in that book.

So, God did see me born an agnostic and gave me a questioning mind that, I expect will keep me an agnostic.  And if God has chosen to bless America, above all other nations, why didn’t he write His instruction book in English?

 

“We are all living in a miracle.”  “See what is plain to see.  Doubt what is not.” - Daniel

Cheers, Old Buz The Agnostic

Comments are welcome.