Five Steps to Critical Thinking
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"Seldom affirm. Never deny. Always distinguish."
I. Know The Facts
Knowing the facts is the most crucial step to critical thinking. It is vital to know all the facts before forming an opinion. Two terms help with this concept. Ignorance is being unaware of certain facts. Culpable ignorance is being far less ignorant about certain things because it is nearly impossible to know absolutely everything about certain things. A doctor is not guilty of culpable ignorance by operating on a patient despite not knowing every little detail. I would be guilty however because I do not have even basic knowledge of the topic. The Catholic Church affirms that a conscience is primary. We should never act against our conscience. However, we need to educate our consciences so that we have a good moral backing. We can educate them by reading encylicals or official Church documents.

II. Remember the Principal of Contradiction
Contradiction claims that it is not possible to be and not to be at the same time. I am either a human or I am not. I cannot be both a human and not be a human, it simply doesn't make sense. Religion suffers the worst from this principal of contradiction because religions are constantly being compared to each other as being "ultimately alike" and the such. However, theology is simply a claim on reality just as history or physics is. Either Jesus rose or he didn't. There is no contradiction there. Aristotle realized there are three principles of logic. They are the Principal of Identity (A=A), the Principle of the Excluded Middle (either A or not A), and the Principal of Contradiction (not both A and not-A). It is simple. An apple cannot also be a horse.

III. Define Your Terms
Terms are the simplest form of knowledge. Without knowing what something is or means, it cannot be interpreted in any way by any means. One cannot make a valid or educated argument is they think are talking about one thing yet in reality they are talking about something completely different than what the rest of us think they are talking about. We can make comments about the Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic faiths but without truly knowing what they are and stand for, what is the validity of the argument? Terms are extremely important to make defined and understood by both sides of the argument.

IV. Be Intellectually Humble
Intellectual humility requires that we understand that we may not know everything about everything. A humble man is not disrespected after admitting that he was wrong in his thinking or logic. One who makes accusations that others are certainly wrong and he is right despite not knowing the fullest of the argument or understanding it is not getting anything out of the studies of that person's argument because perhaps a deeper look into it reveals there is much more to it. Therefore, without humility, we cannot take on true critical thinking.

V. Look for Different Perspectives
There are usually several ways to look at a certain topic. Perspectives come from a reference point and there is usually several points which a topic can be viewed from. How can we say that the universe is large when we have nothing to compare it to? It may be small compared to a larger thing which we have not yet discovered. By looking at different perspectives, we can achieve a greater understanding because it clears up a second or third pathway that had been blotted out by the one perspective that we knew.