Last week we had a tree man come over to look at a limb that might need attention. Almost the first thing he said on arrival was "I suppose you have drank the Cool-Aid?" Excuse me? He then went on to assure me that "this flu" was not possible to catch from other humans. The six foot rule was because at 6 feet the "Govment" can hear what you say about them better and that all this is caused by radio waves, radar and now 5-G. In that this was Angies tree guy I had a choice. Tell him he was a fool or leave. I excused myself and went into the house. Angie likes his work.
Why do humans soak in Conspiracy Theories. Hypothesis would be a better term I suppose as most don't know the actual definition of "theory" in the scientific world. They think it means "opinion" which it does not.
From Psychology Today:
"The researchers found that reasons for believing in conspiracy theories can be grouped into three categories:
- The desire for understanding and certainty
- The desire for control and security
- The desire to maintain a positive self-image
Let’s look at each of these motives in turn..."
I will leave the complete article for those so inclined
and here;
I would add fourth reason based on my personal experience.
Religious Fundamentalists and Literalists filter their world through their ideas about Bible prophecy and the Second Coming of Christ. Everyone in this mindset sees the times they live in as "The Last Days" so all events have prophetic meaning with the appropriate scriptures, usable through all of human history, to back it up. This may reflect a deeper fear of death and the desire to be in the group that the Apostle Paul said "We shall not all die, but we shall be changed" I Cor 15:51. Paul later died like everyone else as have all completely sure that they were the actual people upon whom the ends of the age have come.
21 comments:
Yea of little faith.
I dont know, so therefore...
The singularity, which was at peace for eternity (thats a long time folks!), woke up one morning in a mood, and decided to blow up for no reason, , and the four fundamental forces of gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction all just happened to be in stable balance and didn't consume each other.
Then a long time later , a few dozen left handed amino acids, found an oil bubble , and linked together inside of it, and created a DNA sequence. Then this little cell, got all ambitious and decided to become a success in life , and realize its "Incredible Human Potential", while first becoming a jelly fish, and then a whole host of other creatures.
And since there is no free will, and the universe is closed ended with no new outside information, all of this was preordained (including the writing of this post) within the first millisecond of that origin.
Look, punning aside, we all know a lot less than we thing we do about everything. To survive, you have to take your best guesses, reasoned speculations, and finger in the wind. There is a lot of uncertainty, and maturity probably leads one to be able to say "I dont know" more often.
Tonto,
Physicists and mathematicians have constructed mathematical models suggesting that our universe has 10 or 11 dimensions.
As human beings, we are consciously aware of no more than four of those dimensions.
The bacteria in your gut are living beings, and the odds against their random formation are huge, even if not as huge as the odds against Tonto's random formation. Yet your gut bacteria have no idea of what goes on in Tonto's world.
Also, if your gut bacteria are the result of a creation event, does their Creator desire a personal relationship with each of those bacteria? If one of those bacteria commits a sin, has their Creator arranged for some kind of atonement? How well do gut bacteria understand their Creator?
Human beings ought to have the humility to accept that we are four-dimensional gut bacteria in a universe far, far beyond our ability to comprehend. Even if our Creator could have a personal relationship with each on of us on our own terms, that relationship would be a pale and insufficient reflection of the reality of that Being who inhabits all the dimensions and beyond.
I do not agree with Psychology Today's analysis. They are ignoring the Elephant in the Room. I think their analysis is a little too sophisticated. I think belief in conspiracies is something that aids the reduction of cognitive dissonance. If you (you in the general sense) have a thoroughly reprehensible politician who happens to believe a few things that you feel passionately about (for instance, maybe he implies that he doesn't like people of color), you will do what you can to rationalize his behavior. Your not likely to ever get another politician at the national level who is an overt racist like you are. This is your guy and you have to protect him even if it means that you carry a placard around with the statement that "The Earth is Flat." Hence, you reduce the dissonance between the ideas that "this guy is a blackguard" and "I like him" by talking malarkey about government conspiracy or some such.
Also, I do not believe that Paul died believing he was at the end of the age. He may have believed it earlier in his life as did many of the disciples.
Tonto said: "Look, punning aside, we all know a lot less than we thing we do about everything. To survive, you have to take your best guesses, reasoned speculations, and finger in the wind. There is a lot of uncertainty, and maturity probably leads one to be able to say "I dont know" more often."
Look yourself. LOL, Very often, and it is an old apologetic, "If we don't know everything, we can't know anything" is a cop out on the part of the faith restricted. Rather than face what we do know, and we know a lot in a lot of fields, it is easier to fall back on everything is best guess, reasoned speculations and finger in the wind ideas. This is terribly shallow but it works for millions if not billions who are not evidence based as much as faith based or at least restricted as noted.
Had the gods had their way, the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, evidence and fantasy would be denied us and we could just be worker bees in the garden forevermore. Glad we took of that tree and got kicked out of "Paradise" which actually would have been a POW camp for life.
Today we can read the dialogue in Job where the Deity challenges Job with "do you know" and "where you when" The facts today are that any high school student could easily answer the "hard" questions God shoved in Job's face leaving him speechless. Not speechless topics today. Yes we do KNOW everything in Job that the God of the day , or the author more likely, didn't know and thought know one could know so it would make a nice challenge to Job. We even know "what binds the sweet influences of the Pleiades" .
Job 38:32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?" While no one can make the earth rotate, tilt or wobble itself through the procession of the equinoxes and zodiac which is where the planets reside, we know exactly how it does so and it takes no Deity to do so. The Bear with her cubs, Ursa Major i.e. the Big Dipper and Ursa Minor, little bear, take care of themselves appearing to rotate circumpolar around the North star, not because they do but because the earth does.
Stuff like that...:)
Propaganda, or dis-information is a powerful tool to control.
Always has been and always will.
But then again, at times we see what is called a conspiracy theory actually is true.
Dennis, I agree somewhat, and I am certainly an empirical thinker. Note that I did say that decisions and thinking should be made with reason. I am a person of faith, but there is a rightful place for the scientific method.
All that said, it appears that the universe has a lot more random elements in it than should happen based on statistical chance. The universe itself, living things etc, are "black or white swan" occurrences. Even the stock market has standard deviations of movement that are far greater than should be expected by statistical chance.
But nothing is absolute. It requires a lot of assumptions. I remember the challenge years ago of my first philosophy class back in college. We were asked to "prove" that we just didn't come into existence 5 minutes earlier (complete with memories), or that the entire universe is not just a piece of lint in some giants belly button.
Of course, we make an educated assumption, that we have existed, and that the universe is not lint. But they are assumptions. For me, I take the facts that I can find, and if the evidence is greater than 80% or so, then I just journal it in as "what is", but I always stay opened ended and add mentally ...."subject to, new evidence".
People get in trouble when they become rigid and will defend an old paradigm in spite of new evidence. When ones assumptions become part of ones "greater empirical self", then problems can happen.
We see this in the COGs with issues like the "grandeur, righteousness and calling" of various leaders, or ideas of British Israelism , or a whole host of speculative concepts that are pawned off as "revelations from God".
Tonto noted: "But nothing is absolute. It requires a lot of assumptions. I remember the challenge years ago of my first philosophy class back in college. We were asked to "prove" that we just didn't come into existence 5 minutes earlier (complete with memories), or that the entire universe is not just a piece of lint in some giants belly button.
We thought that crazy back then right? Now we have to think about if we really are a simulation of our future selves looking back in a supercomputer which is us. lol. That means the Big Bang was just the computer booting up and we did come onto the scene five minutes ago good to go! I can't say I can't prove that wrong! But it would be disappointing personally. lol
"But it would be disappointing personally."
More disappointing than just being made up of star dust that lives maybe 70 years and it's over?
Myself being a major fan of Sci Fi shows featuring outer space, like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, The Expanse, Firefly, Dark Matter etc. etc. that would be such a huge disappointment. I'd never try to convince myself of that "fact" being something awesome just because I might have small bits of myself that comes from a star billions of light years away.
That's not awesome, that would be a sick joke!
"Humans soak up conspiracy theories"
Wasn't the phrase "conspiracy theory" created by the CIA in the 60's to drown out the alternative hypotheses of the JFK assasination? lol
Really though, most people have been conditioned to avoid ideas that have been labeled as such. That doesn't mean that the earth is flat or HAARP can control our thoughts should be seriously discussed. Because it takes no effort at all to disprove ideas like that if you are a rational person.
Supercomputer? Dennis, how about "It from Bit" as John Wheeler liked to call it.
DBP
I would add yet another one, Dennis...one with which we have all had experience with in Armstrongism...
The need to feel special...
Believing conspiracy theories allows one to feel like they're one of the few people who are "in the know."
well, the tree guy is partially correct...this thing has been blown all out of proportion by those with an agenda, to remake this country....
fear is one of the best ways to control the people....it works in religion all the time....fear of burning in hell for all eternity causes many to submit to a religious authority...(some even use the lake of fire to achieve the same result)
people like Fauci and Gates have killed any credibility the "medical authorities" have had....demonizing a generic drug that works extremely well against covid19 while pushing for a vaccine (that they will control and make great sums from)....
what looks like a conspiracy is actually Satan manipulating an ignorant population....he has them all working toward the same end without them realizing it.....
Are there multiple moderators with very different standards on this board? I posted something conceptually somewhat similar to Tonto's 7:28 AM post (except that I talked about eleven dimensions as evidence of stuff we don't understand, where Tonto used the singularity), and I'm pretty sure I did so a few minutes before he did. Yet mine appears to have been censored, while his is up. It's very discouraging trying to post here, sometimes.
Someone made a comment on a news page recently that "the reason for the 6 foot rule is to monitor you by satellite".
Which makes zero sense in terms of logistics or the basic gist of satellite photography, but I tend not to bother with anyone who signs off with the very cliched "WAKE UP AMERICA" anyway.
This blog is lacking in anything that is of interest anymore. Same old same old.
Scroll up, its there.
Oh, boo hoo, 1:35! Get over yourself. Not everything that each of us contributes is worthy of publication or appropriate to the discussion at hand.. If you wrote letters to the editor of publications, or contributed free lance articles to them, you would realize this. Sharpen your skills and try harder next time.
BB
Anonymous said...
This blog is lacking in anything that is of interest anymore. Same old same old.
Then go read a book or contribute
Well, 5:29, didn't your minister tell you that all we do around here is wallow in our bitterness and vomit?
Shame on you for being so rebellious as to come here!
Some conspiracy "theories" are irrefutable. Just things the fake news does not want people to know. But lazy smug people will remain forever irresponsibly ignorant.
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