Originally Posted by Golfingnut (Post 609135)

I become so much in wonderment about how and why a small number of us become so believing in conspiracy theories that I spent several hours researching the subject. I never buy into the government is out to get me theory, yet I have friends that believe a few and I know some folks that seem to favor really wacked out conspiracies over obvious fact. WHY???? Is it just one more form of chemical imbalance like anxiety or depression? I found many explanations, but this link seemed to explain it in the simplest terms. I am open to the possibility that ALL conspiracies are true and I am the one missing the boat.

Very good article. I don't believe in the :there is an agent out to control the world theory.

Four reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories | SmartPlanet

Originally Posted by OldDave (Post 609313)

I have two thoughts I'd like to mention.

First someone talked about Penn State and the Catholic church sex scandals. To me these really aren't conspiracies as such. Certainly there was conspiracy later to cover up, but they didn't start that way. They started small with powerful people doing evil things. In many cases they weren't discovered right away, and when they were the people in charge tried to make them go away. In the case of the church, transferring priests instead of getting rid of them. The case with the BBC children's star is probably the worst I've ever seen. While these aren't really the tradition conspiracy as I said, I think they are almost more frightening. They are people in a position of trust that abuse it, and do so in an ongoing manner.

As to black helicopters, big foot, UFOs, etc. I truly don't understand why such a significant part of the population believes in this stuff. I was flipping by one of the big foot shows the other day, and two guys saw something hairy and large, so they just knew it had to be big foot. Certainly if you are faced with thing that might be a bear or and animal that doesn't exist, it is logical to go with the mythical animal, eh?

I have always admired Occam's Razor. This is a philosophy that has been around for a couple of thousand years, and has been stated many ways. This one is from the 1st century AD:

"We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible".

All of the different statements basically say if you see something that is a puzzle, the simpliest answer is the most likely. Conspiracy fans seem to go out of their way to believe the opposite.

My very favorite is the UFO. These are always mysterious lights in the night sky. Wouldn't an alien race that was trying to keep their existence a secret be smart enough to turn off their running lights while spying on us? And if they didn't want to hide, why wouldn't they send an email or just land at Sears and say hi.

My final thought is conspiracy theorists fall in with discussions of politics and religion. People believe what they believe and do not want to be bothered with facts or any arguments that don't support what they believe.

Originally Posted by OldDave (Post 609313)

My final thought is conspiracy theorists fall in with discussions of politics and religion. People believe what they believe and do not want to be bothered with facts or any arguments that don't support what they believe.

Originally Posted by OldDave (Post 609313)

My final thought is conspiracy theorists fall in with discussions of politics and religion. People believe what they believe and do not want to be bothered with facts or any arguments that don't support what they believe.

Originally Posted by twinklesweep (Post 625828)

These two lines are truly the clearest explanation of the attitude of “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up,” although I agree with a later poster who says that there are more areas of our lives that this can be true for in addition to politics and religion. When OldDave says that “people believe what they believe,” I would add that for some, it's not simply what they believe but rather what they choose to believe....

Originally Posted by gustavo (Post 626084)

The real question is who is gullible enough to believe that on this planet no one would conspire? Oh, I know, people who live in a bubble in central Florida.:shrug:

Originally Posted by Taltarzac725 (Post 609177)

Tell this to the victims in the Penn State football cover-up as well as those involving the victims of 9/11 ( a big conspiracy involving terrorists) and the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. Real life conspiracies do occur and you find them all thoroughout US and other countries' history. They seemed to be a favorite weapon of some foreign governments of manipulating the media through staged occurrences.

I do fear too much power in the hands of a small group. History has proven again and again to watch out for what happens when someone or a group with no principles gets the reins of power.

Read OReilly's Killing Lincoln Killing Lincoln - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia if you want to see a well argued presentation of a conspiracy. I did not buy most of it however because his evidence was not that persuasive.

Originally Posted by twinklesweep (Post 625828)

These two lines are truly the clearest explanation of the attitude of “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up,” although I agree with a later poster who says that there are more areas of our lives that this can be true for in addition to politics and religion. When OldDave says that “people believe what they believe,” I would add that for some, it's not simply what they believe but rather what they choose to believe....

Originally Posted by OldDave (Post 626110)

I just wrote one of my usual, too long responses, and just as I was getting ready to send, the power in the house went out and I lost it. Considering I mentioned religion, do you suppose someone is trying to tell me something?

Anyway, I was saying to Twinkle in addition to this, I believe an alarming number of people today believe what someone tells them to believe without ever thinking for themselves. Of course this is very true in politics, and especially in the fringe elements of religion. Whether it's people with bombs strapped on them in the middle east killing children or our own fake messiahs in Waco locking up their flock so he can convince them god wants him to have sex with all the women. I must have missed that part of the scriptures when I was younger.

The sad part is there seems to be a never ending supply of people so desperate for something to hold on to that they will believe someone the rest of the world sees as manipulating them. And there is an ever larger supply of con artists ready to take them in.

This goes back to conspiracies. If you are this gullible, you are ready to see bigfoot when a bear ambles by, even though there is no logical reason to see something that doesn't exist.

Unfortunately for some of these folks whether it is bigfoot or extreme politics or religion, I think they just desperately what to have something special in their lives. They want to know something no one else does. And they pay the price for it every day.

Now I"m going to send this before bigfoot comes and kills my power.

Originally Posted by OldDave (Post 626110)

I just wrote one of my usual, too long responses, and just as I was getting ready to send, the power in the house went out and I lost it. Considering I mentioned religion, do you suppose someone is trying to tell me something?

Anyway, I was saying to Twinkle in addition to this, I believe an alarming number of people today believe what someone tells them to believe without ever thinking for themselves. Of course this is very true in politics, and especially in the fringe elements of religion. Whether it's people with bombs strapped on them in the middle east killing children or our own fake messiahs in Waco locking up their flock so he can convince them god wants him to have sex with all the women. I must have missed that part of the scriptures when I was younger.

The sad part is there seems to be a never ending supply of people so desperate for something to hold on to that they will believe someone the rest of the world sees as manipulating them. And there is an ever larger supply of con artists ready to take them in.

This goes back to conspiracies. If you are this gullible, you are ready to see bigfoot when a bear ambles by, even though there is no logical reason to see something that doesn't exist.

Unfortunately for some of these folks whether it is bigfoot or extreme politics or religion, I think they just desperately what to have something special in their lives. They want to know something no one else does. And they pay the price for it every day.

Now I"m going to send this before bigfoot comes and kills my power.