PTA: Parent, Teacher, Asshole

Conspiracy Theory: The New Religion

So, the way I figure it...Conspiracy Theorists have formed a new religion.

Now, before I begin my explanation, let me get a couple of things out there. I'm an asshole, as the blog states, but I'm not being quite as big an asshole as you might be expecting. First, I don't use the term "conspiracy theory" as a dismissive label as it is often used. When you say, "Oh my god, there's got to be more to it. They're covering stuff up!" and someone in turn says, "Oh, yes, please share your perfectly rational unparanoid conspiracy theory that can't be proven but is so true." That's dismissive. I use the term "conspiracy theory" as literally as the words can be meant without the sarcasm. It's a theory based on evidence that there's a conspiracy surrounding certain events. Second...I am not a blind, toadying yes-man for the government. I say that because conspiracy theorists, having realized that they are frequently dismissed as kooks, have taken to using their own dismissive terms for people who don't believe their theories.

Ok, so Conspiracy Theory, the new religion...See, back in the olden day, man created religion to explain the things which we couldn't understand: seasons, lightning, fire, women, and vcr clocks. So, when lightning would strike and thunder would rumble, when our baby Greek children would ask, "Dadicus, why does the lightning fall from the sky and rumble the earth?" Well, fathers had to say something, and they didn't know enough science to say, "Blah blah clouds blah grunt boom blah science science 1 mississippi 2 mississippi blah blah science." It'd be a long time before the discovery of, well, the Discovery Channel which allows fathers today to explain what happens in nature. So, without the Discovery Channel and with inquisitive little Greek children, fathers had to come up with something...and religion was born.

"Zeus, god of thunder, throws his thunder bolts, his lightning, down to the earth when he is angry and lights up the sky and shakes the ground."

"What makes Zeus angry, Dadicus?"

"Little Greek children who don't do their chores like they are supposed to."

"Why does the house shake when mom's mad at you because you stayed late at the tavern flirting with the Mead Maiden?"

"That's not your mother shaking the house. That is also Zeus, god of thunder and adultery, showing his displeasure with your mother for questioning your father."

Thus, religion and centuries of patriarchy were born. You're welcome.

Nowadays, because of science and the Discovery Channel, we know most everything. Well, we all don't know, but we could all find out if we wanted to find out. Just find the right book. Anyway, despite all that we know, we still get stumped from time to time. What's healthy? We still don't quite know. Who got elected president in 2004? Um...good question.

Answer, CONSPIRACY THEORY! We don't have an answer, but we have a theory that someone knows and they are conspiring to keep the information from us. Where there is a gap in our knowledge or our understanding, our brains can get very creative.

"How can Bush have won the 2004 election?"

Conspiracy! Rigged machines. Voters not allowed to vote. Voters who don't exist.

Now, let's take Ohio, the chief culprit. There's some questions about the machines. But it's easier for some to believe that the machines were rigged. Not that there could have been an innocent programming error. If it was an error, why wouldn't it have affected the results for both Bush and Kerry rather than just Kerry? Well, it couldn't be because if there was a programming error in X machines, the programming error probably occurred in the X machine in a row, not randomly on X machines throughout the programming of all machines. Then, the machines were probably loaded and shipped to the polling places in the same order the error occurred, and then, have you noticed that a lot of times, an area will be predominantly Democratic or Republican? So if the programming error occurred in a row on the same day on the X number of computers, were stored in the order they were programmed, and loaded and shipped in the order they were programmed, the law of probability, which would suggest that an innocent occurrence that could happen to two possible parties would happen fairly equally to both parties, would have little effect. Also, forgotten is that the law of probability says what most likely will happen, but ask anyone who has taken a long shot bet and won, probability doesn't always rule the day. You could flip a coin 10 times and get heads 8. Not probable, but there's nothing saying it couldn't happen either.

Then 9/11...There wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon, it was explosives, and the towers fell down because of explosives not two planes, and the fourth plane got shot down, not the acts of heroism by the passengers.

There's some questionable stuff with the towers. The apparent molten steel and melted steel girders. But then, how many times have towers like the twin towers been hit by planes like those 747s? All the experts are just speculating about what could and could not happen. There's a lot of science in the 9/11 towers thing and even the Pentagon and most of us have to go to experts. But then, both sides has its experts. How do you pick which experts you're going to believe? We don't understand what happened, it must be a conspiracy!

My problem with these conspiracies is that if you question the how, it's always simple. How could the number of people necessary to pull off this conspiracy been able to pull it off without someone noticing, without someone thinking that maybe this wasn't the best idea, without thinking that the only way to get a shot at wealth and fame would be to blow the lid off of the conspiracy? I can't answer the scientific questions about how the towers fell and the concrete turned to dust, but I can find some experts for you. Some experts to say how it could happen the way it supposedly happened, and some experts that will tell you it never could have happened that way without help.

My problem with most conspiracy theorists is that they are 100% POSITIVE that they know what happened, and the government's to blame. I don't think there's been a conspiracy in these events, but I'm not 100% positive that there was no conspiracy. I understand that the answers that I accept from the experts who tell me there was no conspiracy don't eliminate all the questions and in some cases create new questions. Why can't a conspiracy theorist admit that the answers from the experts who say that there was a conspiracy also leave some questions unanswered and create some new questions as well?

The only thing I can figure is faith. Faith that the government is working against its own people. And when you have questions to which you need answers and you look to something (government conspiracy) for those unknown answers, and you have faith that those answers are correct despite opening up more unanswered questions, then you have a religion.

But then, I don't know what keeps happening to my socks. I have more mismatched socks than I do matched socks. So, if my socks turn up in Guantanamo as prisoners in the war on terror...Well, I may have to convert...

posted by Bodog @ 4:41 PM