The Craziness of Conspiracies

Once again, we are living in a time of conspiracies.  I suppose it’s because human beings love to be in on secrets.  It makes them feel they are special and smart.  They especially love to possess secret information that very few other people have access to or understand.  They like to be in on the know.  Along with the love of secrets, there is a fear motivated by insecurity, someone is out to get us.  The conspiracy says, ‘Listen, we know that is a secret group meeting” with the intention to hurt us.  Insecure people hate to be fooled. They want the truth, the “real truth.”  This desire makes them susceptible to conspiracy rumors and theories. 

Conspiracy believers are usually not in the know but they are curious to know. There are people who want to believe Elvis is alive, we never landed on the moon, President Kennedy was assassinated by our own government, there are aliens among us and the government is keeping us in the dark, it was the Israelis who perpetrated the 9/11 attack, there’s a worldwide conspiracy of Jews to control our economies, all homosexuals are pedophiles and on and on it goes. 

When you tell conspiracy believers that there is no evidence to support their beliefs, they say, “Of course not, the evidence has been hidden.”  The fact that there is no evidence is a sure sign for the “true believers” the conspiracy is true. There is an arrogance among conspiracy believers.  They think they are so important they have been given this secret information; the masses cannot or will not believe. 

Conspiracy is about blind faith, deluded interpretations, and believing without having much evidence. It is not easy to argue with conspiracy believers.  They believe what they believe. 

The solution to conspiracy craziness is to ask for concrete support.   Where are the facts that support the conspiratorial assertion?  Do not just believe something because you think it sounds true to you.  Do the facts you have come from a reputable source?  Don’t be taken in by ideas that feel right.  Investigate, ask questions, and then ask more questions.  This is true in politics, in science, in religion and in life.