Why Religious People Have No Right To Laugh At Conspiracy Theories
After engaging in a debate on the topic of religion, and particularly how religion attempts to interpret scientific matters, I noticed certain similarities between the way a conspiracy theorist's mind works and how a religious person's mind works.
Some religious people fully believe that their religious belief employs both faith as well as reason and logic - for example they might see the irreducible complexity of a human cell as so perfect that to them to believe someone created or designed it is completely rational. This observation of the human cell itself doesn't in any way show actual proof of a designer's hand, it just appears to be so well designed that one might choose to assume it had to be created by some God-like figure...in other words they take an interesting observation and shape it around their beliefs as a 'fact' and then use this 'fact' to detract from other competing theories.
In the same way a conspiracy theorist hears a story that intrigues and excites them, they want to believe it and so they look for any evidence that might support this story. They may stumble on a couple of interesting facts that throw doubt on existing explanations and because of their desire to believe they take this alone as "proof" of the conspiracy theory - for example a conspiracy theorist may believe that the world trade centre was deliberately demolished on September 11th because of the the shape of the roof and debris plumes at the time of collapse or the diagonally-cut column stumps seen in the debris in the aftermath. Interesting observations but ones that don't explain how the explosives were all put in place without arousing any interest prior to the catastrophe or how no one has ever let slip about the operation despite the number of people that would be required to implement such a plan. Also, with the observation of the column stumps it could be argued that the cuts may have been made during clean up after the collapse.
But these arguments often fall on deaf ears when dealing with a committed conspiracy theorist and similarly when arguing with a person with religious beliefs you will find that they will hold fast to the evidence that supports their beliefs while dismissing contradictory evidence. They will also often try and use doubt as proof and when all is said and done they will throw reason and logic completely out the window and say it is simply a matter of faith at the end of the day - similarly a conspiracy theorist will ultimately write off anyone who rejects their conspiracy theory as either "brainwashed" or part of the conspiracy theory itself.
Religion = conspiracy theory
After engaging in a debate on the topic of religion, and particularly how religion attempts to interpret scientific matters, I noticed certain similarities between the way a conspiracy theorist's mind works and how a religious person's mind works.
Some religious people fully believe that their religious belief employs both faith as well as reason and logic - for example they might see the irreducible complexity of a human cell as so perfect that to them to believe someone created or designed it is completely rational. This observation of the human cell itself doesn't in any way show actual proof of a designer's hand, it just appears to be so well designed that one might choose to assume it had to be created by some God-like figure...in other words they take an interesting observation and shape it around their beliefs as a 'fact' and then use this 'fact' to detract from other competing theories.
In the same way a conspiracy theorist hears a story that intrigues and excites them, they want to believe it and so they look for any evidence that might support this story. They may stumble on a couple of interesting facts that throw doubt on existing explanations and because of their desire to believe they take this alone as "proof" of the conspiracy theory - for example a conspiracy theorist may believe that the world trade centre was deliberately demolished on September 11th because of the the shape of the roof and debris plumes at the time of collapse or the diagonally-cut column stumps seen in the debris in the aftermath. Interesting observations but ones that don't explain how the explosives were all put in place without arousing any interest prior to the catastrophe or how no one has ever let slip about the operation despite the number of people that would be required to implement such a plan. Also, with the observation of the column stumps it could be argued that the cuts may have been made during clean up after the collapse.
But these arguments often fall on deaf ears when dealing with a committed conspiracy theorist and similarly when arguing with a person with religious beliefs you will find that they will hold fast to the evidence that supports their beliefs while dismissing contradictory evidence. They will also often try and use doubt as proof and when all is said and done they will throw reason and logic completely out the window and say it is simply a matter of faith at the end of the day - similarly a conspiracy theorist will ultimately write off anyone who rejects their conspiracy theory as either "brainwashed" or part of the conspiracy theory itself.
Religion = conspiracy theory