Conspiracy And Belief Systems

[Furrowed Brow]

I watched a programme last night about Roswell, and the conspiracy theories that surround the supposed crash of an alien ship in New Mexico. The programme affirmed for me the more mundane conclusion I had already come to. That what crashed in the desert was indeed a weather balloon.

This set me to thinking. I also believe a lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK, that there was no US government involvement in 9/11, and that there is no conspiracy for a New World Order etc

I also do not buy into popular modern mythologies such as Graeme Hancock’s lost civilizations, the face on mars, alien abductions, or ghosts.

Among the various reasons I dismiss these and other conspiracy theories is partly due to my assessment of the evidence, and partly my prejudice as to how the world really works. I find it far more likely that governments cover up incompetence, dishonesty, fraud and negligence rather than real conspiracies. I also think that that there is nothing like a tall tale that generates its own belief system in the retelling. I believe honest, intelligent and sincere people can still be the most easily fooled and self deluding. I do believe in mass hysteria, and that people find comfort by living their life by , and making contact with reality through a narrative. Some narratives I guess just seem more exciting and are consequently more seductive than the facts of the matter.

I then set to wondering whether there were personalities types more prone to signing up to belief systems than others. Am I an atheist because I always wear sceptical spectacles? I don’t think so. However I’m not going to commit to any old bunkum.

Ok here are list of conspiracies and beliefs. I don’t sign up to any of them.

1/JFK - CIA/Mafia hit.
2/ Roswell - Alien craft crash landed.
3/ The US government has no alien technology at area 51.
4/ 9/11 US Government /CIA involvement
5/ A US passenger did not crash into the Pentagon.
6/ The Twin towers were brought down by demolishing explosives
7/ New World Order
8/ Hancock’s lost civilisations.
9/ Alien Abduction
10/ Face on Mars.
11/ Davinci Code
12/ Moon landing faked
13/ Bible code
14/ Princess Dianne was murdered
15/ The Resurrection.

These are the one I can thing of for the moment. Please add to the list if you can think of others. Which ones do you or do you not subscribe to, which ones are within a world of possibility for you. Score 1 point for yes you do believe, ½ point for not sure but seems possible, 0 point for no or very unlikely.

Ok I score 0.

[McCulloch]

Zero

• Iraq's WMDs
• Virgin Birth
• Bavarian Illuminati
• Universal Flood
• Elders of Zion Protocol
• Six day creation
• Apollo Moon-Landing Hoax Theory
• Mohammed's Ascension
• Roosevelt deliberately ignored warnings of bombing of Pearl Harbour
• Hundred's of zombies walking in Jerusalem on the first Easter
• J Edgar Hoover engineered Lennon's death

[Goat]

1/JFK - CIA/Mafia hit.
2/ Roswell - Alien craft crash landed.
3/ The US government has no alien technology at area 51.
4/ 9/11 US Government /CIA involvement
5/ A US passenger did not crash into the Pentagon.
6/ The Twin towers were brought down by demolishing explosives
7/ New World Order
8/ Hancock’s lost civilisations.
9/ Alien Abduction
10/ Face on Mars.
11/ Davinci Code
12/ Moon landing faked
13/ Bible code
14/ Princess Dianne was murdered
15/ The Resurrection.

Out of all those, I see one that has a remote possiblity of being possible, but i also rate that as highly unlikely. 14 out of the 15 I consider physically impossible, and the 15th one I find extremely impausible.
These are the one I can thing of for the moment. Please add to the list if you can think of others. Which ones do you or do you not subscribe to, which ones are within a world of possibility for you. Score 1 point for yes you do believe, ½ point for not sure but seems possible, 0 point for no or very unlikely.

Ok I score 0.[/quote]

[k-nug]

Conspiracy's like religion are sexy. They make life interesting. Most of us live day to day, pretty much doing the same thing. Conspiracy theories make the world a much more interesting place to live. When the 9/11 conspiracies first started to come out, I was a little intrigued. However as I looked into it the more it sounded like your average conspiracy theory. Lot's of conjecture, little evidence. If you search Youtube for 9.11 you will find at least half to 2/3 of all the vids are claiming the governments involvement. This is our generation's Roswell. At the very worst our government is guilty of ignoring the warnings and using 9/11 to go into Iraq.

Of all the people that should be a proponent of ET's and abductions it should be me.

I actually saw a UFO once. I was walking out of the parking lot of a local grocery store at night and saw about 10 people looking and pointing straight up into the sky. When I looked I saw a light (about the same brightness as an airplane's lights) moving back and forth through the sky at great speed. The object seemed to move across about, half a mile (uneducated guess) and then back again, seemingly ignoring the laws of physics. This happened for about 15 seconds (that I saw, don't know how long it had been doing this before I walked out.) Then it streaked off and disappeared.

I don't know what it was that I saw, nor am I a proponent of UFO's or abductions or any of that crap. Clearly there are any number of things it could have been, including optical illusion, natural phenomena, or some top secret aircraft. (We had multiple Air Force bases in that part of Florida.) My best guess is that it was an optical illusion.

I've also been the victim of an alien abduction. It was 2 am or so in the morning. I was just waking up and I could not move. My body was paralyzed, I could not talk (or scream as I tried REAL hard) and I had a very bad feeling that someone was in the room with me. All i could think of was that Aliens were gonna kidnap me and perfom bad experiments on my backsides. This happened infrequently for a few years. Once the ol' interweb came along I started looking around and found my much more common problem.
Sleep Paralysis.

What is sleep paralysis?

Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset (called hypnogogic or predormital form) or upon awakening (called hypnopompic or postdormtal form).

What are the symptoms?

* A complaint of inability to move the trunk or limbs at sleep onset or upon awakening
* Presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis
* Episodes can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain)

In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the “Hag Phenomena” and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm.

Once I figured this out I was extremely relieved. I soon found my own solution to the problem by concentrating on moving my fingers then my arms and so on. After a while the problem stopped. Occasionally I get hypnopompic (yes I had to look it up) paralysis where I become paralyzed before I fall asleep. This is much more rare and though just as unnerving usually I am able to free myself easier and I just get up get a drink then go back to sleep no problem

I'm glad that my conversion and subsequent abandoning of Christianity gave me more of a skeptic's heart.