Right. Time to lay my cards on the table here. I'd say the reason perhaps I've gotten involved in this conversation (when 90% of the forum haven't) is because I have looked into quite a lot of these things in the past as I mentioned earlier, and I do still keep a wary eye on some of them. However, I'm convinced a lot of people - generally those who become very absorbed with the theories of major proponents of conspiracies such as David Icke (certifiable lunatic yet to provide any solid proof of most of his theories) or Alex Jones (connects far too many dots with lines which are his own conjecture at best, and is a massive fear monger) start to see the hand of design where there really is none (and at that point it does strike me as a bit of a psychological problem, namely paranoia). That is of major significance to me, as I think the point at which I was really turned off by a lot of the things being said by people in that community (especially around the whole 'New World Order' thing) was this idea that there's a plan, that there is a reason for everything - It sounded a lot like religion.
Now I don't believe in a God. I don't believe that there was a creator with a plan for this world, to me it's chance and a very big universe. When I started coming to the conclusions I eventually came to about a lot of conspiracy theories it was because I saw the same kind of attitudes from these people I see and abhor in say, proponents of intelligent design. People who say things are the way they are because God / Satan / The Illuminati planned it like that - and actually, that strikes me as the same kind of abdication of personal responsibility and denial of the facts to the contrary. I found the same attitude in both camps:
"Life is **** but it's not me who's to blame. Unseen forces are in control of our lives!"
And it wasn't only that but the shared belief in the coming 'apocolypse'. I have a book about 'God's Final Judgment' which some religious nutter left in my shop and (I'm laughing as I type this) it has several epilogues which have been added by glueing new pages into the back - and every one says the same thing: "Judgement is at hand! Very soon now! Really soon! Okay, this time for sure!" If the last 2000 years has taught intelligent people anything, it's that the day of judgement never comes. And it will never come. All progress is slow, and if against all odds there is a malevolent World Government conspiracy, it will come to power in several hundred years after very slowly manipulating everything into place. It will happen so gradually no-one will even notice (mainly because they'll die and be replaced by a new generation, just as we didn't notice the radical changes which have taken place since the middle ages), and as such it won't need to be achieved by force. In fact you might say it wouldn't look like a conspiracy at all, more like progress.
Once I looked again and made sure I was examining things with a critical mind, the result was that most of these theories just fell apart as surely as religion did. There are certain theories which persist in my mind due to evidence or lack or evidence to the contrary. I do try, and I think, largely succeed in keeping an open mind about things, but also a critical one. I'm not going to believe anything anyone says whether they be politicians, scientists or otherwise unless they have some solid proof to back it up. This post isn't aimed at anyone in particular, I just wanted to make clear where I stand at this moment in time with regards to this topic. Other people of course are free to have their own beliefs, but as always I reserve my respect for those who allow me the same courtesy.
