The Flat Earth & Conspiracy Theories

[Singalphile]

The flat Earth theory (FE) came up in the first minutes of the 12/23 hour-long TNP. (Edit: And I just heard that it came up briefly near the end of the program also.) I had been watching and reading online material about FE in the past week, so it especially caught my attention.

I think that the belief in grand conspiracy theories contributes to unhealthy, even sinful, attitudes and behavior. I have seen it myself. (As in that case, I suspect that drugs often play a role.)

A person who beliefs in FE must necessarily be a conspiracy theorist of the highest possible degree. That alone is enough to reject FE, imo, though there are of course experimental and observational reasons.

It did not seem to me that FEers are predominately Christian, just judging by the amount of profanity/vulgarity. I will say that I don't yet accept that there are anti-Christians pretending to be Christians pretending to be FEers. Aside from a few obvious comment trolls, I did not see that, but maybe. (If anyone knows of such a case, it would be interesting.)

Lastly, studying this FE phenom helped me to understand how amazingly good we humans are at coming up with reasonable sounding explanations. It is impossible, it seems, to convince someone of something that they don't want to be convinced of.

So, any insights, thoughts, anecdotes?

[morbo3000]

Years, (and years, and years) ago, I came across this story:

“Some years ago, NASA released the first deep-space photographs of the beautiful cloud-swirled blue-green agate we call Earth. A reporter showed one of them to the late Samuel Shenton, then president of International Flat Earth Research Society. Shenton studied it for a moment and said, “It’s easy to see how such a picture could fool the untrained eye.”

That phrase became a touchstone for me to see how a worldview can so taint our reality, that we think people who see it the other way must surely be mad.

I wrote this blog-post about it. Which has familiar elements to the tenor of this board.

http://www.untrainedeye.net/2012/what-i ... ained-eye/

[Singalphile]

I agree with the sentiments of your blog post, morbo3000. Very much.

Here are some conspiracy theories that it seems like Christians are more prone to hold:

1. Naturalistic Common Descent/Evolution as Scientific Fraud

2. New World Order, Illuminati (Is this still a thing?)

3. Free Masons as secret Satanist Cult/Society

4. Global Warming, Climate Change as Fraud (More political than religious, I think.)

That's all I can think of.

I think it would be quite useful for our elders/overseers/shepherds to provide some instruction (aka, doctrine) about avoiding gullibility and the conspiracy theory mindset about these things. Can anybody recommend a good lecture, sermon, or book?

[crgfstr1]

For item number 1. Is your objection that macro Evolution is wrong but not a fraud? Or that the bible is wrong about how creation took place in favor of the theories that Darwin put forth?

We can't keep the Bible's version of creation and evolution and simply say that it was longer than 6 days and the days weren't literal. The order of creation would still be wrong in the Bible if macro evolution were true. I used to think that they could be compatible until I did some research on the subject. They aren't at all compatible so if you believe Darwin's full form of Evolution then where is your stance on the Bible's accuracy?

My research on the subject lead me to see all of the holes in the theory and the control it gives certain people and why they push these lies. It is in large part why I have been returning to the faith I had when I was young but with a better ability to understand (hopefully) as an adult.

I agree that more church leaders should be speaking on these subjects. I believe they should stand for the correctness of the Bible.

[Paidion]

Even if I were a non-Christian, I would still disbelieve the evolutionary explanation.
Charles Darwin, who first promoted the theory said, "The human eye makes me sick." He was referring to the complexity of the eye, and that it is difficult or impossible to account for its existence through evolutionary principles.

If I were a non-Christian, I would probably be deist.

[crgfstr1]

Even if I were a non-Christian, I would still disbelieve the evolutionary explanation.

Me too.

[Singalphile]

For item number 1. Is your objection that macro Evolution is wrong but not a fraud? Or that the bible is wrong about how creation took place in favor of the theories that Darwin put forth?

We can't keep the Bible's version of creation and evolution and simply say that it was longer than 6 days and the days weren't literal. The order of creation would still be wrong in the Bible if macro evolution were true. I used to think that they could be compatible until I did some research on the subject. They aren't at all compatible so if you believe Darwin's full form of Evolution then where is your stance on the Bible's accuracy?

My research on the subject lead me to see all of the holes in the theory and the control it gives certain people and why they push these lies. It is in large part why I have been returning to the faith I had when I was young but with a better ability to understand (hopefully) as an adult.

I agree that more church leaders should be speaking on these subjects. I believe they should stand for the correctness of the Bible.

Hi, crgfstr1. I was deliberately brief and vague in the hopes of getting more responses. Maybe it worked! Ha, ha, ha (evil laugh)!

But to answer your questions: 1. Yes 2. No

Rather or not Genesis 1-3 was meant as a literal account, I think that the theory that all life evolved from, first, non-life and then an amoeba (or whatever) is incorrect. I am certain though that those who do hold to that theory are sincere about it. In other words, there's no conspiracy, imo. A person can sometimes have a minority opinion without necessarily being a conspiracy theorist, just as a person can hold the majority opinion without being a brain-dead tool or liar. (It is fair to say, though, that we tend to overstate our cases and to advance our favorite agendas when given opportunity.)

Grand conspiracy theorizing is unbecoming and is rightly, imo, seen to be absurd. People know that they're not part of any grand conspiracy, so they have good reason to write off those who insist that they are.

That's my argument, anyway.

[morbo3000]

Singalphile wrote:

Here are some conspiracy theories that it seems like Christians are more prone to hold:
1. Naturalistic Common Descent/Evolution as Scientific Fraud
4. Global Warming, Climate Change as Fraud (More political than religious, I think.)
2. New World Order, Illuminati (Is this still a thing?)
3. Free Masons as secret Satanist Cult/Society

Excellent list.

I changed the order to put #1 and #4 together, because they are about science denying. I would add anti-vaxers to the list.

The huge problem with teaching people about conspiracy thinking is that conspiracy thinking inoculates you from facts that disprove your conspiracy.

In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... _backfire/

You see this online frequently when someone posts an article on Facebook that supports their position but is untrue. Examples: memes that quote a conservative opinion, from a popular source, like an entertainer, who didn't actually say it. More than once, I have followed up by linking to snopes, or politifact, only to have the original poster respond: "well it still sounds good."

I think it would be quite useful for our elders/overseers/shepherds to provide some instruction (aka, doctrine) about avoiding gullibility and the conspiracy theory mindset about these things. Can anybody recommend a good lecture, sermon, or book?

A couple ideas:
- Humility. When I talked with someone who won't vaccinate her children, I was struck by the hubris of a lay person (not scientist) believing she had an adequate grasp of the research on the subjects of both immunizations and autism to draw a conclusion (unfounded) and endanger her children and society. Wise people understand that the older you get, you know less, not more. People who get sucked into conspiracy thinking believe that they see clearer than others the -real story.- Hubris. Teaching on Christian humility would help.
- The Proverbs.
- Critical thinking. This is a great set of videos
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5888322/critical ... animations
A quick google search for "Christian critical thinking" brought up this set of slides. Note that if you scroll down you can see the text that goes with each slide.
http://www.slideshare.net/johnallan/cri ... christians

Here are some resources regarding your two science-denying conspiracies
Climate Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg

Bill Nye and John Oliver explain the disproportionate weight given to climate-science-deniers in media. When you are only given 3 minutes to discuss it on TV, you wind up with one person representing climate science, and then another person on the other side. But the ratio of scientists is overwhelmingly in favor of man-made cause of climate-change. But rather simply explain that, they illustrate it. It's wonderful.

Naturalistic Common Descent/Evolution as Scientific Fraud
http://ncse.com/taking-action/list-steves
Creationists claim that there is a conspiracy made up of elite scientists to present the atheistic anti-bible evolution explanation. To try and validate their view as being "scientific," they make lists of scientists who believe as they do. But the fallacy of conspiracy is demonstrably false by the sheer number of scientists who support the theory of common ancestor. There is no way so many people could conspire together to support something they knew wasn't true. Or that taken as a whole they were lying to themselves. This is humoursly illustrated by the list of Steves. Rather than assemble a list of people who affirm evolution, they assembled a list of Steves who support evolution.

[morbo3000]

Side note: some atheists make science an easy target for creationists. Not all of them do. But the new atheists certainly do. Richard Dawkins. Neal DeGrasse Tyson. Others. I'd love to learn more about the Cosmos. But Tyson is so arrogant about faith I can't bear to watch it. There is a great debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox that demonstrates the limits of atheism.

[crgfstr1]

Thanks for the answer Singalphile. I see it this way. Probably most people involved in the evolution belief system are true to what they believe so in that sense it isn't fraud on their part. I do believe though that satan is behind the fraud and tricking people into spreading his lies. In that sense it is even a bigger fraud. This is probably true of most of the conspiracy issues. The vast majority of those participating are just duped by the devil. That doesn't mean there isn't a plan behind it and very active coordination going on.

Whether the people are knowledgeable or ignorant of the deception however only means that one of the tools to fight it is to wake the people up who are mislead. Does satan want a one world government and one world religion (not a true Christian one)? Are we heading that way and what can we do to stop it?