Part two of this series is now at the link below. This post originally covered from the sentence: “If we have adopted and are going to share a conspiratorial belief with someone else, we need to have answered these questions ourselves and be ready to explain our answers to the person whom we seek to convince” to the sentence: “They are people who are created in God’s image, and we don’t get to slander them, even if their political persuasions, cultural practices, and other ways of living are different—or objectively far more worse and far more sinful—than ours are, thanks to God’s unmerited grace to us.” Feel free to continue to comment below on this post, if you wish, after reading it at the link below.
–TDR
It says in Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
A lot of what we have going on today is people spoiling others through the use of the world’s philosophic techniques. Many times, it doesn’t take much in the way of truth to convince people without a moral compass to hop on your political platform. There are plenty of ways to effect bias, and they don’t involve keeping secrets or conspiracies. They involve convincing people to perpetute their own lies to themselves. We see that today with modern theories of evolution, as well as unfalsifiable claims surrounding “climate change,” of people being born a certain sexual orientation from birth, or that that masks or shots are more effective, than they can indeed ever be proved to be. We’ve seen the damage that these worldly theories can do, though never more false. They have led to things like abortion. There’s not a grand conspiracy or secret behind it, although it is a great deception nonetheless. What you in your article call “mainstream scientific treatment,” and what also passes for that in today’s parlance, includes things like mutilation of a child and application of hormones, and other horrifying treatments that the world professes as respectable and/or scientific. Despite its obvious error, it’s not a grand secret that this is happening today. In fact they claim this out in the open, demanding others to agree. The same goes for many historical narratives that are not based on Biblical principles. The truth exists to counteract them. But we have to address people’s underlying lack of understanding God’s word, before healing of these errors can occur. They have to be shown where God’s word is right before they can truly see what is wrong with these other beliefs. In the case of your example here, see 1 John 2:23 and 2 John verse 9, and see who has God and who does not. Then you will see how the narrative that you say should be default actually falls apart, you will start to see the wrong motivations behind why others keep propping it up in the first place – This is what’s important. We see a lot of people being spoiled through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world, and it’s never a good thing to see it happen. (Galatians 4:16ff.). -Andrew
Hello Andrew, thanks for writing.
I had a bit of difficulty following some of what you were saying. Do you agree that the verses in the blog post relate to how one evaluates information? If not, how are they out of context?
Are you saying that because it is unscientific to say that a man can become a woman and a baby in the womb is not a baby, therefore vaccines don’t work? Maybe you aren’t making that argument, but if you are, based on Isaiah 1:18, what would be the strongest case someone could mount against this assertion of yours, and why does it fail to refute your allegation?
Thanks.
Hi KJB1611, Absolutely, glad I could help.
What I am saying is that it makes no sense to argue in favor of something simply because it is mainstream. In your article, you mentioned “mainstream scientific treatment”(s) as being what people should believe by default. But would you argue the same for what has rapidly become “mainstream” in regards to deviancy being normalized? This is my point. In trying to argue this, you basically say many of your own beliefs – many Biblical beliefs – are a conspiracy, and this is what I was pointing out. This is a reductio ad absurdum refutation.
IOW, I could use your own argument here – which is an argument secularists often use – against many of your statements you have made elsewhere. All anyone would have to do is try to characterize one of your beliefs as a “conspiracy theory,” since the majority for whatever reason doesn’t believe like you do on a given issue, and therefore (supposedly) you must believe that there is a “conspiracy” to keep the truth from light. I brought up various counterexamples to show that this line of reasoning is overly simplistic above.
What should matter is whether or not there is a valid biblical basis, or not. Isaiah 1:18 cannot be pressed into service arguing for the majority or mainstream view of every issue. That is taking it too far. What Paul told us in Colossians 2 should suffice to show that. I will hope for the best in that you and your readers will acknowledge the truth, Lord willing. It is the Lord God that saves and justifies, not the majority of this world. God bless you.
Hello Andrew,
Thanks again for the comment.
Just because something is a conspiracy theory does not necessarily mean it is false. The conspiracy to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand that led to the start of World War I passes the tests in this series (for example).
The Isaiah 1:18 point is not that whatever the majority of people believe is true. It is that we should evaluate the strongest arguments on both sides of an issue, like someone does in a law court. There are no good arguments on the side of those who think that men can turn into women. Every Y chromosome in the body of a “transgender woman” screams out that this is false. There is no science for this at all, no placebo controlled trials, etc. There are many good arguments that, say, the vaccine for smallpox actually helps to prevent smallpox. There is tons of actual scientific evidence for this, and arguments that the smallpox vaccine did not help to eliminate smallpox from the face of the earth totally fail. So it is rational to believe that the smallpox vaccine works and rational to believe that men do not change into women. Rejecting the idea that women can change into men does not in any way change the rationality of believing that the results of controlled trials of vaccines are accurate. Of course, nobody has done any controlled trials of macroevolution. Thanks.
Thanks.
Dear KJB1611,
Hopefully, all of what I said before now makes sense. What you’ve said in reply all checks out to me. But there is a further point that might need to be drilled down, based just on what you said in your original article. Because there is something in the air remaining that I still do not think is in line with the idea of “reasoning together.”
As far as the characterization of a thought or idea as a “conspiracy theory,” I do not believe we have ever mutually agreed on what these are. Maybe what I think is a conspiracy, you do not. Maybe what you think is a conspiracy I do not. I think the characterization as a “conspiracy,” which you have used, itself should be part of the discussion.
Generally, if something is characterized as a “conspiracy,” it implies that somehow the burden of proof has intangibly shifted away from the person holding the supposedly “mainstream” view in comparison. That raises a question: are we all agreed that anyone holding the majority view, on any issue, can characterize any less-supported view as a “conspiracy” by virtue of this fact? Does one always gain this advantage by virtue of being the mainstream? Like you say in another part of your article, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Yes, this is true. But isn’t casting another person’s idea as being more “extraordinary” than it really truly is (because nobody ever calls their own idea a conspiracy) just a way to shift all of the burden of proof away from oneself? By making one person meet a virtually impossible burden of proof, even while the one invoking the term is not required to prove anything at all?
By saying that a possibly true belief – perhaps one that one cannot otherwise answer – is a “conspiracy,” one avoids having to provide any further explanation as soon as the mere mention of the term “conspiracy theory” is uttered. It is as if all one has to do now is show that their view is more accepted by people, and one has “won” that argument. Is there only one view and everything else is a conspiracy? I would say that this is not an argument in good faith. I am very reluctant to call something a conspiracy theory unless both parties are agreed that’s what it is. Otherwise we are not “reasoning together” in good faith at all.
If somebody actually starts to make assertions that there is a conspiracy… like every photo in the world being maliciously edited, and every nation on earth conspiring, to cover up the existence of Antarctica (i.e. flat earth) then that is a fair characterization. But it’s not even a conspiracy theory to say that there really are various serious provable falsehoods propped up, which many people wrongly believe for reasons other than the truth. This is true especially since the Obama era. This is just people being demoralized; With these kinds of falsehoods, there is no big secret that would suddenly change their mind. So it’s not a conspiracy. It doesn’t require a conspiracy. Many people in the world don’t care about the facts even if you show them, because they might lack a moral compass to tell them that many things are wrong in the first place. Like I said before, people have to understand God’s word before healing of that sort of error can occur. They have to see what is right first, in order to know that said popular idea is truly wrong. There’s not a grand conspiracy that, upon its revelation, would cause people to stop supporting abortion, or a lot of other things (i.e. worldly philosophies not after Christ). The only thing that will convince people then, is the word of truth in the Bible. Then their mind will change. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” This is so although the facts, the statistics, and the provable damage that is being caused already clearly rebukes these philosophies.
So, as we have seen from this discussion, the very adoption of the term “conspiracy theory” is a way of shifting all burden of proof away from oneself, simply because the one employing it is perceived as being “in the mainstream” by comparison. There are some valid times when this may be necessary, but this technique has been perhaps intentionally employed by many political radicals in media today to very destructive ends. Many of the things that the media calls conspiracies are not. I don’t think you would align up with them. But I do see you suggesting that should adopt their same terminology here. And I see you using it against certain ideas that might be hard truths for today’s time, even truths that can be backed up with Scripture as I have done, and truths that in fact when one looks into them have nothing to do with conspiracies.
Ironically, though, many of the concepts the mainstream pushes like systematic racism are in truth the biggest conspiracy theories of all. There is no source or proof for that, just a lot of feelings that have been programmed into people through the television, Pavlovian style. They have been programmed to think certain things that are not really there – One thing that a lot of people have been programmed to think is “Orange man bad,” but they literally cannot put into words or provide a single actual reason why they oppose him. It’s scary how that happens. However out of respect for other people I do not start out by pointing this fact because I would rather hear what they have to say and, hopefully, show them where the Bible stands in relation to that. I seldom start off by disparaging another view right off the bat by outright calling it a “conspiracy theory” when that is very much arguable. That’s more like what a woke journalist would do, and I want nothing to do with those people. I hope it’s the same for you, as I think it is, KJB1611.
Hello Andrew,
Wanting a definition of a conspiracy theory is fair enough. Here is one which I will plan to add to the completed work:
For the purposes of this study, a conspiracy theory is defined as “a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003). The Biblical principles in this study are useful for evaluating information regardless of whether one wishes to identify a particular explanation for events as a conspiracy. Compare “Should A Christian Be Interested in Conspiracy Theories?” in Got Questions? Bible Questions Answered (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013).
Please note that “whatever the majority of people happen to think” is not the definition.
Thanks.