The Conspiracy Theory as a Persuasive Device

David Flandry errancy@infidels.org
Mon, 3 May 1999 18:19:42 -0400 (00925787982, 003501be95b3$0d9f9780$63024d0c@oemcomputer) 

Farrell Till  at 2:16 PM May 03, 1999 wrote:

 TILL

 Another posting discussed the way that persuasive devices are used by those
 who want extraordinary claims to be believed.  A common persuasive device
is
 the "conspiracy theory," which is most commonly used to explain the absence
 of evidence that one could reasonably expect would exist if an
extraordinary
 claim were really true.  Probably the best contemporary example that I
could
 cite would be the famous Roswell incident.  UFO buffs claim that an alien
 spacecraft crashed at Roswell, NM, some 50 years ago.  The simplest way to
 prove that this happened would be to produce the wreckage of the spacecraft
 and the bodies of the aliens who were aboard it, but no such evidence has
 ever been produced.  UFO believers have an explanation for the absence of
 this evidence: the U. S. government has classified all of the evidence and
 kept it from public viewing.  In other words, the U. S. government has
 conspired to hide from the public that this incident actually happened.

 Christian apologists will sometimes resort to the conspiracy theory to
 explain the absence of any disinterested contemporary references to Jesus
of
 Nazareth or extraordinary events that should have caused secular records to
 make some mention of them.  They argue, with no evidence to support it,
that
 the enemies of Christianity destroyed all such records in order to contain
 the spread of Christianity.  In other words, the enemies of Christianity
 conspired to destroy secular records that referred to Jesus of Nazareth,
and
 that is why no such records exist.
  remainder sniped
   DF:
  What gets me is that fundies don't realize what this implies for their
god.
  What  was he doing all this time Satan was wrecking havoc with his plan of
  salvation. Satan fellow must be pretty darned close to god in power. Look
at
  his string  of  successes. Garden of  Eden to now, and in the future will
keep
  most people  in hell. And for some reason god is going to tie him up for
10
  centuries  and  then let him loose for one more battle. Sounds like god is
into
   war in a big way.