THOUGHTS TO PONDER:
- “My enemies conspire against me, plotting to take my life. But I am trusting you, O Lord, saying, ‘You are my God!’ My future is in your hands. Rescue me from those who hunt me down relentlessly…You hide [your people] in the shelter of your presence, safe from those who conspire against them.” Psalms 31:13-15, 20
- ‘Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.’” Isaiah 8:12.
- “He [a beast that conspires against God” will defy the Most High and oppress the holy people of the Most High. He will try to change their sacred festivals and laws, and they will be placed under his control for a time, times, and half a time.” Daniel 7:25
- “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.” Eph. 5:11
- “We plutocrats have a long and proud history of controlling human societies, and the belief systems that we create about how the world works enable us to do that…You show me an orthodox belief, and I’ll show you plutocrats who benefit from it.” Billionaire Nick Hanauer
- “If you deny that real conspiracies have happened, how will you convince people that Satan conspired against God, that Satan with beast powers conspires to deceive people and cause them to lose salvation or that people need to understand truth better to detect and avoid propaganda/deceptions that harm billions of lives every year? How will you convince them to avoid the wide road of destruction and be part of the remnant that is saved?” Bryan Bissell (author of this article)
INTRODUCTION
On the morning of April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m., a bullet ripped through the air and hit one of the most famous civil rights leaders in history at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. About an hour later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was dead. Many since that time have asked who did it and why was he assassinated. Who would have conspired to kill this man of peace and non-violence and who was just trying to bring more equality and better lives for many oppressed people in American and around the world? Many don’t know it, but a court trial deciding guilt did happen and the Martin Luther King center has much evidence from that trial and elsewhere on its website documenting this. Coretta King says about the trial.
“The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.” www.thekingcenter.org/assassination-conspiracy-trial blog.truth-is-life.org/rights/pacifism-king/
This is not usually reported in the news much if at all when people talk about his death. But that is what a real trial found. A conspiracy at many levels of society ended the life of America’s most prominent civil rights leader. A documentary by James Corbett is quite decisive in compiling evidence that some of the major reasons Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated were because he was trying to unify the civil rights movement, the economic justice movement and the anti-war movement against many forms of societal injustice. Just one wasn’t serious to warrant severe action against him. But when he tried to unify all three, this really scared very powerful people and corporations that were profiting enormously from war and injustice and didn’t want the gravy train to stop.
https://www.corbettreport.com/mlk/ (see also: http://blog.truth-is-life.org/rights/pacifism-king/)
The CIA actually pioneered the idea of mocking people with evidence of conspiracies as conspiracy theorists to cover up crimes and we have strong evidence of this (see it near the end of this article).
If you doubt that war can be that profitable, I strongly recommend that you read a small book written by the 4 star US general Smedley Butler who risked his life and that of his men fighting wars on several continents and also stopped an attempted coup d’etat against the president of the United States. But at the end of his career he realized that quite a few of those wars had been waged because of the influences of certain corporations and their desires for profit which was far higher during wartime than at other times. It is quite a revealing and eye opening book.
War Is A Racket, by Major General Smedley Butler, 1935 – Ratical.org https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
Throughout the Bible and history there have been many fully
documented conspiracies. But there are also false claims of conspiracies that
distract attention from the most serious conspiracies and cover up the real
causes of injustices. So wise people need to “Test everything that is said” 1
Thess. 5:21 and discern which ones are worth spending their time on and which
can really change people’s lives for the better most effectively and reduce
time on/ignore ones that don’t have much impact to improve our world.
By the definition of the words conspiracy (a plot to do something harmful,
exploitative or evil) and the academic definition of theory (a conclusion that explains
all the available evidence best) and definitions of conspiracy theory (a plot
usually by a small group of people, organization or government to do something
harmful, exploitative or evil), everyone believes in many conspiracy theories.
Scholars fully agree that everyone agrees in conspiracy theories. And it is
right and rational to believe in some, but not others. It depends entirely on
which conspiracy claims have the majority of evidence on their side and should
be considered true.
If we accept the definition of a conspiracy theory above (which is based on dictionaries/encyclopedias/research..see a bit more below), then the Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and many other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories of American upstarts conspiring to rebel against King George and the British government. The same is true of many other freedom fighters around the world who rebelled and won their independence.
EVERYONE BELIEVES IN SOME CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Dr. Uscinski and Dr. Parent from the University of Miami have confirmed that everyone believes in at least some conspiracy theories:
“Conspiracy theories permeate all parts of American society and cut across gender, age, race, income, political affiliation, educational level, and occupational status…it is safe to say that almost everyone believes in at least once conspiracy theory and many of us believe more than one…Even though many people on the right and left are similarly prone to believing the country is headed for an abyss, a main difference between the two sides likes in whom they blame….each side is motivated to blame the other, rarely itself…. conspiracy theorizing is approximately equal among Republicans as Democrats.” American Conspiracy Theories By Joseph E. Uscinski, Joseph M. Parent, p. 5,6,13,158.
https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=ITr_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5
See a talk they gave here: www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org/blog/watch-american-conspiracy-theories-talk/
Communications professors Ginna Husting and Martin Orr of Boise State University also show the irrationality of those who attack “conspiracy theories” in a 2007 peer-reviewed article.
“…If I call you a conspiracy theorist, it matters little whether you have actually claimed that a conspiracy exists or whether you have simply raised an issue that I would rather avoid… By labeling you, I strategically exclude you from the sphere where public speech, debate, and conflict occur.”
“Dangerous Machinery: ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion.” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/si.2007.30.2.127/abstract
How does everyone believe in conspiracies?
EXAMPLE #1: If you believe that the Jewish holocaust was a conspiracy by the Nazis to annihilate the Jews as vast evidence shows, you are a conspiracy theorist. If you don’t believe all the vast evidence for this, you are also a conspiracy theorist.
EXAMPLE #2: If you believe that creation science is true, then you believe a conspiracy theory that many governments, corporations and powerful people are trying to keep people deceived with Darwinism because it promotes a culture of exploitative/violent “survival of the fittest” which is highly profitable, esp. for the military industrial complex.
If you believe Darwinism is true, you believe a conspiracy theory that many churches and some powerful people and a few schools are trying to deceive people (but since creation is a foundation for equality, they aren’t doing it for profit).
EXAMPLE #3: If you believe Al Queda or terrorists attacked the WTC towers on 9/11, you are a conspiracy theorist. If you think the government did it, you are also a conspiracy theorist. The real question is which conspiracy theory is most warranted by the evidence.
EXAMPLES #4: If you believe that Watergate happened, that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned unfairly, that corporations sometimes exploit workers, that the 1% own more wealth than the 99% combined or a myriad of other things, you are by definition a conspiracy theorist whose views are based on the weight of evidence. If you don’t, you are also a conspiracy theorist, just one with very little evidence, flimsy evidence or no evidence.
Christians have a duty to follow the core principles of truth and “Test everything that is said…always do good to each person and all people.” 1 Thess. 5:21,15 and “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.” Ephesians 5:11 And so we need to check carefully whether claims of a conspiracy are true or false, as well as whether it is beneficial to spend major amounts of time studying a topic.
But to deny/ignore all conspiracies is even worse than gullibly believing all conspiracy claims. Einstein said “Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.” which is exactly the mistake that many skeptics of conspiracy theories engage in.
You will from time to time run across people who ridicule anyone who has views different from their own as “tin foil hat believers” or “conspiracy theorists” or other derogatory terms. This is a fallacy of “attacking the messenger” instead of carefully checking where the majority of evidence leads. These well meaning “conspiracy deniers” do not realize they are being manipulated because:
DEFINITION OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Let’s clarify what we mean by conspiracy theories and use accurate definitions, because distorting definitions is one of the top kinds of propaganda that harms people according to quite a few professors*.
CONSPIRACY:
“a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy
THEORY:
“a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity.” https://www.dictionary.com/browse/theory
CONSPIRACY THEORY (Merriam Webster):
“a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of
a secret plot [usually by] powerful conspirators”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conspiracy%20theory
There are some people who define conspiracy theories as a claim without any evidence. And that kind of claim is not rational to believe. But by definition conspiracy theories, can and often do mean the best explanation of facts that involves 2 or more people doing something harmful and illegal to other people. And there are many, many of these all throughout the Bible, history and science.
BIBLE CONSPIRACIES
The Bible gave wise principles in this area that there are real conspiracies, but there are also false claims of conspiracies. Atheism gave no principles of wisdom in this or any other areas.
A) CONSPIRACIES AT NOAH’S TIME
At the time of Noah and at other times throughout the Bible, God condemned conspiracies to do evil.
“The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.” Genesis 6:5
B) PROPHETS CONDEMNED CONSPIRACIES TO DO EVIL
“But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows; only if you stop your murdering; and only if you stop harming yourselves by worshiping idols. Then I will let you stay in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever. Jeremiah 7:5-7 (NLT) (see also 2 Samuel 15:13, Jeremiah 11:9, Micah 2:1, Mark 12:1 and many other verses)
C) 40 MEN CONSPIRED TO KILL PAUL
When the Jews were angry at Paul converting so many to believe in Jesus, ~40 of them vowed to kill Paul, a serious conspiracy.
• “The next morning a group of Jews[a] got together and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty of them in the conspiracy.” Acts 23:12-13
D) THE CENTRAL EVENT OF HISTORY, JESUS’ CRUCIFIXION, WAS A CONSPIRACY
The most diabolical conspiracy in history was the crucifixion of Jesus, the Messiah. The whole crucifixion of Jesus on false charges was a conspiracy by both Jewish and Roman leaders to murder their Creator. The core event of Christian history is a conspiracy of corrupt priests and pagan Romans to crucify the Son of God, the worst conspiracy in history, one that ended up destroying the entire Israeli nation.
E) BEAST/ANTI-CHRIST CONSPIRACIES: The Bible says that there have been many powerful being and institutions that have been at war against God and His freeing truths. Daniel predicted 4 major worldpower beasts that would conspire and war against God in his visions. He spoke of one of the most serious ones and said:
“He [a beast that conspires against God” will defy the Most High and oppress the holy people of the Most High. He will try to change their sacred festivals and laws, and they will be placed under his control for a time, times, and half a time.” Daniel 7:25
John spoke about 2 beast powers in Revelation that will conspire to have everyone receive a mark in their forehead or on their hand, the famous mark of the beast. He spoke in more depth about one of them in Rev. 17-18 and it’s abuse and exploitation of people around the world .
He also warned that there are many ant-christs who conspire against God in this world, esp. at the end of the world.
John warned that there would be antichrists.
“this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. 1 John 2:17-19
He also said that God through 3 angels is calling people out of the many conspiracies of the wicked systems of Babylon (Rev. 14:6-9).
F) NOT EVERYTHING IS A CONSPIRACY
But God warned us against going to the harmful extreme of thinking that everything is a conspiracy.
“The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, ‘Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.’” Isaiah 8:12.
Some claims of conspiracies are just frauds and are meant to waste time so people won’t have time to study really serious and dangerous conspiracies. Flat earth conspiracy theories, moon landing conspiracy theories and others are a few examples of this. They don’t really matter. Even if they were true, it wouldn’t save anyone’s lives or help reduce crime or get higher grades in school, get promotions, fix relationships/marriages, etc. They just don’t do hardly any good. So we should not waste our time on things like that.
SOME REAL CONSPIRACIES IN HISTORY
There are many real conspiracies. Just a couple:
“The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories…That all changed in the 1960s. Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit…Summarizing the tactics which the CIA dispatch recommended:
• Claim that it would be impossible for so many people would keep quiet about such a big conspiracy
• Have people friendly to the CIA attack the claims, and point back to “official” reports
• Claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable
• Claim that this is all old news, as “no significant new evidence has emerged”
• Ignore conspiracy claims unless discussion about them is already too active
• Claim that it’s irresponsible to speculate
• Accuse theorists of being wedded to and infatuated with their theories
• Accuse theorists of being politically motivated
• Accuse theorists of having financial interests in promoting conspiracy theories
www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-created-phrase-conspiracy-theorists-and-ways-attack-anyone-who-challenge
Courts have proven that the US government was involved in killing Martin Luther King Jr. in America. The Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and other major historical documents were protesting conspiracies of exploitation, abuse and injustice by governments against the common people. But there are conspiracy hoaxes, like claims that the earth is flat. The Bible tells us that not everything is a conspiracy. So we have to carefully test every claim to see if it is true (1 Thess. 5:21).
Many of the most important documents in history, such as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence were documents that were expressly identifying conspiracies to abuse, exploit and oppress people and protest against them. The Declaration of Independence said:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” It then went on to describe many abuses, including refusing to pass beneficial laws, taxed people without their consent, cut off trade, violated people’s legal rights, protecting soldiers who committed crimes, instigated insurrection, and other forms of oppression. Each of these allegations was by definition a conspiracy theory. The Magna Carta also described various types of oppression and protested against them. In other words, the founding documents of modern democracy were actually conspiracy theories as this article also agrees.
Paradise Papers: these documents reveal around $10 trillion in offshore
investments that were used to hide wealth and profit and avoid taxes. Among the
many shocking revelations from the documents, is U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur
Ross’ stake in an offshore shipping company that is directly link to the
son-in-law of Vladimir Putin.: The recent Panama papers expose (and many others
like Luxleaks, Wikileaks and others) showed that wealthy corporations and
individuals have sent over ~$32 trillion to offshore accounts to avoid taxes.
If that money was taxed at the usual rate of America workers, ~31.5%, that
would bring in ~$9,920,000,000,000. That amount would still be able to end
world poverty at least 100 times. Poverty is easy to stop in dozens of ways.
The easiest is just stopping greed, which as the Bible rightly says is the root
of all evil.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/08/the-panama-papers-oozing-slime/
Research from many academics is confirming a massive conspiracy theory, that
our time is a time of extreme greed, showing that the 1% control more wealth
than the other 99% combined, worse by far than the worst times of greed during
the Roman empire, and that this is the primary source of all sorts of harmful
social problems across the board from worse health to higher infant mortality,
higher school drop-out rates, higher rates of crime, higher rates of sex
trafficking and slavery, as well as terrorism and even war. These sites show
some of the research on this and I will deal it more in an upcoming book on
Bible Economics and how that is a solution for the serious problems of the
world:
https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world
https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/cost-of-inequality-oxfam-mb180113.pdf
How inequality harms societies.
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/rights/equality/
The Bible teaches creation throughout the Bible (Gen. 1-2, Mark 10:6-7, Col. 1:16, etc.) as a powerful reason to worship our Creator (Rev. 4:11). It predicts deliberate deceptions about creation/the flood in the end times (2 Peter 3:3-5). Closely connected is a time of greed, pride, injustice and deceptions that causes terrible times for many (2 Tim. 3:1-5, James 5, Rev. 18). We are seeing many evidences that this time is now.
At this time, God calls people to “Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all the springs of water.” (Rev. 14:7). The truths of a Creator who gives us godly identity (Ps. 139:13-14, Rom. 8:16-28), a reason to worship (Rev. 4:11), intrinsic equality (Gal. 3:28, Acts 17:24-26) which protects people from abuse and injustice, clear purpose (Eph. 2:10), an eternal destiny (Rev. 21) and rescues His people are especially relevant now!
ORIGIN OF MOCKING CONSPIRACIES
Those who mock conspiracy theorists are following some really nefarious precedents. Dr. Matthew Dentith specializes in the analysis of conspiracy theories and also teaches critical thinking skills. He has an insightful and humorous talk where he explains that those who use the term “conspiracy theorist” are actually using a term and method of “thinking” pioneered by Joseph Stalin, the 2nd worst mass murderer in history, a technique which is often used to absolve the worst criminals and enable them to get away with their crimes. Researchers also agree that it was the CIA that originated the tactic of trying to discredit legitimate evidence about crimes and atrocities by mocking it as a conspiracy theory. We will look into that more in regard to the now declassified CIA memo “Document 1035-960”. This is the talk by Dr. Dentith and a summary of some highlights from it.
————-
Just because it’s a conspiracy doesn’t mean it isn’t true | Matthew Dentith | TEDxChristchurch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlvS-GrA00I
~6:00 Stalin, one of the greatest mass murders in history, believed that Trotsky and people around him wanted to take over the USSR. But there was no evidence. The secret police manufactured evidence, arrested people, tortured them, found them guilty in trials and executed them. Because the evidence was so shoddy, many said there was a conspiracy by the government to frame Trotsky.
To cover up their crimes and conspiracies to murder innocent people, Stalin called his critics conspiracy theorists. The US and UK governments agreed with his claims and many innocent people died and the perpetrators were never brought to justice.
~8:00 Dentith discusses the story of Alexander Litvenko who was assassinated by polonium-210. This is a textbook case of a conspiracy theory, since that grade of polonium is almost always located in tightly controlled government organizations.
~10:00 If you believe Al Queda or terrorists attacked the WTC towers on 9/11, you are a conspiracy theorist. If you think the government did it, you are also a conspiracy theorist. The real question is which conspiracy theory is most warranted by the evidence.
The CIA followed the example of Stalin and also pioneered the idea of mocking people with evidence of government crimes as conspiracy theorists. We have the actual documents where they were doing this. Here is the scan of the first page.
CONCLUSION:
So here are several points in summary:
1) The Bible, science and history all show that there are real conspiracies by a few powerful people that harm large numbers of people.
2) Not everything is a conspiracy. We need to be careful to spend our time on conspiracies that really matter.
3) To distinguish true conspiracies from false conspiracies, we need to follow the weight of evidence. These are a few ways:
A) Follow correspondence truth as Jesus illustrated (Luke 24:25-27). Review much or all the available on a topic and don’t cherry pick before making a conclusion. Listen to both sides.
B) Which claim has the best supporting evidence, the most witnesses (esp. ones without bias who testify against their own interest, like the disciples, apostle Paul, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange for example).
C) Follow the money. Which has an agenda to deceive for money, power, politics, etc.?
D) Which claim explains all the evidence in reality best? Go with that view.
E) But keep checking as you have time and consider more evidence. You may need to change your view.
4) Atheism has NO wise principles to enable atheists to figure out which conspiracies are true and which are hoaxes. This makes atheists super easy for the elite powerful to deceive, exploit, and enslave. And research shows they often believe false conspiracies more easily than others.
5) The Bible has principles of truth that help distinguish truth from false conspiracy theories and keeps people far freer for that and other reasons.
The worst conspiracy of all is the conspiracy of Satan against God and to enslave people in sin (Romans 6:16) and prevent them from having eternal life. Pray sincerely to God that you will not be duped by Satan’s conspiracies and that you will be able to experience the ultimate freedom that God has for you on this earth (John 8:32-36) and esp. the freedom from death so you can live forever with Jesus in a universe without any malevolent conspiracy theories that harm people and where there will be no pain, suffering or death (Rev. 21:1-4)!