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Post by DEKE on Jul 25, 2017 23:32:02 GMT
I found this article fascinating and place it here for discussion. I read two other articles as well that described conspiracy believers using some of the same language I have used, gullible, failure or lack of critical thinking skills, and a l ack of willingness to question sources. Psychological articles also mentioned various forms of bias, a need to explain what seems like an out of control world, feelings of inadequacy, and a lack of education. One sort of bizarre part of conspiracy theorists is that they rarely believe in just one conspiracy; they generally buy into a wide range of conspiracies. Find a 9/11 Truther and you're very likely to find someone who believes in a widespread JFK conspiracy, the Illuminati, and yes, my personal fave, space aliens who control humans now or in ancient history. If you find this interesting, I'll post some similar but more softly worded articles from more recognized magazines. aeon.co/essays/the-intellectual-character-of-conspiracy-theoristsMeet Oliver. Like many of his friends, Oliver thinks he is an expert on 9/11. He spends much of his spare time looking at conspiracist websites and his research has convinced him that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, of 11 September 2001 were an inside job. The aircraft impacts and resulting fires couldn’t have caused the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center to collapse. The only viable explanation, he maintains, is that government agents planted explosives in advance. He realises, of course, that the government blames Al-Qaeda for 9/11 but his predictable response is pure Mandy Rice-Davies: they would say that, wouldn’t they? ... There are conspiracy theories about the spread of AIDS, the 1969 Moon landings, UFOs, and the assassination of JFK. Sometimes, conspiracy theories turn out to be right – Watergate really was a conspiracy – but mostly they are bunkum. They are in fact vivid illustrations of a striking truth about human beings: however intelligent and knowledgeable we might be in other ways, many of us still believe the strangest things. ...You realise, of course, that Oliver’s theory about 9/11 has little going for it, and this might make you wonder why he believes it. The question ‘Why does Oliver believe that 9/11 was an inside job?’ is just a version of a more general question posed by the US skeptic Michael Shermer: why do people believe weird things? ... I want to argue for something which is controversial, although I believe that it is also intuitive and commonsensical. My claim is this: Oliver believes what he does because that is the kind of thinker he is or, to put it more bluntly, because there is something wrong with how he thinks. The problem with conspiracy theorists is not, as the US legal scholar Cass Sunstein argues, that they have little relevant information. The key to what they end up believing is how they interpret and respond to the vast quantities of relevant information at their disposal. I want to suggest that this is fundamentally a question of the way they are. Oliver isn’t mad (or at least, he needn’t be). Nevertheless, his beliefs about 9/11 are the result of the peculiarities of his intellectual constitution – in a word, of his intellectual character.
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Post by sawmilljim on Jul 25, 2017 23:39:37 GMT
deke I just nominated you for the normalcy bias and gaslighting award hall of fame.
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Post by Ozarks Tom on Jul 26, 2017 2:04:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 2:45:58 GMT
Some people may trust a philosophy professor, Quassim Cassam, who overly intellectualizes the nature of reality and our perceptions of it, a person with apparently limited experiences of the real world and beyond, but I find the statements of these four highly educated people, very experienced in dealing with the nature of reality every day, for their lives depended upon it, who also happened to be very mentally stable American astronauts, to be far more convincing. I don't think any of these four American astronauts can be described as gullible, lacking in critical thinking skills, having feelings of inadequacy, or demonstrating a lack of education.Meet the Nasa astronauts who believe that ALIENS are real and have visited EarthAt least four Nasa astronauts have gone public over their belief in aliens One example is Edgar Mitchell, the sixth person to have walked on the moon Mitchell claims that aliens have previously stopped Cold War nukes from firing Gordon Cooper was selected for Nasa's first manned spaceflight mission He claims that he saw a UFO flying over an experimental US airbase By HARRY PETTIT FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 08:36 EDT, 6 April 2017 | UPDATED: 08:38 EDT, 6 April 2017 [More In Article]
Article: www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4386290/Nasa-astronauts-reveal-think-aliens-real.html
And there is more, always more: www.syti.net/UFOSightings.html
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 3:12:48 GMT
deke I just nominated you for the normalcy bias and gaslighting award hall of fame. That he exhibits normalcy bias concerns me , but I am impervious to his attempts at gaslighting.
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Post by DEKE on Jul 26, 2017 14:16:06 GMT
Some people may trust a philosophy professor, Quassim Cassam,...a person with apparently limited experiences of the real world and beyond Cassam has similar credentials to Marrs. Both are authors and professors. Why do you nelieve one and not the other? Why does one have limited expereinces with the real world? Just a day or two ago, you said space aliens were demons from the Bible. Remember that? Now you are convinced they are really from outer space. Which is it and why don't you see you'll cling to any nutty theory even when they conflict with one another? Or are you going to combine the two and tell us demons need flying saucers to zip about the universe? BTW who am I to say a guy named DEKE is wrong? I'm sure this has escaped you, but I don't take a stand on the existence of space aliens. In fact, I think they are a mathematical probability. But I'm pretty sure if they have ever come to Earth, they didn't spend a great deal of time on anal probes or worry about assassinating one political leader that required the assistance of a vast global conspiracy.
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Post by Ozarks Tom on Jul 26, 2017 15:49:36 GMT
I've always held the problem with conspiracy theories is the number of people who would have to be involved. It's been said "three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead".
Take for instance the supposed aerial spraying of chemicals by the government, also known a contrails. The conspiracy is supposed be ongoing for decades, including pilots, ground crews, chemists, chemical manufacturers, CIA/pentagon hierarchy, and myriads of lesser functionaries. Over the years this would amount to tens of thousands of people, none of whom had a death bed confession, got drunk and told his wife, bragged in a bar about it, or became disaffected with the program and turned whistle blower. It's also interesting all these people obviously breath the same air that's supposedly laced with mind control agents, along with their loved ones. Yet, there are people who believe the theory wholeheartedly, no convincing them otherwise.
For some reason, people totally ignore Occam's Razor, paraphrased - if there's more than one answer to a question, usually the simpler is correct.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 16:29:10 GMT
I've always held the problem with conspiracy theories is the number of people who would have to be involved. It's been said "three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead".Take for instance the supposed aerial spraying of chemicals by the government, also known a contrails. The conspiracy is supposed be ongoing for decades, including pilots, ground crews, chemists, chemical manufacturers, CIA/pentagon hierarchy, and myriads of lesser functionaries. Over the years this would amount to tens of thousands of people, none of whom had a death bed confession, got drunk and told his wife, bragged in a bar about it, or became disaffected with the program and turned whistle blower. It's also interesting all these people obviously breath the same air that's supposedly laced with mind control agents, along with their loved ones. Yet, there are people who believe the theory wholeheartedly, no convincing them otherwise. For some reason, people totally ignore Occam's Razor, paraphrased - if there's more than one answer to a question, usually the simpler is correct. Occam's Razor is really getting to be an overused problem-solving principle and it certainly does not apply to every problem.
One hundred and thirty thousand people worked on the Manhattan Project and the rest of the American people, 139.9 million in 1945, as well as the rest of the world, did not know about it. It was so secret that even Vice-President Harry Truman did not know about it until after FDR's death.
As with the JFK assassination, for example, many murders go unsolved. However, in high profile assassinations, people want to blame someone, so those in power create a patsy. I believe many powerful people kept silent, and probably silenced more than just Oswald, in the JFK assassination, got away with murder, and prospered as a result. THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Presidential
APR 24, 1945
Truman is briefed on Manhattan Project Article: www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-is-briefed-on-manhattan-project
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Post by DEKE on Jul 26, 2017 16:58:32 GMT
deke I just nominated you for the normalcy bias and gaslighting award hall of fame. That he exhibits normalcy bias concerns me , but I am impervious to his attempts at gaslighting. Of course you are. That is a classic symptom of the conspiracy thinker.
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Post by DEKE on Jul 26, 2017 17:11:25 GMT
Occam's Razor is really getting to be an overused problem-solving principle and it certainly does not apply to every problem. well, I'm sure those who prefer grand conspiracies are tired of seeing Occam shoot down their theories. And most of those 130K people had no idea what they were working on. And it wasn't until 1942 that the program got big and expanded into production mode outside of research labs. The secret was kept for 3 years or maybe 6 years depend on when you want to start counting. Chemtrails have supposedly been goings on for decades. JFK 50 years. 9/11 16 years. where are the people ready to spill their tale? I don't say that JFK was not a conspiracy at some level. LHO may very well have had help. It just wasn't the vast grand conspiracy you have claimed in various and contradictory ways.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 17:26:41 GMT
Some people may trust a philosophy professor, Quassim Cassam,...a person with apparently limited experiences of the real world and beyond Cassam has similar credentials to Marrs. Both are authors and professors. Why do you nelieve one and not the other? Why does one have limited expereinces with the real world? No, Cassam has been a cloistered academic living in an ivory tower his entire adult life, reading, writing, and speaking about philosophy and working out, in his mind, his ideas about the nature of reality and our 'supposed' perceptions of it.
Jim Marrs, on the other hand, has had plenty of interaction with the real world.
"A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Marrs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of North Texas in 1966 and attended graduate school at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas until 1968. He has worked for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where, beginning in 1968, he served as police reporter and general assignments reporter covering stories locally, in Europe, and in the Middle East. After a leave of absence to serve with a Fourth Army intelligence unit during the Vietnam War, he became military and aerospace writer for the newspaper and an investigative reporter.
Since 1980, Marrs has been a freelance writer, author, and public relations consultant. He has also published a rural weekly newspaper along with a monthly tourism tabloid, a cable television show, and several videos.
Since 1976, Marrs has taught a course on the assassination of Kennedy at the University of Texas at Arlington...
...In 1989, Marrs' book, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, was published and reached the New York Times Paperback Non-Fiction Best Seller list in mid-February 1992.[11] It became a basis for the Oliver Stone film JFK.[12]
According to Stephen E. Ambrose (in an essay generally critical of conspiracy theorists) Marrs wrote in Crossfire that motives for the murder of Kennedy were "Attorney General Robert Kennedy's attack on organized crime (Mafia motive); President Kennedy's failure to support the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs (Cuban and C.I.A. motive); the 1963 Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (military-industrial complex, or M.I.C. motive); Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam before the end of 1965 (Joint Chiefs of Staff and M.I.C. motive); Kennedy's talk about taking away the oil-depletion allowance (Texas oil men motive); Kennedy's monetary policies (international bankers motive); Kennedy's decision to drop Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson from the ticket in 1964 (L.B.J. motive) and Kennedy's active civil rights policy (Texas racist billionaires motive)."[13]
Sylvia Meagher is a critic of the Warren Commission and author of Master Index to the JFK Assassination and Accessories After the Fact. In April 1987, Meagher received the manuscript of Marrs' Crossfire. She was asked to evaluate the book by Simon & Schuster, which was considering publishing it. Meagher concluded, "The accuracy of the manuscript in dealing with a vast body of complex evidence is nearly impeccable...the manuscript is, in my opinion, a fine and admirable work." Despite this glowing recommendation, Simon & Schuster became one of about 25 major U.S. publishers to turn down the book. It was finally published in 1989 by Carroll & Graf Publishers. "[14]"-Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_MarrsJust a day or two ago, you said space aliens were demons from the Bible. Remember that? Now you are convinced they are really from outer space. Which is it and why don't you see you'll cling to any nutty theory even when they conflict with one another? Or are you going to combine the two and tell us demons need flying saucers to zip about the universe?
Here is exactly what I wrote in the other thread:No, you are completely wrong, again. I never once wrote that I believe aliens are from outer space. I did write that I believe the statements of those four American astronauts to be far more convincing than that philosophy professor, Quassim Cassam. I believe those astronauts saw something which did not originate on the earth, very likely demons. If you believe the Holy Bible, they originally did not come from this Earth, but were cast down to the Earth by God along with Satan. My understanding is that demons are now confined to the Earth, or the area immediately around the Earth, which, in my mind, includes the earth's atmosphere, no matter how thin, and may include the Earth's Moon, which is considered to be a part of the Earth by some, since the ocean tides are caused by the gravitational interaction between the Earth and the Moon and even the Jewish calendar is lunar or, more accurately, lunisolar.
"The Hebrew or Jewish calendar (הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, Ha-Luah ha-Ivri) is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits (dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm readings, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is used for religious purposes, provides a time frame for agriculture and is an official calendar for civil purposes, although the latter usage has been steadily declining in favor of the Gregorian calendar.
The present Hebrew calendar is the product of evolution, including a Babylonian influence. Until the Tannaitic period (approximately 10–220 CE), the calendar employed a new crescent moon, with an additional month normally added every two or three years to correct for the difference between twelve lunar months and the solar year. When to add it was based on observation of natural agriculture-related events in Israel.[1] Through the Amoraic period (200–500 CE) and into the Geonic period, this system was gradually displaced by the mathematical rules used today. The principles and rules were fully codified by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century. Maimonides' work also replaced counting "years since the destruction of the Temple" with the modern creation-era Anno Mundi.
The Hebrew lunar year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year and uses the 19-year Metonic cycle to bring it into line with the solar year, with the addition of an intercalary month every two or three years, for a total of seven times per 19 years. Even with this intercalation, the average Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 40 seconds than the current mean tropical year, so that every 216 years the Hebrew calendar will fall a day behind the current mean tropical year; and about every 231 years it will fall a day behind the mean Gregorian calendar year."-Wikipedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
BTW who am I to say a guy named DEKE is wrong? I'm sure this has escaped you, but I don't take a stand on the existence of space aliens. In fact, I think they are a mathematical probability. But I'm pretty sure if they have ever come to Earth, they didn't spend a great deal of time on anal probes or worry about assassinating one political leader that required the assistance of a vast global conspiracy. I thought you might notice that. Really, with the way you use the term 'space aliens' to denigrate posters on this board, one would have to think you don't believe they exist. Beyond that, I have not seen you post what you believe about aliens. Now you have informed me that you believe aliens to be a mathematical probability, no doubt right in line with the agnostic/atheist Carl Sagan and his billions and billions of habitable or potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 18:02:21 GMT
Occam's Razor is really getting to be an overused problem-solving principle and it certainly does not apply to every problem. well, I'm sure those who prefer grand conspiracies are tired of seeing Occam shoot down their theories. And most of those 130K people had no idea what they were working on. And it wasn't until 1942 that the program got big and expanded into production mode outside of research labs. The secret was kept for 3 years or maybe 6 years depend on when you want to start counting. Chemtrails have supposedly been goings on for decades. JFK 50 years. 9/11 16 years. where are the people ready to spill their tale? I don't say that JFK was not a conspiracy at some level. LHO may very well have had help. It just wasn't the vast grand conspiracy you have claimed in various and contradictory ways. I doubt every person involved in the conspiracy to kill JFK, benefit from that murder, and then cover it up, knew all of the details. Also, there almost certainly was some human error involved in the investigation, such as mishandling evidence, missing or ignoring witnesses, etc. This event and its cover-up is so huge and complex that it is very difficult to gather all of the facts and know, with certainty, what is correct and what is not, 54 years after it happened. There are also still some pieces of evidence and documentation being withheld from the public to this day, 2017, in the U.S. National Archives and possibly lost in the JFK Presidential Library.Last Secret JFK Files Could Be Released SoonMAY 1, 2017 By Sarah Pruitt [More In Article]Article: www.history.com/news/last-secret-jfk-files-could-be-released-soon
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Post by DEKE on Jul 26, 2017 18:03:55 GMT
headless is confused about what I wrote so let me be clear. I never said he believed space aliens were from outer space. I did quote his assertion that astronauts who claimed to have seen space aliens were "convincing" and I repeated his assertion that space aliens are in fact demons from the Bible, not from outer space. In summary, according to Headless, this is not a space alien but a demon.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 18:09:14 GMT
headless is confused about what I wrote so let me be clear. I never said he believed space aliens were from outer space. I did quote his assertion that astronauts who claimed to have seen space aliens were "convincing" and I repeated his assertion that space aliens are in fact demons from the Bible, not from outer space. In summary, according to Headless, this is not a space alien but a demon. Deke, you appear to be disoriented. That is a digital cartoon image. Nothing to be frightened of, trust me.
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Post by DEKE on Jul 26, 2017 18:10:41 GMT
I have no doubt there will be something in those JFK files that will give hope to the conspiracists.
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