The question wasn't only about you. It includes someone you know. I voted for nearly everything cause I've known people who believe all kinds of crazy stuff.

Good point. I have the same answer. None of the above.

@mt49er Thanks! That actually does change my answer. My brother and my niece believe a couple - chem trails; false flag-Vegas. Ugh....

@BlueWave I believe in chem trails. They're very real though they obviously don't happen to the extent certain enthusiasts would propose.

@mt49er Chem trails as mind control?

@RavenCT No, I know they've been used for chemical warfare. It may been possible for mind control, but if they are currently doing something like that, a lot of seemingly rational must be in the wrong place.

@mt49er X-Files is about to go down that road (seemingly).

@RavenCT I've really never watched that show. I was an Air Force brat. My favorite time was when my dad worked in a hanger were they worked on planes so I've seen these machines, they literally look a lot like big foggers. History kind of displays that they don't equip planes with them if you're not at least testing them. I asked my dad a lot of questions in that hangar. He didn't always answer though.

@mt49er You do realize the people who believe chem trails are mind control are talking about commercials flights? I can imagine the military spraying stuff. During war time one hopes.

@RavenCT I try to stay a little out of touch with society intentionally and obviously am not up to date on my chem trail conspiracy. I'm sure the government could pay off some corporations executives, but that kind of operation would be kind of hard to conceal. Like you say, military planes would be the way to deploy that kind of attack and people would likely notice the extra travels in spaces they don't normally fly. Thanks for the wacko theory update.

@mt49er I can read, and I understood the question. The answer is still no.

@chicagojcb I only stated that as I noticed the question in the post was a little different than in the title and I'm used to people reading titles and commenting on posts when they obviously haven't read the post. That prevalence does seem to occur a little less frequently here though.

Several people, myself included, think they are all BS too. You are not alone.

I would take him any day of the week...

What about the Vatican?

Wouldn't the Vatican, be more like 'back stabing'...maybe by more than two/three/four person, maybe just one?

@shockwaverider The whole bible thing back to the time of Constantine, I believe it has little to do with early christianity and is a roman construct. It has been bastardised from go to whoa ever since Moses started organising it. The Vatican would know all this,for years Mass was only in latin and it was heresy for an average person to own a copy as the church deemed them incapable of interpreting it.

Cardinal Pell our famous pedophile supporter currently back here from the Vatican to face charges has stated numerous times on television that the Garden of Eden story is a myth and obviously not meant to be taken literally. So, where did original sin originate?

If I was Pope, surely I would have access to every bit of information the church ever had.
Occasionally the church admits that some things in the bible are unlikely to be true, but when we are not looking still pushes and does not deny that it is the word of god, holds all the authority of god etc.
They are doing all in their power to hold onto their power, wealth and alter boys.

They should just admit, they made it all up, that it has always been just made up, imagine how that would change the world. The 3 Abrahamic religions gone.

@Rugglesby got to perpuate that religious theme onto the next generation...(can't let it die a slow death or anything)! Every religion does that keeping their ideology alive...no matter, if they must go to Africa and convert the Natives!

I think the Vatican's conspiracy is a bigger more general one: They conspire to thwart humanity in as many ways as possible. For a long time they did it well too, as least from their perspective.

I think that I can believe that the Big Wiggs, are working for their best interest! It is not like a boardroom meeting, but more like an unspoken collusion, in a language that only these Ultra Rich people seem to have, between themselves!

Sure. Once they are leaked and proven, they are no longer conspiracy theories. The moon landing for example, hundreds if not thousands of people would have had to be involved to fake it and not one of them leaked it? Not likely.

Just because liars are lying doesn't mean they're organized about it.

@shockwaverider I agree. Some are just crazy, like that one

@shockwaverider I agree but it is so difficult to prove conspiracy. Look at Watergate. It took Nixon's recordings and the No2 of the FBI leaking. He might very well have survived otherwise. I'd be just another C T now.

@ScienceBiker yeah, we always have to look for the evidence and the proof, and that's the hard part. And sometimes the truth comes about. I think in the end it always does, but the end can be a long time. Then it becomes part of history.

[nytimes.com]

They do when it's a controlled detonation, right?

I'm also intrigued by all those phone calls made by passengers by mobile phones, even though phones then, and even now, can't work at that altitude with cell towers seamlessly, or even work at all. Like to have an explanation for that too.

@David1955 and Rachel, ty for stating your thoughts.

I believe there is information about 911 that we will probably never know. I don't believe that the buildings would fall like they did without explosives and during the first few days it was the conclusion that there were explosives involved then the narrative abruptly changed. I was glued to the news as many people were, that part just does not add up. I don't think the government planned it or anything but someone got into those buildings that shouldn't have.

i watch the news that day and i know what I saw.They where showing it over and over lets just use a bit of logic and common sense here shall we, maybe find it a bit suspicious if anything?

Yet, wasn't it called that very thing, at first.

I think that was a combination of an appallingly inefficient voting system, together with a politicised Supreme Court, rather than any kind of conspiracy. The whole world saw that.

Yes indeed. I've often thought that about the Trump base.

Good point. The fantastical hypothesis as you put it, is how it is now used. People conspiring to cover up is hardly difficult to understand. I just think they don't do it very well any more. In the past they got away with it.

@David1955 I think things are changing.

@JadedSage These days we can see incompetent conspiracy, like the Trump disaster.

@David1955 I think this whole "crisis actor" thing is like the Trump disaster on CRACK. The people spreading it dodge the simplest questions and ignore all evidence against their hypothesis. It gets worse, but I won't scare you with the details.

I don't think many of the 1% care how much others make as long as they make more...

Yeah, good question.

Yes I agree. It's time to salvage the term conspiracy theory from an image of nut jobs off their meds who watch too much XFiles, to a recognition that power will lie and deceive and discredit to avoid responsibility and we should question everything. Often we can only really prove things when people leak or confess - Pentagon papers, Vietnam, Watergate, Snowden. Power has enormously effective legal and other mechanisms to discourage that. And, yes, I agree with you about Chomsky. He calls it Manufactured Consent.

* If we are atheists and we reject the illusions of religion which aim to manipulate people, should we not also reject, or at least challenge the elites, who manufacture secular socio-economic and political illusions that are intended to have the same purpose?

Or the fact that most of them were from Saudi Arabia. Nothing was said much about that because since we depend on them for large amounts of oil.

Yes. In that case I don't think it was a great big conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Rather, it was conspiring to conceal, after the event, incompetence and bad judgement that led to the assassination. I may be wrong. But if I'm right, that's still conspiracy to conceal culpability.

Ever heard of the Pentagon Papers, Mark Felt and Watergate, Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning....

@David1955 those don't sound like theories. Was a guy, living in his mom's basement, telling everyone he suspects snowden is about to steal and leak documents? If a conspiracy is a theory, you've jumped the gun and not followed the evidence. If you find evidence it's not a theory it's a fact.

@SocraticAddict you asked about whistleblowers. In each case they blew the whistle about conspiring to conceal actions.

@David1955 oh then yes it passes the test of a rational assumption. Misinterpreted the context of your comment.

I wonder if that is a more general thing? Moving from religion to conspiracy theories...

@shockwaverider @surrealhoax I think some new age nonsense falls into that kind of movement to pseudo religion, and aliens worship also, and multi universes and stuff like that, which is kind of idealistic and faith based in some big higher level existence. That sort of thing. But I think CTs stem from a different impetus, and that's modern cynicism, a loss of belief in authority, institutions, and power structures, because people don't believe them, think they cover their asses, and are self interested and self serving. In my lifetime, and I'm 62, the loss of people's belief and trust in institutions has been incredibly noticeable. And I don't blame them. I share it. You only have to read recent history to see the lies and deception. These days, like with Trump, they do it openly and blatantly so confident they are in their powers of manipulation.

@David1955 Conspiracy Theories have a wonderfully long history, if you consider that anti-Papal (along with anti-Semitic) conspiracy theories have existed since Martin Luther in the West. From the belief that the papacy was covering up satanic practices, and/or hidden gnosis (truths), the anti-authority conspiracy theories germinated. It just so happened that many such views were pushed out of Europe and into America with the migration of Puritans and other similar religious extremists.

A wonderful article in 1964 described the "Paranoid Style of American Politics" and provided insights into the era before the JFK assassination. This time period might have marked the beginning of a transition that we see culminating today in the full rejection of established authority - once distrusted in some contexts, now distrusted essentially in its own right as corrupt (unless, of course, a particular figurehead is placed in the highest position that fits with an individual's ideology - then that individual supports that figurehead, even while distrusting the establishment authority).

@surrealhoax well I think that's quite interesting. However, the point I've made here is that we need to move away from the Great Big Conspiracy idea, where a vast conspiracy is perpetuated, to the reality of power, corruption and greed and ambition, and a culture to avoid culpability, results in manipulation of truth in a myriad of ways. We've wised up over the past 60 years or so as conspiracies to manipulate us have become known, as mentioned here, and I don't care to be naive enough to believe that that's all there has ever been. As a student of history I look back at the past and discover the truth that has seeped out, often very different from what believed at that time.

Perhaps a reason he's your ex...

@shockwaverider one of them