Originally Posted by hazz
What these truthers show is that you do not need to have a religion or god to create a cult. All you need is a dogma that explains the world, that then provides a framework though which you view the world, like a prism separating what reinforces your dogma from what does not. anything that does not fit in with the framework is simply ignored. These truthers are no more interested in the truth regarding WTC than a fundamentalist christian is interested in the facts geology and biology when it comes to his belief creation story from the bible.... his belife in the dogma of the bible is all the evidence he needs. Likewise with the truthers their belief in their dogma is all the proof they need be it the dogma the one world government, the jews, the western conspiracy against islam, the government is plain evil and constantly plotting against the people. And if more evidnce of the cult like nature of the 911 truthers were needed one only has to look at how theyt reach when one of their chosen becaomes aposate charlie veitch, The 9/11 conspiracy theorist who changed his mind - Telegraph comes to mind. These dogma's are attafcive to some people as they find the complexity and arbetary nature of life and risk too much to cope with. some turn to religion as say its gods will. some turn to conspiricy theories to say its all part of a great plan. The risk that these people pose to society, particularly a democratic society, is that this prism though which they view the world, that filters out even the most obvious evidence that their dogma is wrong allows them create nice simple narratives which can be very seductive when presented as a gish gallop, a propaganda technique that has managed to help nearly half americans believe on creationism despite it having even less evidence in its favor than that 911 truthers. Its a good job that we as a society decided to irradiate smallpox in the 1950's before the internet, because if we look at the post internet scheme to eradicate polio we can see how an rather eclectic alliance of the vaccine truthers and the 'western conspiracy against islam' truthers have successfully worked together to keep that rather nasty virus alive, in the wild, maiming and killing. Then we have the aid's truthers and the south african president who together probably killed more black south africans than the apartate government did in its entire existence. Then we see how the 'government is out to get you' truthers at work with sandy hook portaying it all as a hoax to bring in gun control ad nausium The problem is that in a democracy, the people have perodic control over how their country is run. They base these decisions on what the believe to be the truth and on that basis whats the best way forward. when that truth is nonsense then its not very likely that their decisions will lead to successful solutions in the future. Its not that conspiracy theories are a risk to democracy or society. Its the way of thinking that creates them that is the risk. the belief that dogma and wishful thinking are a better basis for decision making than observation and measurement. And the problem that we face now is that without the filter of the media, the internet has given everyone the same voice and humans seem ill prepared to differentiate between those who tell us a truth based on observation and those tho tell us a truth based on dogma and blain faith alone.