People have always been subject to elaborate false belief systems, from believing the Oracle at Delphi to the resurrection of Jesus to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's nothing new. All three of the above, have done a lot of harm, along with countless other hoaxes.* But are we in a particularly deranged period of history?
The big difference from the past, or at least we thought so up until recently, is that we had the Scientific Revolution and developed rules of evidence, along with the technological means to evaluate reality and the communicative infrastructure to converge on a consensus about what is true. Religion has always stood in the way, but again, until recently, we thought of religion as sort of pushed off to an epistemological siding, occupying its own space but agreeing not object to the physicist's cosmos and the biologist's history of life. The moon landing hoaxers and the Area 51 enthusiasts were quaint, although I must say the anti-vaxxers did plenty of harm.
But it does seem to many people that the last few years have seen an explosion of batshit insanity. Ben Collins certainly thinks so. I mean, Q-Anon is as crazy as it gets, but it just builds on Hillary Clinton running an international child trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlor in D.C. Which grew out of the Russian hack of John Podesta's e-mails, in case you don't remember. Hmm. That was after a certain "reality" TV star got his start in politics by claiming that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Now we have the imaginary election fraud and before that we had the Coronavirus hoax . . . Could there just possibly a common thread here? Some essential ingredient that may have made some people more susceptible to insane beliefs? I'm trying to puzzle it out.
Update: Like the man says.
*For those of you who don't see the harm in Christianity, I would direct you to the history of Medieval Europe, featuring endless wars over theological hair splitting, massacres of heretics and Jews, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades . . . I could go on and on. The Europeans invaded the Americas and massacred and enslaved their inhabitants in the name of Jesus, and used the words of Jesus to justify slavery. (Yes, in the Gospels he endorses slavery, you don't have to go to the Old Testament.) And you already have a pretty good idea of what I think of the role of Christianity in contemporary American politics. And note: The sensibilities of religious people are truly inexplicable. Just stating that you do not share their beliefs, and reciting the true history of a religion, is "hateful." Well, you don't agree with my beliefs either. I don't find that hateful. This is the mystery of blasphemy laws. God can't take care of himself?
2 comments:
Also, I found Ben Collins a very entertaining writer.
I'll be reading his stuff.
Christianity is the single largest purveyor among religions of lies and violence, from cross burnings and pogrums to flat out genocide.
Seems to me if it was going to save the world, that would have happened. Great things don't need advertising--much less proselytizing.
I will be so glad if we get to the point where Christianity dies a merciful death.
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