The Science of Conspiracy Theories

To believe or not to believe

To believe or not to believe

That is an important question. Why do some people believe in conspiracy theories and some don't? Why do some people say they don't believe in God? These questions are interesting because it reveals how people form beliefs.

The Wiki definition for belief is: the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. Wow! That's a big bunch of words. I like the term empirical. It literally means derived from observation or experiment not theory. It would be a science law in that case.

The fact of the matter is that most of what we believe in not based on facts, especially empirical facts. We believe it because someone told us to believe it. Psychologists say that knowledge is the intersection of belief and truth. That idea gets into trouble because truth cannot be fully known. (see my last post about truth).

Many things we believe in are instinctive. For example, we automatically believe that if we drop something it will fall down, not up. We also believe that the Sun will rise everyday. These are beliefs that we know from experience. But, what about belief in things that we can't see or are impossible to comprehend; why do we believe in those things? That's something that delves into psychology. Much of it has to do with what we call common sense, the idea that things go the way we think they should go. However, this will not work for paranormal or religious ideas. There is no common sense in either of these realms. They require faith, and faith is belief in something without proof.

However, I think that there is a reasonable basis to believe in certain things even though there is no proof. One is the belief in a creator that is responsible for this marvelous and vast universe we find ourselves in. I think that it's unusual for a person not to believe in God. Reason tells us that this complicated universe could not be an accident or that it just popped into existence by itself. Most people do believe, but they just don't care. It very unusual to encounter a true atheist, a person that is convinced there is no God. I've only met a few atheists in my time. They're actually rare. Most people are agnostics, who don't believe in any religion but accept that there is a God, or at least don't deny that God is possible.

The same could be said for the paranormal. Belief in ghosts, forces beyond our knowledge, angels, UFO's and other strange things is not all that illogical. We do not know about everything that could exist. Some things, maybe many things, lie undiscovered. Not too long ago, people didn't believe that bacteria and viruses were responsible for diseases because they couldn't see them. It took the invention of the microscope to reveal them.
There are more things unknown than known.
Spiritual belief is more of an attitude that's mostly learned from our parents, not that all children grow up believing what their parents believe. In a way, falling away from our ancestors' beliefs and customs is a form of historical denial. Our ancestors are an expression of what we are and what we have become. We cannot escape our past. However, some of the things that our parents believe in may not be to our liking. I think this is the main reason that children abandon their heritage, especially when it comes to religion.

Religion requires a relaxation of reason because it involves belief in facts that we can't prove. Some people believe that the Bible is the world of God. The problem with that idea is that it would indicate that God is suffering from Alzheimer's because there are many conflicts in the Bible. I think it's safe to say that God did not dictate the Bible, but rather it represents testimonials of faith from people who were there when it happened, especially in the case of the New Testament. The Bible is, in effect, the word of God told by people who heard it first hand. Unfortunately, what actually ended up in the Bible went through editing over several centuries. I think that God would like to proof read it, but that's not the way God works.

What we believe is influenced by many things, including culture, tradition, perception, theories, convenience, authorities, intuition, feelings, and many other factors that don't involve actual knowledge. It's easy to believe in something that one sees and hears first hand, but it's a stretch to believe in what others tell us, and yet we do it often without question. That's being naive.

Thanks for reading.