Should Christians Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

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even if that is true, number one, that means the majority of people who see or hear the evidence are also not going to be knowledgeable enough to understand the difference.

00:13

But then number two, the technology is just going to keep getting better and it will improve to a point where, you know, it seems or at least it seems like it's going to improve to a point where even the experts won't necessarily be able to tell the difference.

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The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

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God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

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Father where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

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Welcome to Bible Bashed where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age -old question, should

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Christians believe in conspiracy theories? Now, Tim, as we kick this episode off, what

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Bible verse do you have that relates to belief in conspiracy theories? Tim Mullett Yeah, sure.

02:26

So, Proverbs 14, 15 says, the simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

02:32

So, there you go. Okay, okay. So, spell out for us a little bit about, you know, how that verse relates to the topic at hand in your mind.

02:43

Jared I mean, it kind of cuts both ways. Jared Meaning, you know, there is the type of person who will believe any conspiracy theory that they hear, you know, no matter how wild it is, no matter how many, like how contradictory it is to the other sets of conspiracies that they believe everything, right?

03:05

So, if it serves to advance the cause that they want to advance, then they will believe it.

03:11

So, that would be an example of a simple who believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. But then on the other hand, I mean, when you're living in a nation that,

03:20

I mean, the press, I mean, essentially lies with every breath that comes out of their mouth. So, when you think about the situation that we live in right now, we're living in a pretty remarkable times in a lot of ways.

03:31

I mean, it's not as if there hasn't been nations that have existed throughout the history of the world where the press was bought by powerful people, you know, like the press is basically just the propaganda arm of the democratic party at this point, you know?

03:49

So, I mean, but we've been in situations like that before. I mean, meaning like, you know, you think about Nazi Germany or something like that.

03:55

And like, that's the time where you just, you have a propaganda campaign and, you know, you have a philosophy of propaganda that essentially says that if you lie long enough, they'll, you know, eventually people will believe it.

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And I mean, that's what our press is doing, that there's a coordinated effort to lie to us on almost every front. But then even more than that, though, there is the reality that for the first time in history, and this is something that is novel.

04:18

I mean, for the first time in history, we are living in a time where you can't even believe the video evidence that you see is true.

04:28

So, I mean, I saw one of those videos of the Trump shooting or whatever that was showing the impact on his ear or whatever, and I thought to momentarily share it.

04:39

And as I was about to share it or whatever, I see the community note on the bottom of it just because I thought it was neat to see the impact or whatever.

04:47

But then there's a community note on the bottom that was basically saying that this was a reversal of the video, the shooting video, right?

04:55

It was like they reversed it and then they added the ear tearing graphic or whatever on it.

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But I mean, at first glance, it was like, man, like that's pretty crazy.

05:10

Yeah. I mean, so you're at a time right now where who knows what to believe, right?

05:16

But I saw a video of Biden. I saw two videos of Biden that were trying to advance the conspiracy theory that he's been dead for a while and someone is wearing him as a suit or whatever, like wearing a

05:30

Biden costume basically. But I saw these two videos, but I mean, they look real.

05:41

They look real, meaning there's one showing the back of his head and the back of his head moving, it looks like the skin.

05:49

Yeah, like it's not fully attached to his body. Right. And then the one on his forehead looks like, man, like his forehead is moving wrong, you know?

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Yeah. I know the videos you're talking about for sure, and people have, this isn't the first time people have even shared videos like that, specifically with Joe Biden, especially due to his age.

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I think it is such a believable thing at this point to wonder how healthy is he really?

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Is he really out there as much as he is? And I think the overall takeaway

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I get from a lot of those videos, specifically those ones, is you watch them and you just think to yourself, something feels off about this.

06:44

It's like an uncanny valley sort of situation where you can't really tell, like, hey, is this a situation where someone has faked footage of Joe Biden to prove that there's an actor playing him or is this a situation where the other side has faked it to try and make everyone think

07:09

Joe Biden is doing a lot better than he actually is? Or is this just an actual video and for whatever reason he just looks strange in this one?

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Maybe he's exhausted or they just pumped him full of drugs or something, I don't know. But yeah, I understand what you mean when you sit down and you watch a lot of these videos and you just think to yourself, something feels really off.

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Not even just with videos about, hey, his skin looks weird, but situations where his face looks just not what he normally looks like.

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With someone famous like that, you get pretty used to what they look like on camera because you see them so often and then you see these other videos that leave you questioning it.

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And then all of a sudden you're sitting there wondering to yourself, well, I don't even know if I know what to believe anymore.

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Yeah, I mean, that's part of the... So, I mean, you have a video like that where it looks pretty persuasive.

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I mean, I don't know enough about video editing or all that to really even be able to evaluate what

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I'm looking at. I know that my eyes are looking at something that is very off. And the explanation given that someone's wearing him as a suit is like, well, this conspiracy conforms to what my eyes are observing.

08:35

And then you have things like the Kamala Harris... Joe Biden has disappeared since he's dropped out of the race, right?

08:46

He's disappeared since he's sent his letter or whatever that appears to be forged maybe.

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He's dropped out of the race and he's quiet on all fronts. And then Kamala Harris is apparently talking to him on the phone and then she makes reference, she slips and makes reference to, like, it's so nice to hear you on the record, the call.

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It's what she said. I didn't know that. She let slip the record, but then someone, more conspiracy theorists came along and basically said that it's like 98 % certain that, and who knows what that means, that this was

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AI voice technology that was being used to do his voice or whatever. So, I mean, the whole thing is fishy, you know, the whole thing is fishy in so many different ways.

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And I mean, you're just living in a time right now that there is no,

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I mean, perhaps the only kind of comparison you can have, it's just like someone harnessing the dark arts or something and just straight up witchcraft or something like that.

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But I mean, you've never been in a time where someone could fake a voice or fake like a video evidence in a way that you can now.

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I mean, you have deep fakes that are getting like crazy accurate. I mean, and it's only going to be a, you know, we're already living in a time where you can't really believe anything that you hear anyways.

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And now you're living in a time where this stuff can be faked to such a degree that it's not just intuitively obvious immediately that what you're looking at is even real, you know?

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So, we obviously face unique challenges. So, on the one hand, yeah, the simple will believe every conspiracy theory that they hear, even the contradictory ones, so long as they advance their narrative.

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But on the other hand, it's like, hey, yeah, you know what? The simple believes everything, right?

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Like meaning like if you believe everything that the democratic party, you know, in the press, you know, their propaganda arm, you know, that mainstream media tells you,

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I mean, you're a fool, you know? So, they lie through their teeth. They make a living out of lying at this point.

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You know, they've lied so many times to us that, I mean, I don't know how you take anything they say. I mean, you can almost determine what's true based on like believing the opposite of what they say at this point, you know?

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So, you know, you have that kind of thing. So, it goes both ways. And then, you know, there's

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Bewise's Serpents, Innocent Doves. I mean, there's all sorts of verses like that.

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And I mean, as you look through the Bible, there's certainly a lot of verses actually on conspiracies, you know, too. So, we could talk about some of that too.

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But yeah, I mean, that's, it's, I don't know. The Bible does not teach like just this naivety that you are morally bound to believe everything that anyone tells you, no matter what kind of track record they have, right?

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So, I mean, at that point, it's just like, hey, yeah, the nice serpent said, you know, X, you know? So, he must be telling me the truth here, you know?

12:01

Because God commands me to believe everything that everyone says to me, you know? So, that's just not the case.

12:07

So, yeah. Well, and it's interesting you bring that up, too, because it, in my experience, it does feel like you,

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I mean, you do see a lot of people who say, who essentially condemn all conspiracy theories, no matter what they are.

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Especially if they're the kind that are like the where's Joe Biden kind of conspiracy theories, right?

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And what's interesting to me is that it feels like it's always the guys who would defend the left anyway.

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And I'm not just talking about like the CNNs of the world or, you know, MSNBC or NPR or something like that.

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I'm talking about, you know, people who claim to be Christians who condemn like the broad, you know, the broad spectrum of all conspiracy theories and really kind of, really kind of treat you like you're stupid if you even dare to believe that the government might lie to you.

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That's genuinely what it feels like. I mean, maybe my perception is off there, but it does genuinely feel like it's un -Christian, it's unloving, it's unwise to even question if people are ever lying to you.

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And that, in my mind, that kind of sets off a red flag for me. Like, hey, if it's all the people who punch right and coddle left every single time, and they're constantly the ones condemning this, and no one else in the

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Christian sphere is condemning this the same way, well, maybe there's a reason for that that ventures beyond what it means to remain faithful to God's word.

13:59

Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I think certainly, you know, the type of people that you're talking about are the worst examples of the kind of phenomenon that you're describing, but I mean, it's typically that, for sure.

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I would say that there's other dynamics that are happening too, but I mean, I think in large measure, you know, what's happening is the left is essentially,

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I mean, the press right now is essentially a propaganda arm of the left. It's just what it is, man. They lie to you nonstop.

14:30

Everything they say is a lie, you know? And there is this sense in which there's like a coordinated effort to advance very specific lies, right?

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So, like, meaning whenever the memo goes out, like all the major mainstream media outlets are propagating the same lie.

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And when you see this happen, like when you saw this happen in the 2016 election with Trump, when you saw it happening with the

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Black Lives Matter stuff, you know, during the summer of love, the most really peaceful protest. Like when you see the dynamic happening there, you know, it's a mostly peaceful protest.

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You see it with the Michael Brown stuff with all the racial shooting stuff, where it's just lie through their teeth.

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There's a memo going out, lie, lie, lie. You know, Donald Trump has no prayer. He's not going to win, right?

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He's down in the polls and all this kind of stuff. And you see that he's convincingly wins, you know?

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And he's not going to win the primaries. He's not going to win the presidency, everything else.

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Like you see that kind of stuff happen. You think about like the Russian collusion narratives and all that kind of stuff.

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I mean, you could tell that the moment there's a scandal brewing on the left, you know, then they lie through their teeth, right?

15:50

They lie through their teeth about all that stuff, right? Then like through the

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COVID stuff, they're lying through their teeth. Like everything they're telling you is a lie, you know? Like it's just, you know, or half -truths are distorted or, you know, like,

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I mean, it's just like, you know, just your regular, you know, blue collar worker knows he's being lied through his teeth.

16:15

So, but then at the same time, there's a move that the left makes and the move that they're making is they make like the worst sin possible is to believe in conspiracy theories, right?

16:25

Yeah. So, as - Yeah, I remember, you know, after this whole Trump assassination thing, they had an expert, you know, like ex -sniper or a

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CIA agent, something along those lines where, you know, he's qualified to talk about, you know, was this a failure and where are the failures and what should, you know, what should be done about this essentially in response?

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And, you know, he was just simply bringing up the fact that, hey, this could, you know, with the amount of failures and the way they happened, it should not be taken off the table that this was in some way an inside job.

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He wasn't saying it was one. He wasn't making any hard claims. He was just saying, hey, this needs to be considered as an option.

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You cannot just write this off the same way you can't write off that it was simply an oversight or, you know, whatever the other explanation might be, you need to treat that the same way.

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This could have been purposeful negligence. This could have been an inside job. And the, you know, the anchor that's on with him is like, well, whoa, you don't want to be a conspiracy theorist.

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He's like, well, I'm not. I'm just saying this needs to be investigated the same way, but just like the knee -jerk reaction from the media to say like the worst thing you could ever do right now is suggest that it would be an inside job because that would label you a conspiracy theorist.

18:07

10 -foot hat, get the 10 -foot hat out. Pete Yeah, yeah. So, but that's, so the dynamic is they lie through their teeth, then they make the cardinal sin to be a conspiracy theorist, right?

18:17

Which is convenient because they're lying to you. Pete Yeah, yeah.

18:23

Jared I mean, that means that whatever they say, you have to believe or else you're like worse than a Nazi or something like that, right?

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I mean, you can think about like things like the Alex Jones kind of stuff with where he's being sued for a billion dollars or whatever by the

18:39

San Diego. So, like no one wants to be him. You don't want to get fleeced because you believe that there is more to that story or whatever.

18:49

So, I mean, that's so that the dynamic is the left is lying to you nonstop, their propaganda arm, the media is lying to you nonstop.

18:57

And you know, they're lying to you. Everyone knows they're lying to you. They're lying to over and over and over again. You know, it's just lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

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Then they make the worst possible thing is to question whether or not they're telling the truth, right?

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So, then like you're worse than Hitler if you question whether like you're just some stupid, ignorant redneck, you know, out the backwoods or something.

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And so then like your mate, what's happening then is like your respectable evangelical types are looking at that and their impulses really have been trained by the outrage of the left.

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Like they don't want to be, they want to be like the reasonable

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Christian, right? They don't want to be the crazy, you know, right wing, you know, Christian nationalist conspiracy theory minded, you know,

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Christians like the, they don't want to be those kinds. They want to be like, they want to be basically the last ones thrown to the lions, right?

19:52

They're trying to buddy the powers that be, you know, they've identified who those are, but then they love the praise of men more than they love the praise of God.

20:00

So, I think a lot of your respectable evangelical types fit the bill that you're talking about for sure. But then

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I do think that there is a kind of Christian out there who like, they look at all the conspiracy theories on the right and say,

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Hey, yeah, this is like, you guys are making us look bad too, right? So, like when you have like multiple conspiracies going in multiple different directions and you believe all of them, right?

20:30

So like, for example, with this Trump thing, I mean, there's a conspiracy theory out there where like the shooter that they've identified is not the real shooter, right?

20:41

So like based on pictures of, and I mean, you can look at the pictures and it's like, yeah, it does. Like he doesn't have like holes in his ears or whatever.

20:48

Like it doesn't have the gauge holes in his ear. So it does look like the other picture that they're showing or whatever.

20:55

But then at the same time, there's another conspiracy out there that there's multiple shooters, right? So, like there's multiple shooters and then there's now there's conspiracies out there that the guy that they've identified has been in contact with someone high up, right?

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And then he's a 20 year, there's all sorts of conspiracy theories related to him. He's 20 years old. How does he have all this tech, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

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And so you just, you have to pick which one you're going to go with, man. Like you can't go with them all at the same time.

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So like, um, so there, there is a kind of person who's like, Hey, you guys are giving us a bad name.

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You're making us look crazy by it. I mean, you know, like advancing even the most like crazy anti -science, you know, flat earth or whatever kind of stuff.

21:41

Right. Um, so then like at a certain point, it's just like, you're just given, you're given people ammunition.

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You gotta tone it down a little bit, right? Like there's no, there's no virtue of being gullible the other direction either.

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So, I mean, I think there is, there are people like that, but genuine, genuinely though, like what people should do is they should realize at the very least that this is a convenient play that's being run by the left.

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And if you don't understand how convenient this play is, then I don't really trust your judgment. You know what

22:14

I'm saying? Like, I mean, it's like when you have a media that's lying to you with every breath that comes out of your mouth, and then they're, then they're making it like the worst possible, like they're, they're fining

22:27

Alex Jones a billion dollars for Sandy Hook. That's crazy. Like, what is that doing? Right.

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Like that doesn't even make any sense. Right. That you're, yeah, I can. So what did

22:39

Alex, what is it? What did he say? Uh, I know he's in trouble for all that, but I've never kept up with why they were suing him.

22:47

Yeah. The sand is related to the Sandy Hook stuff. I think he was basically saying that it was all hoax and then all the families have gone after him or whatever for defamation and you know, all that.

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And they, you know, have sued him for a ridiculous amount of money at this point. Right. Yeah. You know,

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I, I never watched anything that Alex Jones has ever done, so I don't know anything about him other than I've just seen, you know, in the news that this kind of thing, you know, so,

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I mean, I maybe he's been sued into oblivion. Yeah. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I mean, you think whatever that is, it's not justice by any means, you know, but I don't have any loyalty to him.

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I've, I think I've seen a few clips of him every once, like, like rare few, a couple of clips of him sounding like a maniac screaming or something like that, but I don't know anything about him, but, um, yeah.

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So, I mean, I think if you can't recognize that this is a convenient move the left is making and then let your emotions follow, like how stupid that actually is, then, you know,

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I don't know that you're really qualified to even talk about this discussion, but I mean, you know, when you're really thinking about the topic in general, you do have to realize that there, like, there are real conspiracies, you know?

23:58

Yeah. Like, I mean, so part point one, right? Like there are real conspiracies.

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I mean, there's conspiracies in the Bible, you know, Absalom had a conspiracy against David, you know, you could think, you could think about that.

24:09

What, um, um, the, um, the, the Jews made it, there was a conspiracy to kill, you know, all the, um, uh, let's see, this is in Acts, uh, 23, 13, right?

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So when it was the day the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by oath needed to eat no drink until they had killed

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Paul, uh, there, there are more than 40 who had made this conspiracy, you know? So, I mean, there are conspiracies that have happened, right?

24:35

Like in the history of the world, the Bible mentions multiple conspiracies. I mean, this is obviously, like, if you're an evil person trying to accomplish evil things, you're not just going to tell people, hey, here's my evil plot, you know?

24:48

Pete You don't, you don't typically announce it to the rest of the world. Jared Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're at a crazy point right now where you have the

24:56

World Economic Forum basically telling us their evil plot and then, you know, then they're carrying it out and then everyone's like, and then,

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I mean, you know, they're not telling you, um, how they're carrying it out, but they're obviously carrying it out behind the scenes.

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And if you say, hey, it seems like everything they're saying is happening is happening, then it's like, well, you're a conspiracy nut.

25:15

It's like, well, no, I mean, I think they're telling you what the game plan is. Pete I mean, they literally put out a video that said you were going to own nothing and be happy.

25:23

You were going to eat bugs. So I, you know, I, I, I'm sorry that I believed them.

25:29

Jared Yeah, I mean, you're going to eat bugs and then you see all the bug commercials, you know, you see Nicole Kidman eating bugs, you know, trying to sell it, you know, as you can tell, she wants to scream, you know, like, uh, and all that.

25:41

And it's like, yeah, I mean, so the Hollywood elites got that memo that they were, they were putting out right somehow. I don't know how that happened, you know, but, um, yeah.

25:49

So I, I think, yeah, there are, there's obviously conspiracies, there's obviously evil people that are going to do evil things and they're not going to tell you all the steps of it.

25:57

Right. I mean, they're not going to tell you like, that they're lying to you. And I mean, obviously like just read a book on history or something and this is what they do, you know?

26:09

Like, so yeah, we've always been Eurasia, you know, sure. Right. Pete Yeah.

26:16

You know, and, and I think that does bring up another point and it, it really does seem like as much as people want to scoff at conspiracy theories and, and certainly there are, there are some, you know, just insane ones out there for sure.

26:34

But at the end of the day, everyone's a conspiracy theorist in some way, shape or form.

26:41

I mean, if you were to go online and just mention anything about, uh, you know,

26:48

Beyonce not being the one who had her baby, uh, I don't know,

26:53

I don't know what, which baby this was, this was several years ago at this point, but I mean, there's a whole community of, of, of people, um, online who believe that she was never pregnant with, with the baby that she had or didn't have, depending on who you ask.

27:11

There's, there's, I mean, you could probably ask most, most younger people today about that and they would have some thought people,

27:20

I mean, and it's a strong reaction too. They'll be like, Beyonce didn't have that baby. Why did she rent out a whole floor of a hospital to have her baby?

27:30

How come in this video, it looks like her belly folds in a way that no pregnant woman's belly would ever fold.

27:37

And you know, they have this whole list of, of arguments for why they think that she didn't have the baby.

27:44

And it's like, that's like, I mean, like you're a conspiracy theorist. Like when it comes to that, you're a conspiracy theorist.

27:50

I mean, Democrats, they were the same way with all of the Russian collusion stuff, right?

27:55

They're saying they're claiming that the election was stolen in 2016. And then when it, when 2020 came around and all of the

28:05

Republicans were saying, Hey, the election was stolen. They're like, Whoa, why are you being such a conspiracy theorist?

28:12

You were just doing the same thing where I mean, we're all conspiracy theorists at the end of the day.

28:18

It's just some of them are, it seems like some of them are popular and some of them are not in terms of they're acceptable.

28:28

Yeah. They're acceptable and others are not. And so, so it just seems like, yeah, every, everyone's a conspiracy theorist quit acting like you're not, you are.

28:38

I mean, there's people saying the Trump thing was an inside job the other way. They're, they're trying to say that Trump somehow staged it to build a, you know, to basically give himself a boost in popularity.

28:55

And so, so it's just like, yeah, everyone's a conspiracy theorist. You think, you think the conspiracies are all working in this direction.

29:02

Other people think they're all working in the other direction. Quit acting, quit acting like it's all of a sudden, this huge sin to believe that people will lie to you to try and accomplish whatever it is that they want to do.

29:15

I mean, that's literally what you brought this up at the beginning. That's literally what Satan did, right? Oh, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist.

29:22

So I guess I better, you know, I guess that is what God said, then I guess I, you know, and so it's just like the, this is, uh,

29:31

I mean, at the end of the day, this is just something that we all do. So it doesn't make, it doesn't make sense why you would necessarily write it off unless you have some other, why you would write some people off unless you have some, you know, um, some alternate motivation other than just, you don't want people to believe conspiracy theories at all.

29:53

Does that make sense? Yeah. And I, I mean, I think that's, there is a certain kind of person who that really does peg, you know, but I mean,

30:00

I think it is, um, you know, as, as much as the left has, you know, invented new words like misinformation and all that disinformation or popularized him at the very least, you know, as, as much as like we have all these new words now, which are, you know, so bad,

30:20

I mean, I do think that there is a God is a

30:26

God of truth. Satan is a liar. We should be concerned about the stuff that we're promoting as if it's true.

30:34

And when you're dealing with things that are very highly speculative, like saying them as if they're absolutely true for certain and a fact, right.

30:45

Um, you, you do need like a very high standard of proof in order to make those kinds of claims.

30:52

You know, so I mean, I think, I think accusing people of lying is a bad thing, right?

30:58

Like I think accusing people of crimes, um, these things are, these things are, they're not good.

31:05

Right. You know, I don't think you should just, uh, you mean like false falsely accusing them? Yeah. I mean, but then like the, the idea of, um, so like if I were just to flip out, like, uh, accusation that you raped someone or something like that, like that could destroy your life.

31:22

That's not good. Right. And now if there's a conspiracy theory floating around about you, that you did that.

31:28

And then, you know, everyone who's like, if you did it, everyone who is sharing that and promoting that is morally stained, like they're responsible for ruining your life.

31:40

Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you lose your job and you know, all the predictable things happen, you know, the mob comes after you and, you know, so that's not good, you know?

31:49

And I mean, we've been the subject of conspiracies doing our podcasts, like where people just jump to conclusions, don't listen to anything that we're saying, attribute uncharitable motives to us, um, you know, come up with some weird, like,

32:05

I mean, most of them are pretty bizarre, you know, like the kind of stories that people come up with to explain our motivations at times or what we're trying to do or what we're trying to accomplish.

32:15

And, you know, then they'll make podcasts where they'll psychoanalyze us or whatever and talk about the conspiracies and all that behind it.

32:23

And it's just like, well, that's evil, you know? Right. None of that's true. That's evil. You know, um, we didn't deserve that, you know what

32:30

I mean? We are sinners. So, I mean, it's not, uh, I mean, like we deserve hell, you know, in a certain sense, but I mean, like, really, like, yeah, that's unjust.

32:39

It's wrong. And God sees that. And one day, you know, when he returns, he'll set everything bright and, you know, we'll be vindicated, you know, related to those kind of false accusations and everything else.

32:51

So, I do think that there is, like, it's not just like, um, there should be some seriousness to these, uh, kind of thoughts, right?

33:00

But then, I mean, at the same time, you know, I think adding to that, when you're living in a time where there's, like, where you're being lied to so much, right?

33:13

Like, where everything is, like, everything is lying to you so much. And then you see situations, like, it's just situation after situation after situation in the news that is happening that doesn't pass the smell test, you know?

33:26

It just doesn't pass the smell test. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, you think about the stuff that's happening with Biden right now.

33:31

He resigns. He basically says he's not going to resign. And then, you know, there's a letter of him resigning.

33:40

He hasn't made a public appearance yet. He makes an audio call with Kamala, right?

33:47

He endorses Kamala. He's handing off all of his responsibilities right now to the cabinet, not in person, you know, none of this is in person.

33:55

He makes a call to Kamala, you know, so to speak, and she refers to it, she does a slip and calls it a recording, you know?

34:02

And then it's like, when things like that are happening, it's just like, I don't think it takes a whole lot of intelligence to say, this doesn't add up, you know?

34:13

This smells funny, you know, like there's something going on. Now, I mean, which conspiracy is it?

34:19

I mean, that's hard, man. I don't know. Is he dead? Have they been wearing this as a suit for a while?

34:25

Is this a coup, you know, like that they've staged? Have they, you know, 86'd him or whatever, you know, like, is he sick, you know, right now?

34:35

Is he currently sick? Like, is he on his deathbed? Was it just convenient, like he was gone, man, and now it's his time to die with no foul play involved?

34:47

You know, is the CIA involved in that? Like they may be involved in Trump. Was that two presidential people that they made attempts on in the same week, you know?

34:57

I don't know. Like, all of that, like, all I know, I don't know how to answer those questions other than just to say, like,

35:04

I don't think it's unreasonable to say some of this looks weird, you know? Like, this is not normal.

35:10

Like, it's not normal for your president of the United States to hand off all of his responsibilities without a public appearance, without a word.

35:18

It's not, you know, it's not normal for him to do that via a letter and not a public appearance, you know?

35:25

And then to disappear and have no one see him, like, you know, since then, you know? And then this strangely happens after the

35:32

Democrats would call for him to resign, you know? Like, something… And he refuses. Yeah.

35:38

Something weird's going on, you know? Something weird's going on. I don't pretend to have, like, the answers to what that is, you know?

35:45

But I think you have to… So, what I'm trying to say is, like, when you're dealing with people who are pathological liars and they lie to you nonstop and nothing they say passes the smell test, right?

35:59

I don't think it's the worst kind of thing in the world to say, hey, something funny is happening, you know?

36:05

Now, I mean, I mean, you think about, like, a crime analogy or something like that.

36:15

Like, the evidence that you need to convict someone in a court of law is very different than the evidence that you need to charge them with a crime, right?

36:23

Which is very different than the evidence you need to get a, you know, warrant and all that, right? And asking them for questioning.

36:29

And so, I mean, I think that what's happening is, like, there's a lot of levels of confidence that you can have, you know?

36:38

But, like, the idea of speculating that foul play is involved when you're dealing with liars seems to be fine, you know?

36:47

And then saying, hey, like, how do… Trying to work it out.

36:53

Does this make sense? So, when people are lying to you nonstop, you know that, like, the only way to figure out what's true is to basically try to figure out, well, if I know they're going to lie to me because they have a long history of lying, then

37:09

I'm going to have to determine what is true, not by what they're saying, but through other means, right? James Lindsay had an article about this that's pretty interesting, but he's basically talking about, like, with Marxists, their stated goal is never the agenda.

37:31

Like, the thing that they're saying is never, like, the agenda, you know? What's the agenda is, like, what they're doing behind the scenes, essentially, right?

37:39

Like, so, the revolution is the agenda. That's the agenda. Everything that they're saying and doing is working towards the goal of the revolution, right?

37:47

So, that's how Marxists work. Like, everything is working towards the revolution. And so, then, if you know that about them, then you can look at what they're doing.

37:55

You say, how is this supporting the revolution, right? And that gives you some insight. But, I mean, I do think you have to think about what are the motives of the people in charge of the powers that be?

38:06

What are their objectives? What are their goals? And then, you know, trying to navigate what's happening is to say, well, what are their goals?

38:14

What are they trying to accomplish? And how will each one of these steps accomplish that goal, you know?

38:20

But, yeah, you know, it's messy, man. And I think when you're living in a world, like, that we're living in, where everything can be faked, it's tough.

38:30

Like, it's tough to know what's truth, the difference between truth and error. And I do think you have to give people who are living, who are being lied to nonstop, a lot of, like, a wider berth, right?

38:42

So, I mean, my sympathies generally go with the people who are trying to figure it out more than my sympathies are condemning them, right?

38:50

Because I know the problem. The problem is you're being lied to. And you can't even believe your eyes and your ears anymore, right?

38:56

Like, we're at this time in history where you can't even believe video evidence. You can't even believe audio evidence because it could be false.

39:03

So, you know, it's just rough, man. It's rough. Pete Well, and it doesn't help either that, you know, that you have the internet involved in general, where reactions are just so quick on so many different things.

39:15

I mean, just think about how the Trump assassination, I mean, you know, think about how that has evolved over the last couple weeks, basically.

39:25

And you're in this situation where people feel like they must have a response immediately to everything that happens.

39:36

And then you throw in the fact that you really can't even trust that the evidence that you've seen and that you've heard is real and that it hasn't been faked.

39:46

I mean, maybe that's just like I don't know enough about video to know that it's not fake or I don't know enough about audio to know that it hasn't been faked or what

39:57

AI is capable of. But even if that is true, number one, that means the majority of people who see or hear the evidence are also not going to be knowledgeable enough to understand the difference.

40:13

But then number two, the technology is just going to keep getting better and it will improve to a point where, you know, it seems or at least it seems like it's going to improve to a point where even the experts won't necessarily be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's and so it seems like you just have this conglomeration of issues that are coming together to create like a perfect storm for the conspiracy theories.

40:46

And look, here's the thing, here's the interesting thing to me, and this is what gives me a lot of confidence in terms of in terms of at least wanting to have a posture of what you're saying where, you know, hey, look,

41:02

I know I'm being lied to. I might not know exactly how I'm being lied to and on what topics

41:10

I'm being lied to and, you know, in what ways I'm being lied to, but I know I'm being lied to somewhere and probably in multiple different places at once.

41:19

And I think the thing that gives me confidence to say that more than anything is just as you look over the past few years, all of the things that were conspiracy theories eventually just become acknowledged facts, you know, so that gives me a lot of confidence.

41:39

Well, see, a lot of it, like, there's a couple problems in a couple different directions. So, like, meaning like one of the problems is the problem that you're saying is that, you know, you have the right that is constantly being lectured about the danger of conspiracy theories nonstop, but then most of those conspiracy theories, like the major ones, are being proven true on a regular basis, right?

42:05

Right. You know, so meaning like, I mean, at this point, it seems fairly obvious that the election was stolen, right?

42:16

When you see, like, video evidence after video evidence after video evidence of, like, ballots being taken, like, cases of ballots being taken out in the middle of the night, you know, after all the, you know, the verifiers are being kicked out and all that kind of stuff.

42:34

There was obviously a plan, you know? I mean, Joe Biden had his gaffe, the most comprehensive election fraud initiative in the history of the world or whatever, and it's like, yes,

42:45

I think that's what it was, you know? But I think what you think about, like, there's been conspiracy after conspiracy after conspiracy that have been proven true, but then on the other, you know, there's so many things related to the pandemic that were started out as conspiracies and now they're just facts, you know?

43:06

They're facts and, you know, on the one side, it's like, you know, we all got a little crazy and tried to, you know, destroy your life and, you know, killed your family and all that, you know?

43:16

Like, who could have thought, you know? So, I mean, I think... We've all been there. We've all done that, right? We've all been there and done that.

43:24

Held you down and forcefully injected you, you know? It could have happened to any one of us.

43:29

Yeah. So, I mean, I think you have, like, so many of these things that have been proven true on the one hand.

43:35

On the other hand, though, I mean, there's just so many lies that are happening. There's so many lies that...

43:42

And you go through one, like, cycle of media outrage to another that so many of these things are just getting lost in the mixed, and you know that you'll never know.

43:52

Like, you'll never know the truth of all of it. Like, to what extent were you being deceived, you know?

43:59

What was the actual real story with it all? Because you've just... Like, all that happens is, like, you're living in a time where you have...

44:11

Like, for the most part, you have individuals on the right who are being lied to. They know they're being lied to. There's a big stink about it.

44:18

And then they lie about something else, which shifts attention away from the first lie. Then everyone gets mad about that, right?

44:24

And tries to speculate all the ways in which they're being lied to then. And then it's something else, and you're...

44:31

This is just life for people, right? This is life for people that you're just being lied to nonstop, and none of it's gonna get sorted out.

44:40

Most of it's not gonna get sorted out. And only the really big stuff maybe will get sorted out.

44:47

I mean, I think you look at some of the recent stuff that's happened, and it's crazy.

44:53

I mean, it's absolutely crazy to think about the Trump assassination and all the stuff that's going on with that.

45:00

It kind of boggles the mind to think that this is pure incompetence that has happened. When you see pictures of where the

45:10

CIA and all that are stationed, and you see the roof where the guy was, and hear all that testimony and everything else, it's like, man, this is just...

45:20

There's something happening here beyond what we're being told. There's a sense in which there's something more to the story than that, and I don't know that we're ever gonna get clear answers on any of it.

45:32

But yeah, I don't know. My sympathies lie with the people who are being lied to. So on my end,

45:39

I think if you're gonna give sympathies anywhere, when you're living in a time so filled with lies where everything you're seeing is a lie, where you're overwhelmed by media in all different directions, it really is hard to plot a true path in the midst of all that.

46:02

So I think Christians have to be careful with their interaction on this front.

46:09

I think the way forward,

46:19

I would think more people should be able to acknowledge the fact that we're being lied to and how difficult it is.

46:27

And I think the impulses that people have just to come down real hard on conspiracy theorists, and I think you're not appropriately appreciating the situation that we actually find ourself in at this moment, right?

46:41

So obviously, there's a lot of dangers on both sides.

46:48

I mean, I think thinking about the mob dynamic that happens on the internet right now, that's a pretty disturbing thing.

46:55

Thinking about how once a conspiracy theory gets out, that has real world consequences that could ruin someone's life, that could ruin multiple people's lives.

47:03

You could be engaging in online slander. Once the thing gets going, it gets going and it gets out of control.

47:10

I mean, we've had plenty of situations like that happen with us to where once the mob got going, man, it was a witch hunt.

47:16

No one stopped to even question what the narrative was. The narrative was established. I mean, I think that's a real bad thing.

47:23

So I think we all need to be careful at navigating these waters.

47:29

I think learning to make basic distinctions between saying, hey, something fishy is happening here.

47:37

Let's talk through possible explanations for what we're seeing because we know that the official explanation is not true, right?

47:46

Yeah. I think that's reasonable. But then dogmatically declaring for sure this particular theory is what it is.

47:58

You just need a really high standard of evidence. And I'm not trying to say that the standard of... A lot of people, the standard of evidence that's needed depends on their level of knowledge in the moment, right?

48:11

And that's a real bad place to be. Meaning, I'm not the standard of...

48:17

My knowledge about any particular topic isn't a reasonable standard for what other people are allowed to be confident about, right?

48:24

They may actually know a lot more about a particular topic than I do. And that may explain some of their confidence.

48:30

On the other hand, they may know a lot less about it than me. And I may know enough about it to know that there's more to the story than what their one -sided perspective of it is.

48:44

And so, I mean, I just think we need to give people a lot of grace in this topic because it's confusing.

48:50

And I think you need to be very careful that you're not slandering people and sharing false stories as if they're true.

49:01

When I share things like that, I try to put qualifiers in there to basically say, isn't this interesting?

49:09

Or what do you think about this? That kind of stuff, if I'm not confident about it without necessarily just jumping on board with everything.

49:16

Because, I mean, at a certain point, you just come across gullible and stupid looking. When you share debunk story after debunk story after debunk story, and a lot of people on the right do that, then

49:27

I understand how you can kind of look like a buffoon at that point, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

49:33

Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation. So, thank you, Tim, for answering all my questions there and talking us through that.

49:42

And it certainly is a difficult time with how easy it is to fake things at this point.

49:50

So, it's good that we think about this, but then it's good that we think about what do we do with these conspiracy theories while at the same time trying to balance making sure that we're not venturing into that slander realm, the gossip realm, the spreading lies, because we know that that's not what

50:14

God does. That's what Satan does. And so, that's good to,

50:19

I think, for us as Christians to think through and to help us honor God with our lives and especially with what we say online specifically, because it's so easy to just get caught up when it comes to online.

50:35

It's easy to get caught up in the mob and just let yourself become emotional and not think logically about things and show people the same grace that you would expect them to show towards you if the mob were coming after you.

50:49

And so, I appreciate that, Tim. We want to thank all you guys for supporting us week in and week out, for listening to the podcast, for watching the videos online, sharing them around, interacting with us on Twitter and on Facebook.

51:03

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51:11

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51:17

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51:35

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51:41

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52:14

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.