5 Things I've noticed about... The Illuminati

The Illuminati. That secretive group conspiracy theorists believe have a great amount of power and want to take over the world.

There are a lot of accusations leveled against the Illuminati, and out of all of those accusations I've noticed many things and traits about the group.

Now out of all of the things and traits that I have noticed about the Illuminati I've narrowed it down to five distinct things.

So here are five things that I've noticed about the Illuminati:

5. They are the most patient people in the world.

The Illuminati has to be composed of some of the most patient people in the world. I say this because according to people who "investigate" the Illuminati (i.e. people who spend most of their free time watching or creating Youtube videos about the Illuminati, and listening to Alex Jones) have been doing stuff for years in order to get ready to take over the world, as well as kill 80%-90% of the population, and enslave everyone else.

Now as to how long the Illuminati have been plotting to take over the Earth no one (and by "no one" I mean conspiracy theorists) is really sure because no one is really sure how old the Illuminati is. Most conspiracy theorists say they're around two and a half centuries old, although others say they're as old as civilization, or even older, while others say they're only about a century or so old.

Regardless of how old the Illuminati is, the fact that they have been allegedly at this taking over the world thing for a very long time clearly shows that they are composed of the world's most patient individuals... or the world's worst procrastinators.

Now I would think that there would be atleast a few people in the Illuminati who wants to really push forward in taking over the world. I say this because apparently the Illuminati has a huge membership, so I would think that there would be atleast a few ambitious individuals amongst themselves.

Infact when thinking about that huge membership of their's it almost seems like that...

4. Everyone is apart of the Illuminati.

According to conspiracy theorists there are a huge amount people (probably in the tens of millions) who are members, or atleast works for, the Illuminati. This alleged list includes actors, musicians (actually any celebrity really), rich people, politicians, high ranking military officers, anyone in the CIA, or FBI, or NSA, whistleblowers, religious leaders, myself and fellow skeptics, and even other conspiracy theorists. Heck, even Alex Jones whom constantly "speaks out" against the Illuminate has himself been accused of being a member of the Illuminati.

Now taking all of this "information" (a.k.a. accusations) into account by my estimates I believe there are only eight people in the world are not apart of the Illuminati...

I admit I might be a little off on my math there, but still that's an awful lot of people who are apart of this super secret organization (so secret that there is no real proof of it's existence).

Ofcourse when you also consider how many people who are apart of this alleged secret organization it shouldn't also be surprising to know that...

3. They control everything.

According to many conspiracy theorists the Illuminati controls everything from the media, to the military, to the manufacturing industries, the airline industry (because how else are they going to spray chemtrails), the entertainment industry, the UN, the European Union, the Free Masons, the US government, law enforcement, major religions, minor religious, cults, the Democrats, the Republicans, the banks, most other governments, the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry... the list just keeps going on and on.

I'm not sure what is crazier: the fact that the Illuminati allegedly controls all this and so much more, or the fact that the Illuminati allegedly controls all of this and hasn't even bothered to officially take control of the world and continues to lurk in the shadows while leaving symbols on things that have little to no meaning to most people inorder to show those people that they are incharge despite the fact that most people don't even believe that the Illuminati exists, and with good reason...

2. There's no evidence of their existence.

There is no proof that the Illuminati exists. Despite the amount of people who have been accused of being apart of the Illuminati, and despite the numerous tragic events that the Illuminati are accused of orchestrating, no one has ever brought any proof that they do exist, nor that they were once a member of the Illuminati, nor that they are involved in any events what so ever.

The only thing that conspiracy theorists have that even comes close to being "evidence" (and even that is a stretch) are the numerous "symbols" that the Illuminati allegedly likes to place up on everything. Despite what conspiracy theorists believe these symbols are not evidence of the existence of the Illuminati, and most often times means something else entirely than what a conspiracy theorist (and even non-conspiracy theorists) believes it to mean.

These Illuminati conspiracy theories are just a bunch of blame redirecting by people who believe that all of the world's problems, or their own problems, are being caused by some shadowy group that controls everything. These conspiracy theories are entirely made up... well, maybe not "entirely" made up, because...

1. The Illuminati conspiracy theories sound an awful lot like the old Jewish conspiracy theories.

One of the most common traits that I have noticed amongst the Illuminati conspiracy theories (especially the basic ones) is that they very closely resemble the antisemitic, Jewish conspiracy theories of a few decades ago. Infact if you were to replace the word "Illuminati" with the word "Jewish" or "Jew" it would sound exactly like one of the old Jewish conspiracy theories.

I'm not sure if the people who created these Illuminati conspiracy theories either ripped off the old Jewish conspiracy theories and replaced the words "Jewish" and "Jew" with "Illuminati", or if "Illuminati" is a code word for "Jewish", but the people who created these conspiracy theories sure did get a lot of inspiration from the older Jewish conspiracy theories.

Also it shouldn't be to surprising that many of these Illuminati conspiracy theorists are they themselves antisemitic and often times try to tie in the Jewish people (or to a lesser extent Israel) with the Illuminati.

5 Things I've noticed about... 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

A few months ago I did one of these "5 Things I've noticed about..." articles on the people in the 9/11 Truth Movement, and it had me thinking to myself "what about the conspiracy theories that the people in the 9/11 Truth Movements promote?"

So what about those conspiracy theories, and what are some of the biggest things about them that just stand out? Well, I've noticed a lot of things about them, and I've narrowed them down to five different things.

So here are five things I've noticed about 9/11 conspiracy theories:

5. There are a lot of them.

Probably one of the biggest problems with the 9/11 conspiracy theories is that there are more than one of them, instead of just one that the people who believe in and focus on.

For some people these can be confusing not only because they are all very different, but they are mostly not even connected to one another.

Not only can they be confusing, but they are also progressively more bizarre as well.

There is the let it happen theory, the controlled demolition theory, the drone plane theory, the nuke theory, and even the no plane/space lasers (which is so bizarre a person in the 9/11 Truth Movement debunked it).

I guess you say that the 9/11 conspiracy theories are a lot like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories in that not only are there more than one theory to what happened, but also because...

4. There is apparently more than one perpetrator.

Besides there just being more than one 9/11 conspiracy theory, according to these conspiracy theories, there is no solid conclusion on who the "real" perpetrator is.

Some people claim that it was Al-Qaida, it's just that those in the government allowed them to attack. Some people say that it was a collaboration between the government and Al-Qaida. Some people believe it was just the government, or Israel, or the Illuminati, or someone else entirely.

It just seems like none of these conspiracy theorists who claim that 9/11 was an inside job can agree upon who did it, and how they did it. Of course that isn't very surprising to me, because...

3. The biggest promoters of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are kooks.

Now I'm saying that all people who believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theories are kooks, but the biggest promoters of these theories are.

There's Alex Jones, whom constantly promotes conspiracy theories on his radio program, thinks everything bad that happens is a false flag attack, and just starts yelling and making incoherent rants.

There's Mike Adams, a promoter of pseudoscience and medical quackery (especially dangerous types of medical quackery), as well as other conspiracy theories.

Finally, there's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, whom in addition to promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories, is also a holocaust denier, and is antisemitic.

They are of course not the only one's who promote the 9/11 conspiracy theories, but they are some of the biggest ones, and many of the other promoters of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are just as nutty (or possibly fraudulent) as these guys.

2. They contain a lot of bigotry.

Many conspiracy theories contain forms of bigotry within them, and 9/11 conspiracy theories are no different.

A lot of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are antisemitic, either indirectly by blaming several prominent Jews of being involved in the attacks, or blatantly antisemitic by blaming Israel, and that all the Jewish people who worked at the World Trade Center were in on it.

Besides the antisemitism within these conspiracy theories, these conspiracy theories are also racist as well, because many conspiracy theorists try to justify their belief that someone other than some people from the middle east had to have done this because people from the middle east (and Arab people in general) are not mentally capable of planning out and doing such a thing, or if they did, then they would have had to have had help from either white people or Jews, or have been allowed to do this.

1. They've all been debunked.

Every single 9/11 conspiracy theory has been debunked. From the "let it happen" theories, to the controlled demolition theory, to the really crazy no plane theories, not a single one has ever been proven to be true, or have been shown to hold up to any sort of evidence, or even hold up to logical arguments.

In fact they have all been debunked for years now, and some skeptics no longer even debate and debunk the people who make these claims, either because they have determined that those people are either to stupid to figure out that none of these conspiracy theories are true, or that they are to self deluded to be able to see that what they believe to be true is not, or that they are mentally ill, or they are a liar with an ulterior motive.

The fact is that all of the evidence surrounding the 9/11 attacks point in only one direction: Al-Qaida and the 19 members of that terrorist group who hijacked those planes and flew them into the sides of those buildings, and no one else.

5 Things I've noticed about... The Westboro Baptist Church

A lot of things are said about the Westboro Baptist Church (mainly negative) and through all that is said, there a certain things that church tends to do.

So here are five things I've noticed about the Westboro Baptist Church:

5. They believe God hates everyone... but them.

According to the Westboro Baptist Church, God hates everyone (or at least anyone who offends Fred Phelps in even the littlest of ways), and according them everyone (but them) is going to Hell. This even includes people who might share a similar ideology to the church's ideology, but that the church's leadership believes that those people are still going to Hell simply because their hate towards a certain group isn't up to the church's standards, or that they don't hate all the groups that the church hates.

4. They don't mind lying.

Despite being a sin (and according to the Bible a very big one), they have no problems lying, whether it be announcing that they a going to protest somewhere and then not showing up, announcing that they a going to protest somewhere, not showing up, and then photoshopping a picture of them protesting at said place, or just saying things about people that are simply not true.

3. They alienate everyone.

Literally no one can stand them, either because of their blatant bigotry, homophobia, antisemitism, anti-Americanism, or just plain psychopathic behavior. Even the Klu Klux Klan can not stand them, even though they have a similar ideology with the Westboro Baptist Church.

Their actions have made so many people angry that there are now laws to try to curtail their protests, and that the public at large wants their IRS tax exemption to be revoked, and for the government to officially declare them a hate group.

Also, no one cares if someone attacks them. In some cases people believe that it's a good thing to attack them.

2. They encourage their members to be psychopaths.

The leadership of the Westboro Baptist Church encourages it's members to show no empathy for anyone, to have no remorse what so ever for causing anyone pain through their actions, to be happy that they are causing people pain, to be happy when someone dies, to pray that certain people die, and to be happy with the thought thought that someone might be in Hell. In fact they tell they're members that not doing this stuff will get them sent to Hell.

If that is not psychopathic behavior, I don't know what is.

1. They're cowards.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church will protest just about anything, just as long as there are enough police officers around to protect them from the public who might use force to get rid of them.

They're not going to show up anywhere where they don't think they're not going to get enough security to protect them, or where they may be harmed no matter how much security they have. In fact it's even been suggested that communities stop giving them police protection during their protests just to keep them away.

They also haven't taken on Scientology either. Maybe they're afraid of getting harassed and sued by them.

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Shape-shifting Aliens control the Earth

While there are a lot of strange conspiracy theories out there, perhaps one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories out there is one that the primary promoter of is David Icke: that the leaders of the world (and just about anyone who is famous) are actually shape-shifting aliens.

The aliens are often times described as being humanoid reptilians that are from either another planet or universe (although some claim that they are actually the offspring of alien-human hybrids from thousands of years ago) and have actually been in control for thousands of years, and are using their technology to take on a human form and secretly control the human race.

There are several videos on the internet that claim to show some famous person or politician showing some type of reptilian features for a split second, and the reality is that they do not. Many of these videos allegedly shows a person "revealing" some kind of reptilian features are actually the result of camera angle and light reflection, or even or even natural human bodily actions, such as pupil dilation, and just licking lips with one's tongue. Some of these video are even the result of some special effects put in to the video by someone who wants to prove that shape-shifting aliens are real.

Taking into account the wide scope that many conspiracy theorists believe this to be, many people have been accused of being a shape-shifting alien (this includes David Icke as well, and possible even myself). There are even people who actually claim to be one of these aliens. Of course they never actually turn into an alien, they just act very strange when they are in what they claim to be in their transformation. These "transformations" seem more like acting, or psychosis.

Besides considering the scope of such an alleged conspiracy (in both time and number of people involved) and the sheer lack of any evidence what so ever that any of this is true, it makes no logical sense that any technologically advanced conquerors would even bother to do something like this.

Many skeptics believe that the shape-shifting alien conspiracy theory is actually a modernization and rehashing of the many Jewish conspiracy theories (both of which just so happen to be very similar in their accusations), and have actually accused David Icke of being anti-Semitic and that he uses the reference to shape-shifting reptilians as being a code word for "Jews". While Icke does deny this, he does believe that the book The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (which was proven to be a hoax as far back as 1921) is true, and has apparently been flirting with Holocaust denial.

Regardless of the reasons behind David Icke's allegations (whatever those true reasons may be), many people (both conspiracy theorists and skeptics alike) consider this to be complete nonsense, and have accused Icke of being everything from a scam artist to being outright insane (although some conspiracy theorists have also accused him of being a disinformation agent as well).

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: 9/11 was staged by Israel

Probably one of the earliest of the 9/11 conspiracy theories to come about is the belief that the 9/11 attacks were committed by the government of Israel as part of some plot to cause the United States to attack the enemies of the nation of Israel.

This conspiracy theory is base on the belief that no Jewish people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, and that all the Jewish people who worked at the World Trade Center site received a phone call that day before the attacks occurred telling them that they needed to stay home.

The first part in which this conspiracy theory is based on, that no Jewish people were killed in the attacks, is completely untrue. In fact it is estimated that somewhere between 270 and 400 Jewish people were killed in the attacks, including five Israeli citizens.

The second part of this conspiracy theory, that all the Jewish people who worked at the World Trade Center site were given a call telling them not to go into work, is obviously not true because there were Jewish people who were killed in the attacks.

Also, not one Jewish person who did work at the World Trade Center site that was not killed that day has ever claimed that they received a phone call telling them to stay home. Considering how many Jewish people probably did work at the World Trade Center site it would be illogical to the point of being impossible that all of them would keep quiet about something like this.

Besides all of this the nation of Israel has no real reason to ever attack the United States.

The United States is Israel's largest and most supportive ally, and President George W. Bush supported Israel more then any other United States president ever. It would make no sense what so ever for Israel to ever attack the United States, and risk losing it's largest ally if ever found out, and seriously risk going to war with the most powerful country on the planet.

The reality is that this conspiracy theory is not based on any evidence what so ever, and by all appearances appears to be nothing more then a complete and total lie created for some sort of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic propaganda and dis-information.

The only people who claim to believe in this conspiracy theory are usually either white supremacists, neo-nazis, radical and fundamentalist Muslims, and people who generally have strong anti-Semitic beliefs, and are in general more willing to believe in these types of conspiracy theories in the first place, and use such beliefs to continue their "justification" of their bigotry and hatred towards the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.

This conspiracy theory is nothing more then a long line of made up anti-Semitic propaganda, and has no justification what so ever of even existing in the first place.

Why I refuse to Debate Bigots

I'm sure we have all encountered a bigot on the internet, be it a someone who who hates black people, or Hispanic people, or Jewish people, or Muslims, or homosexuals, or just anyone who is different from them.

Recently on the Thrive Debunked blog I encountered a person who not only greatly believed in the pseudoscience of numerology (to the point where he thought that Thrive's release date of 11/11/2011 meant that the movie's creator, Foster Gamble, created the movie as part of some type of Illuminati/occult dis-information campaign), but also thought that a "Jewish-Zionist" (his words) conspiracy was responsible for the 9/11 attacks...

At that point in time I decided that I would no longer have any discussions or debates with this person.

The main reason I decided not to continue any further discussions with this person is because I know it would be pointless, because bigots and people who believe in bigoted based conspiracy theories tend to be the least reasonable people there are.

Not only do bigots like this person tend to be less intelligent than non-bigots, they also tend to be extremely stubborn, and are usually unwilling to give any ground what so ever, or even acknowledge any sort of logical or fact based argument what so ever.

Now usually it would be pointless to debate even a non-bigoted conspiracy theorist as they tend to have clouded judgement, and usually they have an unwillingness to accept reality, but at least they are not so unreasonable that they believe that certain groups of people are either beneath them, or out right evil because of a that group's religious beliefs, their race, their ethnic background, or their sexuality.

Bigoted conspiracy theorists tend to be the more hostile then your average conspiracy theorist as well. They usually descend into posting vile comments on the internet much quicker then a no-bigoted conspiracy theorist usually would, and they even sometimes post comments that would be considered threatening, or are in fact directly threatening someone, or post other types of comments that would draw the attention of law enforcement.

Bigoted conspiracy theorists will tend to sometimes believe in the more bizarre conspiracy theories that are out there, and simply put the more bizarre a conspiracy theory a person believes in, the less rational and reasonable a person tends to be, and they are usually much more paranoid then most people as well.

In addition to all of this, they also tend to post and publish information that they know is completely false in order to try to make it appear that their beliefs are justified, or at least reasonable.

Bigots usually tend to feel that any arguments made against their conspiracy theories is nothing more then dis-information, and thus "proof" that the conspiracy theories that they believe in are factual. This is the main reason why I do not debate bigots, because I do not want to fuel their belief that the conspiracy theories that they believe in are real, and that the only real way to fight them is to refuse to debate them at all. This is my way of telling a bigoted conspiracy theorist that their beliefs are so false that it will not even warrant my attention, and that hopefully isolating them and not giving them any attention will make them rethink their beliefs.

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Holocaust Denial

(Disclaimer: I considered not posting this because it is a very sensitive subject, but I also felt it needed to be posted as a way to help getting people who do "believe" in this to finally admit they are wrong)

The Holocaust was the most horrendous acts of mass murder in human history. It killed six million European Jews, and maybe just as many people in other ethnic groups and religions as well. Despite all of the imagines of this horror that has been burned into our minds through photos, videos, testimony from survivors, the soldiers rescued them, and even members of the SS, there are still a group of people who don't believe, or at least they claim they don't believe, the Holocaust happened.

Of all the conspiracy theories there are, Holocaust denial is one of the most disgusting and bigoted conspiracy theories in the world. This conspiracy theory is so offensive, it is illegal to promote in 17 countries, including Germany, and people have gone to prison because they promoted it in those countries.

Not only is Holocaust denial apparently anti-semitic at it's core, it's actually believed by many people who study bigotry, that even people who claim the Holocaust didn't happen, don't even believe it themselves, and that the only reason they deny the Holocaust is to "justify" their own anti-semitic beliefs.

The other "curious" thing about Holocaust denial is, is that it only seems to focus on the Jewish population, and doesn't focus at all on the other groups that were murdered in the Holocaust. This is further evidence that Holocaust denial is purely anti-semitic.

Many historians and scholars consider Holocaust denial so flawed, so biased, and so bigoted, that they refuse to debate Holocaust deniers at all because they don't want to give them a false sense legitimacy.

I'm not sure if this is the most embarrassing conspiracy theory there is, but it's definitely the most disgusting.