We watched the new X-Files last night. Patty is crazy about The X-Files. I’m not. All that conspiracy stuff gets to me.
When the show was over–complete with liberal TV wallah’s definition of “a conservative,” Heaven help us–I checked my blog… only to find still more conspiracy theorizing, this time by a reader.
It is not possible that anyone could be so dense as to spend a minute or two here and not realize it’s a Christian blog. But anti-Christians have this enormous sense of entitlement that empowers them to bad-mouth Christians’ most sacred beliefs, and no manners, either–they’re like someone who barges into your living room and pees on your couch.
So this guy comes on to tell me there was never any such person as Jesus Christ. Nope, you don’t have a Savior. Jesus, you see, never existed. He and the whole New Testament were “written in secret, by the Roman aristocracy–” what? all of them?–“as an antidote to Judaism.” It was all a conspiracy, you dig? A Roman conspiracy against the Jews!
But, Mr. Conspiracy Monger, the Romans had no need to conspire against the Jews. They had this thing called the Roman Army, and when some little nation like Judea bugged them, they sent the Roman Army over to kill them. End of problem.
There is evil at large in this world; and although its face is human, it serves spiritual wickedness in high places.
And in the end, God wins.
There’s a word for it: Apophenia, the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things. It seems that everything that happens nowadays is a conspiracy. I’m not sure what that says about us.
My editor is convinced that conspiracy thinking is becoming mainstream thinking. I can’t figure out why this should be. I consider conspiracy theorizing to be jejeune, shameful, and quite possibly insane.
And why bother with conspiracies? Those who are working to wreck our civilization do it openly and brag about it. They do it right before our eyes.
That’s not a conspiracy. That’s history–in a fallen world.
The conspiracy theorist sure doesn’t read historical documents. Josephus references Jesus in his massive work on the history of the Jews. The spirit of antichrist is alive and well, it appears. Well, Jesus said these things would occur.
So you don’t like the X-Files?
If it weren’t for the acting, the cinematography, and the music, the stories would be just plain silly. But don’t tell my wife I said that.
“There’s a word for it: Apophenia, the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things.”
This seems to be a very common thing, these days. I’ve dealt with it several times myself, with various friends. In one case, a person of my acquaintance turned down the offer to rent a house for only a few hundred dollars per month, because he was certain that God didn’t want him to go to any other church than the one he currently attends. His reasoning on this was based on a coincidence involving another opportunity to move to an inexpensive home which fell through.
The problem is, when we start seeking signs we cease to use the reasoning power with which we were created. The Law given to Moses was pretty clear about looking for omens, etc. It almost always leads to big trouble. The modern fixation with conspiracy theories is just one more example of this.
A conspiracy by the Romans, huh? I have to say that’s one of the funniest conspiracy theories I’ve heard lately. Here are the Romans, busily setting up a complicated narrative about a mythical Jesus, and then spending the next 200+ years persecuting anyone who believes in it. Uh, right.
Even when I was an atheist I would have laughed at such a bit of ahistorical craziness.
Makes as much sense as most conspiracy theories.
I like the part in the Bible that says signs will follow us who believe. It doesn’t say we are to follow signs. As we act in faith, signs follow to confirm we are on the right path (for example, the peace that passes all understanding). Jesus said the healings He did were signs to confirm He was the Messiah (my paraphrase).
If Jesus never existed, then Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all those guys didn’t either because we have way more documentation for Jesus of Nazareth existed than any of those Greek guys.
Don’t we have a bad check signed by Plato?
🙂