After having conversed with many from the "what REALLY happened" crowd I've noticed how seamlessly the conspiracy theorists involve religious beliefs in the discussion. And more subtly, many of the same patterns of cultic conditioning are exhibited in the way they conceive and preserve the conspiracy thinking. Among them are confirmation bias, emotional potency as a truth indicator, motivation through paranoid fear, xenophobia and general "us vs. them" thinking, appeals to flawed logic, etc.

I usually just assume religious zealots are naturally drawn to conspiracy stuff because it appeals to the way they think. But I was thinking about how often they tend to speak of all "the sheeple" or the brainwashed, gullible majority (ironic seeing how often they repeat these thought-stopping mantras). They tend to repeat "So you just believe everything the government tells you," and so on. Basically they see the ignorant majority the way most would see Mormons: collectivist, brainwashed sheeple.

I wonder if maybe Mormons and other zealots have an insecurity about continued devotion to a set of beliefs so laughably dismissed by others. They may feel that others are correct and they have been deceived and feel some embarrassment or frustration about it. Perhaps interest in conspiracy theories is a way for them to turn the tables on their deriders in a way that protects their religious beliefs and helps them not feel so dumb or vulnerable in their religious system to which they've devoted so much.

USA!!!