I recently flew from Baltimore to Charlotte and got stuck in the dreaded middle seat. The flight is only about an hour so not as torturous as long domestic or overseas flights. By the time I boarded, my seatmates were already engaged in conversation. They paused while I stowed my carry-ons, exchanged pleasantries, and we figured out whose seat belt belonged to whom.
The woman to my left then asked the gentleman to right, “So, what kind of influencer are you?” To which he replied, “I’m part of the Patriot Movement though I’ve been banned from YouTube and Twitter so I’m only on Telegram. Now I’m not sure the words, “Patriot Movement,” should be capitalized, but he said it as if it were an organization and a proper noun. I have serious doubts.
Over the next twenty minutes, he hit on just about every conspiracy theory that has emerged over the past few years along with some golden oldies. COVID, masks, National Guard activations, critical race theory, Hollywood/media/government collusion, and one world government totalitarianism all mixed together into a one-step-from-QAnon soup. By this time I had pulled out my book and cursed my kids for stealing my last set of headphones.
The woman to my left who seemed well educated and apparently was on her way to give a speech on Ethical Monotheism kept engaging with him in what appeared to be a “save a conspiracy theorist using logic and listening” approach. Though it was a valiant effort, she never really got to the logic portion. Perhaps realizing that her efforts were failing, she tried to bring me into the conversation. I tried my best to turn the discussion into a more normal exchange between strangers on an airplane. “Where are you from, what do you do for a living, etc.
Unfortunately, Patriot Movement guy kept chiming in with more conspiracy theory nonsense. He mentioned that all the zombie shows on TV are preparing us for the future when we will live in sectors designated by the government. At some previous point I had explained that did cybersecurity work for the government. Maybe she wasn’t as bright as I had guessed because she then asked, “What do you think about all these conspiracy theories, Mr. Cybersecurity?”
My simple reply was, “I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.” Fortunately, I was saved by the flight attendant who was gathering trash and telling us to prepare for landing. The conversation ended there likely because Patriot Movement guy realized he wasn’t recruiting us and we wouldn’t be following him on Telegram.
If I’d had the opportunity to continue, I’d have told them that I don’t believe in conspiracy theories because of my faith in God. God does indeed work in mysterious ways and it’s not always evident to us why the world works the way it does. Humans have a need to make sense of our surroundings. This is biological and driven by our amygdala, the part of the brain that tells us to fight or flee. We need to ingest information quickly and decide what to do with it. Sometimes that information processing produces an incorrect output. In this case, we don’t have control over the situation and therefore some other human must be in control.
This is in direct conflict with faith in God. God is in control and we are breaking a commandment by ascribing power, a power that only God possesses, to a set of humans, real or imagined. I do concede that groups of humans have conspired and will continue to conspire to exert control over other humans, but those are conspiracies not theories. They create evidence and the truth always comes out. So unless you have proof other than “maybe,” do yourself a favor; Put your faith in God and do some work that benefits our collective time on Earth and your ultimate time in Eternity.
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