The fact that conspiracy theories seem to consistently develop around large, spectacular historical events seems to indicate more about human psychology than it does about the actual happenings of those events themselves. It is true that people by nature follow authority, but it is also true to state that people enjoy the thrill of knowing (or believing) that they hold some secret, exclusive knowledge and that they are lone searchers for truth in a world where everyone else is blind. Because of this, several fallacious arguments tend to develop around conspiracy theories. One of them is the "you have an agenda" argument. This is essentially a bulverism fallacy. Another is "everyone has abandoned a search for truth except for us". This is commonly employed by HIV/AIDs causality deniers, despite very few of them being familiar with molecular biology. Another common one is "we are the victim of suppression by an evil establishment" being argued on the basis of the rejection of the views by the majority of people in the field of speciality under discussion. This is very commonly played by creationists and ID activists. Speaking of which, why didn't you include creationism/ID? It is essentially a conspiracy theory.

The Kennedy assasination thing.

I'm open to conjecture, within reason about there being "more to it" than just Oswald's own impulse to kill the President. The grasy knoll thing, or whatever it's called is superperflous and that I am as sceptical about as any other outlandish proposition, but it seems reasonable to me to at least be open to the possibility that someone hired or convinced Oswald to do it.

At any given moment, with any given president, there are many many people who would have an interest in assasinating the president of the most powerful country in the world, so motives are abound. As far as oppotunity, any intelligence agency in the world, and also powerful criminal organisations and very rich individuals and coorporations have the resources to make the attempt. It only takes one guy with a gun, after all.

And since it all hinges on accepting just ONE simple possibility: that Lee Harvey Oswald shut up about any accomplices he may have had, that is not too hard a possibility to swallow. There are thousands of reasons someone might do that, and many of them could be psychological reasons that only exist in his own head, and so cannot be gleaned from any outside evidence. If he was payed large sums of money to keep quiet, that would be hard to believe, because that would be hard for him to keep secret.

But if, for example, he really was pretty crazy, then maybe a single, clever intelligence operative could somehow psychologically manipulate him into thinking he shouldn't talk about anyone else that where involved, or maybe even convince him that is was all his own idea. It is maybe not likely, but it certainly is possible.

And unlike most conspiracy theories, it doesn't require a thousand different pieces to fall into place in an extremelly improbable way, it only requires one: that Oswald, for some reason, kept quiet about accomplices.

Who those accomplices are, and why they wanted JFK dead, is then a different matter, and the many different theories out there are ofcourse wildly different in their level of believability. For example that he was killed by the CIA because he intended to divulge the truth about the aliens that crashed at Roswell is of course just stupid (That was just an example I made up, but I'd be surprised if that theory isn't out there).

So, what I guess I'm saying is that I don't actually buy any of the theories I've heard about the JFK assasination, but I am open to the possibility that there may have been a conspiracy involved.

Is the only one I believer more plausable than the others, as there was a president in power that wanted to join the allied forces in war, but a public that wanted to avoid war, and knew about the impending attack but allowed it to happen so that the people would have no choice but to support the war. It's plausible, no necessarily true, but plausiable. 9/11 not even close because the amount of people involved do pull it off, between the demolishin company(s), the air companies, and of course government officials would make it impossible to pull of without anyone talking about it.

As for me, XC's comments on the Jews melds quite well with my own view. Its not a conspiracy, but groups, races, religions usually seek out the most power that they can acheive. As an ethno-religious group with a fairly large ratio of influence/people, they have amassed a ton of wealth, power, and political influence for their relative worldwide population.

JFK, I think it is possible that he was not the only one involved in the planning and execution of Kennedy's assasination. Who? I don't know and have no proof. If it really was just one man on a mission it is profoundly impressive.

Global warming is tactically used to portray things in a fraudulent manner, but the science is quite compelling for its man made contributions. The skeptic magazine issue dealing with the controversy was excellent.

The pearl harbor theory seems more plausible than most of the ideas in the top ten, and I really don't want to believe it due to the implications if it is true. I think the truth lies more along the 911 thinking of the administration...that accounts of such attacks were largely exaggerated, and less than seriously tangible probabilities.

As for all of the other conspiracy theories mentioned in this post, I see the rest as lacking serious consideration.

I know that global warming is bullshit because co2 comes out of your mouth when you breathe . So if the people who claim that they want to stop it actually believed that it was true they would shut the fuck up. But they never shut up they just go on about it endlessly, it's all I ever hear about anymore. global warming? more like global whining if you ask me.

I also think professional boxing is rigged

Q: What's more attractive to Princess Di than a Rich Egyptian?

A:  A strongly built Pole.

Sorry... had to do it.

Huh?

I suspect you are being ironic, but just in case you aren't.

Global warming doesn't mean CO2 = bad. It means, excessive amounts of CO2 in the upper athmosphere = bad.

Just compare to the following statement: "People who say that it would be a bad thing if the earth was covered in water are just stupid, because 3/4 of the earth is covered in water, so they should go drain all the oceans, is they really think water is so bad."

And incidently, you don't stop breathing because you shut up, so what good would that do?

Conspiracy Theories are often like Hypothesis's,  inevitable , and often even silly, but questioning is obviously good. The problem is unbalanced non-open communication. Sue the FCC etc. 

      I would say the super mega rich do have a language and agenda of their own, but it's more like the "contagious mental disease of excessive greed".

There are no "spiritual" or "truth" secrets.

Secrets are a rarity, especially as the number of people involved increases, and the magnitude of the "secret".

         Basically the Gov / Church / Money System IS basically a CONSPIRACY !

                                              "EAT THE RICH"  

1. 9/11 was Planned by the US Government

The arguments in favor of this are all absurd, based largely upon bad physics and naked assertions.

Highly unlikely / no evidence.

2. UFO Recovered at Roswell

Well, something crashed in Roswell, and it was recovered promptly by the military. Personally, I suspect ths was an aircraft training excercize that ended in a crash.

No compelling evidence in favor of the crashed object being a UFO. Highly unlikely / argument from ignorance.

3. John F. Kennedy’s Assasination

Oswald's motivations and behavior during the day were, to say the least, strange. I think there is some cause to doubt he was Kennedy's shooter as a result.

However, the ballistics evidence is certainyl not damning against him, and there is zero doubt he shot and killed Officer Tippet where he stood we stopped for questioning. Oswald would've probably got the chair for that offense alone anyway.

Circumstantial evidence. Plausible, but not beyond reasonable doubt.

4. Global Warming is a Fraud

Bad comedy, stirred-up by assholes like Michael Crichton. There should be no debate here at all; we can measure both global mean temperature and CO2 levels with remarkable accuracy, as well as take core samples from glaciers to determine melt rate.

The evidence is clear beyond reasonable doubt: the planet is getting warmer due to carbon dioxide emissions. This is a huge concern.

5. Princess Diana was Murdered by the Royal Family

This has been investigated professionally at least three different times by various police agencies and independent investigators. Every conclusion points to the same shameful fact:

If there's a culprit to be blamed for the death of Diana and her husband, it's a pampered upbringing that never taught them the importance of basic things like wearing seatbelts. If Diana had been buckled-in, there's an extremely high probability she'd still be alive.

Personally, I think this should be the one example people should point to to raise consciousness in automobile-driven cultures of the importance of those uncomfortable things they insist you sling over your shoulder while riding.

6. Jewish World Domination

See: Holocaust Denial.

Also see: Total bullshit.

7. Apollo Moon Landing Hoax

This one was brought about by people versed in photography but not well versed in astronomy, or vice-versa.

Zero compelling evidence / Highly unlikely

8. Pearl Harbor Was Allowed to Happen

This can very simply be broken down into what we know and what we might speculate from that:

1) We know that Australian intelligence warned the U.S. administration that a Japanese attack group was sighted moving at speed towards Pearl Habor

2) We know that U.S. intelligence knew roughly what the Japanese plan of setting-up a naval perimeter looked like, and that this plan put Pearl at considerable risk for attack.

3) We know that, on the day of the attack, the U.S. had it's battleships all lined-up in Battleship Row in the habor, while the flat-tops were out performing excercizes. As a result of this, the U.S. lost it's least critical assets in the attack.

So, it might be a similar case to 9/11: FDR simply ignored the warnings or perhaps didn't bother reading the reports, and a series of coincidences afterward led to the attack being so spectacular yet strategically ineffective. Or, it might be that FDR knew what was likely, and made a decision to not put his forces on alert, so that the attack could be carried-out and win him the support for going to war.

In either case, it's not necessarily a pretty picture for FDR, in terms of domestic security. That said, Pearl is what enabled D-Day, and was the worst strategic choice made by an axis power in WWII. If FDR did decide it needed to happen, hindsight says I agree with him: it would've been the decisive political move of the war, and the ends most surely justified the means.

9. The Third Secret of Fatima

See: superstitious nonsense.

10. The Philadelphia Experiment

Totally bogus. The Eldridge was busy getting a shakedown in the bahamas when the alleged experiment in Philadelphia occurred. Not to mention that, if such an experiment were actually viable, it's curious that the U.S. didn't simply sweep the naval theatre with invisible warships.

"waking up" .... J. Perkins  !   I like that idea  !  

Do we humans effect the thin layer of air ? Well fuck ya, ..... call it what you will .....

No.

No.

I don't get this one.  He was killed... is there something wrong with calling it an assassination?

It's certainly not the whole story and it is rather misleading, but as it's popularly understood it is occurring.

No.

No.  There's not enough Jews anyhow...

No.

No.

That the Vatican didn't release the real secret?  Who cares?  I'll go with no, but it doesn't matter anyhow; the secrets are inconsequential, unimportant and wholly fictitious.

No.

The U.S. lost no significant assets. The Japanese targeted the Battleships primarily (the largest and most expensive floating assets in the harbor, and while they took a number of them ou of action, Battleships did not play a significant role in WWII. Carriers had supplanted them.

The harbor facilities went untouched, as was fuel stock, the command buildings that housed key encryption technology, the cruiser fleet (which proved vital in supporting carrier groups), submarine infrastructure and many other key naval assets. I'm not saying these were missed on purpose (this was a blunder on the part of the Japanese naval commander), but rather that FDR took a gamble on what the Japanese were likely to hit and it paid-off.

Again, there is no dispute that Autralian intelligence warned the U.S. of the impending attack, no dispute that U.S. intelligence knew the rough battle plans of the Japanese and no dispute that the capital ships of WWII Battle groups (Carriers) were conveniently out on excercizes when Pearl was attacked.