however…

However… once in awhile something happens that makes me wonder!

Someone was on a flight with me, a very sunny middle-aged mother of three travelling on business. She was so delightfully friendly that I was quite happy when she said she was coming back a row to join me (we had chatted earlier in a passport line).

Unfortunately, I soon regretted having been happy about this visit. I was held hostage for about an hour with a Church-based list of conspiracy theories that were among the weirdest I had ever heard. Not only were they spoken as if they were the absolute truth, but I was condescended to as if I were an uneducated rube for never having heard of these things. I was pitied for believing the lies they tell us elsewhere.

Among the remarkable features of her Church’s theories…

*all former U.S. Presidents gather regularly in red and black hoods to dance and worship the Devil (question: which ex-President is funniest to imagine doing so? for me it’s Bush Sr. for some reason; I can almost see the other three doing it)

*Hilary Clinton went to China in late January. She reassured the Chinese about American creditworthiness by signing a deal promising that California and one other state would become Chinese property if the U.S. was unable to make good its debts by a specific date

*Obama was chosen as President by a secret cabal meeting in Greece; the election was then staged

So yes, I admit that there are some deleterious religious influences, and certainly they are more widespread among the populace in most countries than any materialist doctrine. In this respect, the work of debunking Enlightenment has much work still to do.

But that’s more a matter of educational policy, as I see it. We’re intellectuals, and among the intellectuals such views are scarcely a threat. I find arrogant materialism to be a greater threat to intellectual innovation in the circles in which we travel.

It’s worth a longer conversation, and surely I’d be in the minority among readers of this blog, but that’s fine.