"RING OF POWER"

[NoHachi]

Ok, but if you really want to battle this out, then its probably better to do so via msn or something. Slowchatting via the forum would take centuries and probably just lead to a lot of misunderstanding on both sides.

Basically: Take creationism. People look at the world around them and conclude that it is very complicated. Suspiciously complicated. So they conclude that there must have been someone planning this, some devine hand guiding all the devellopments on the planet. They search for some evidence and conclude that some things are not fully explained yet, so creationism must be true.

On the other hand you have this old geezer that comes up with a simple rule: natural selection, and goes on to explain many (but not all) things we observe in nature (note that this is an other way of providing evidence). The emergent behaviour of natural selection tends towards a world filled with specialised, complicated and intelligent creatures that we see around us.. Through a lot of small steps.

Which one you believe is irrelevant. To me the whole buisiness of conspiracy theorists is similar to creationsm (in fact many conspiracy theorists go on to doubt Darwinism as well. Most of them ending up with "alien intelligence" kind of theories). You take a look at the world around you and conclude that its complicated. In fact some things (like the war on Iraq) can not be understood if you believe the official story. That is all very good. It is VERY stupid to blatently believe what the media tells you. Especially because most "news" these days is generated by a "yournalist" sitting in his hotelroom spitting through the Reuters newsfeeds.
So things are more complicated then governments want us to believe..
Conspiracy theorists then immediately jump to the extreme conclusion: everything is being controlled by a group of mastermind conspiracy leaders that have controlled the world for centuries. Thats the bit that I don't subscribe to..
I believe that you don't need a global conspiracy to explain the world we see around us. That what you see is the emergent behaviour of a world where everyone egoistically strives to enrich themselves as much as they can, combined with a system where money immediately implies more influence and vice versa.