Everything You Know Is Wrong, Apparently

I was extremely bored one afternoon last year, so I decided to go into town and buy a book. Now, as you can probably fathom, I'm not really someone who reads too often (although perhaps I should, seeing as I am currently on an English Literature course). However, on this particular occasion, I encountered a very interesting looking book on conspiracy theories.

Being someone who is highly sceptical, I gave it one look and decided that it was a load of rubbish and therefore a waste of money. Therefore I bought it. And duly lost it that very same day. I thought it was gone forever until I uncovered it in a deep, dark, murky, forgotten corner of my bedroom the other week like a man arriving at work and having to listen to some woman go on and on about how their holiday to St Tropez went.

They are both completely full of shit.

The book kicks off with the most pointless of all conspiracy theories, whether or not Kurt Cobain actually did commit suicide or not. Hmm, a completely depressed drug addled lunatic with a drink problem and an gun collection? I'm not sure where the conspiracy fits in here, to be frank. That case should, ideally, be in a book entitled 'Really Obvious Cases Of Suicide That Should In No Way Be Considered Conspiracies In Any Way Shape Or Form'.

One of the more entertaining but utterly ridiculous ones has to be the idea that Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a lookalike of some kind. Yep, you read correctly... The sheer preposterousness of this theory is flabbergasting. How could someone who looked exactly like Paul McCartney and with the same amount of musical talent ever have been found? It seems a tad hair brained to me.

That wasn't the funniest one.

The most amusing and outlandish theory in the book is the fact that the actions of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party were controlled by satanic forces. Or the Devil, basically. It states, and I quote, 'Hitler's ultimate goal was not to unite Europe under his rule at all, but to cause widespread death and destruction to please his satanic masters.'

Personally, being a complete sceptic of religion itself or anything surrounding it, I choked when I read this. Succeeding the initial shock of the choking, I mellowed to simply laughing and nearly shattering my ribs in the process. At this point, I ceased reading, wisely realising that this is the only thing that I had ever read that had actually physically caused pain.

For me, dismissing events such as the Holocaust as a tool for gaining 'magical' energy seems a bit far fetched and actually insulting to the ones who were killed. The circumstances surrounding the rise of the Nazi party were not mysterious at all as they are easily understood and explained in simple sociological and political terms. The mere fact the the so called 'Brotherhood of Death' (The name of Hitler's odd satanic tribe) had the Jolly Rodger as a logo sort of ends any conspiracy in my view.

The final word is that all conspiracy theories are ridiculous and that is that. They are only recycled because alot of people are naive enough to take in any information, even if it is ridiculous. Other conspiracies in the book include; Hillary Clinton (?), George W. Bush (His idiocy is a cause for conspiracy theories to spread - 'how can anyone be that dumb?'), barcodes (Something to do with US military and spying, i don't know) and cow mutilations (Now that was interesting to read...)

I have subsequently come up with a test to find out if people are clever or not. It comprises of one question: 'Do you believe in conspiracies?' There can be three categories of mental retardedness:

Answered 'no' - Clever
Answered 'yes' - Retarded
Answered 'what does conspiracies mean?' - Not worth keeping alive