If you pause Zapruder right before Frame 215 you can clearly see L. Ron Hubbard on the grassy knoll clutching his temples in psychic concentration.

Rick Reuben wrote:Give your opinion of it: Do you support its conclusions, or are you a conspiracy theorist?

Logical fallacy of excluded middle.

Hey look an ironic smiley:

They try, they try, and we must be mirthful.

Gawker doesn't usually cow to C&D orders, so I don't see them getting skurred of a bunch of scientologists threatening legal action, or non-action. 10 to 1 the video stays up. And even if it doesn't, everyone who's going to watch the video probably already has, so the damage is done. Take that, scientology!

Rick 1 wrote:Give your opinion of it: Do you support its conclusions, or are you a conspiracy theorist?

+

Rick 2 wrote:either alternative theories related to the actual evidence, or a conspiracy theory charging a cover up.

=

Reasonable Rick wrote:Give your opinion of it: Do you support its conclusions, or alternative theories related to the actual evidence, or a conspiracy theory charging a cover up?

Welcome back excluded middle!

Rick Reuben wrote:

Reasonable Rick wrote:Give your opinion of it: Do you support its conclusions, or alternative theories related to the actual evidence, or a conspiracy theory charging a cover up?

There is no description of an excluded middle in that passage.

Step one: Decide if you support the Warren Commission.

That leaves two groups. Supporters and Rejecters.

If you are in the group that rejects the Warren Report, then you can either reject it because you feel that it reaches wrong conclusions, or you can reject it because you feel that the Commission covered up evidence.

Both of those camps can overlap or be distinct, but either way, they remain subsets of a single group: those who reject the Warren Report.

You either:

Accept the Warren Report.

or

Reject the Warren Report.

There is no third option. There is no excluded middle. Everyone falls into one of the two groups listed above.

But you then split one of those groups into two groups, which makes a total of three groups, the second of which is a middle ground of sorts between your two originally prescribed answers of supporter or conspiracy theorist (Re: Do you support its conclusions, or are you a conspiracy theorist?):

1 - Supporters

2 - Rejecters who support alternative theories based on evidence

3 - Rejecters who support conspiracy theories

This aside, the whole concept of restricting answers to just two or even three groups is ridiculous and highly distorting anyway. There are many different ways someone could answer. Perhaps there are supporters who support the majority of the report's conclusions, but disagree with certain important detail here and there; perhaps there are rejecters who take on board the evidence but come to differing conclusions.

I understand it's inconvenient for you when people confront you with alternative points of view you've not bothered to map out answers to. Accepting the possibility of more than a few prescribed arguments means accepting the possibility you could be wrong, which is obviously an absurd notion.

This thread is so OT it's not even funny...

Colonel Panic wrote:

I girl I used to know (or bang, in Marsupialese) had the first image stuck on one of the cabinet doors in her bathroom. Brings it all back...

You fellas are arguing over two different definitions of 'conspiracy theory' (again)

There are two types of definition:

One which sees a conspiracy theory as, by definition, something that cannot have happened. If it turns out later to have happened then it stops ever having been a conspiracy theory.

The other sees a 'conspiracy theory' as a theory to explain an event involving a conspiracy.


If an 'official version' of an event is presented and someone disputes that - even slightly - they do tend to be called 'conspiracy theorists' (under the first definition)


This just adds fuel to both types.

Wriggling Rick wrote:either alternative theories related to the actual evidence, or a conspiracy theory charging a cover up.

If you now think that any form of alternative theory is a conspiracy theory then you contradicted yourself earlier by distinguishing between alternative theories ****or**** conspiracy theories when discussing rejecters. The use of the word 'or' implies that the alternative theories are different to the conspiracy theories, giving a total of three possible answers - supporters, rejecters (evidence-based alternative theories), rejecters (conspiracy theories).

An alternative theory could just be that someone else shot him. Whether that theory stands up or not depends on the strength of the evidence backing it up. If it is controversial, it'll get called a conspiracy theory by all sorts of people looking to discredit it, but that doesn't necessarily make it a conspiracy theory.

Commonly, conspiracy theories refer to theories which are unverifiable in some way due to lack of evidence, usually involving some sort of collusion implied between the perpetrators and those pushing the official line. The unverifiable nature of a given conspiracy theory ensures the idea can never be totally destroyed, in much the same way other absurd concepts like god can neither be proven nor totally disproven. Often the implied collusion will be the reason given for the lack of any real evidence for the conspiracy, making the theory self-perpetuating, in much the same way religious believers claim we can't see God because he is testing our faith. Likewise, the alleged collusion gives believers a feeling of superiority through being privy to hidden knowledge, providing a motive for believers to spread such knowledge no matter how absurd. Everything about a conspiracy theory is primarily concerned with furthering it's own existence, in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Rick wrote:stating a suspicion that the official version does not reveal the complete truth, which is an allegation of a cover-up, i.e. a conspiracy.

However unlikely it may be, the official report could be wrong out of incompetence, rather than any kind of cover up.

The NWO owns most of the world, and we own the rest. You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.

Fnord, fnord.