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Conspiracy Theories, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Fatima and the Sister Lucia Doppleganger (Updated with response to comment)

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JMJ

I realised a while back that conspiracy theories are attempts at explaining complicated events. Which isn't a big deal until they become a belief.

When I first entered the Traditional Catholic domain, there was a theory the Paul VI had been replaced by some nefarious people.  The reasoning what similar to the SedeVacantists, the pope can't do X, and did X so he can't be pope.

Fast forward forty years and we have a respectable academic (Home - Sister Lucy Truth) saying the same thing about Sister Lucia. It is basically the same premise all over again, Our Lady said X and Sister Lucia said X (about the consecration) and that can't be so ... Sister Lucia can't be Sister Lucia.

You see where this is going?

People get kidnapped all the time, but this one is a stretch for a big reason: The fake Sister Lucia lived amongst her sisters for years and most importantly was visited by her relatives. If she'd been swapped out don't you think they would have noticed. 

The conspiracy theory will need to be expanded in order to be workable, but in that it becomes unworkable. The bigger the number of people involved in a conspiracy the more power required to keep it from being revealed. This just grows until the conspirators have to go into god mode to keep it all together.

With the Ven. Sister Lucia theory we have a bunch of experts working off of photographs providing their opinion (i.e. not hard evidence) that is presented as 'proof' that from 1967 to her death there was an imposter posing at Sr. Lucia.  Well that's one dedicated imposter.

How the heck do these things get started?

Well - there is first an action (in this case some interview reports etc)  that contradicts a belief (in this case that the consecration of Russia was done) - so the believer has a choice - change their belief, change the action or change the perception of the action.

They'd rather believe that it was an imposter vs change their belief about Sr. Lucia.

I would hazard a guess that the three things (belief, action and perception of the action) are so muddled that the theorists can't make the proper distinctions.

So what about it?

The first thing is to challenge your beliefs when confronted with reality and to think critically.  Some people take the Ten Commandments literally as if they are all of the moral code.  However, as Catholics we know that isn't true - for example Our Lord Himself stated committing adultery in our hearts is also sinful.

In other words, don't be ignorant, if you are confronted with something that doesn't jive with your belief, don't throw reality out the window.  Think about it objectively and work through the hard parts - without taking any shortcuts.

Study and be ready to make the right distinctions.

Apologies, this has been a bit of  rant as the article idea has been on my list for months and I finally had a chance to write it up - but no time for careful editing.


P^3




 

Comments and Responses

samuelj commented on "Conspiracy Theories, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Fatima and the Sister Lucia Doppleganger"
Aug 6, 2024
but the evidence bears out the differences. To say the photographs are the same is conspiracy all on its own.

Tradicat: 

That the photos are different is not in contention, what is in contention is that they are pictures of different people. 

These are photos taken over decades and I can state from personal experience that over decades people change and that photos taken over time will document that change.

In order to support the belief (i.e. conspiracy theory) that she was replaced, the author has resorted to 'expert opinion' based on photographic and handwriting 'evidence'.  No DNA, no eye witness accounts of the people near Sister Lucy etc.  

This is to support a conspiracy theory that she was kidnapped by alien body snatchers - oops sorry wrong genre. (ie my attempt at humour)

Maybe the author has other evidence and testimony but I didn't see anything on the site to suggest that the people who lived with her and her relatives who visited her over the years noted a body double who lived as Sister Lucy for decades.  

People change over the years, even my hand writing changes as I write more.   

In short there is a difference in the pictures and none of the opinions prove that it is anything else than the natural changes over decades of life.

P^3

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  1. samueljAugust 6, 2024 at 2:21 PM

    but the evidence bears out the differences. To say the photographs are the same is conspiracy all on its own.

    ReplyDelete

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