Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
designed to bring you
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up-to-date news, information,
analysis, and insights
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on religious
liberty developments
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in the US and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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A magazine of over 100
years focus on religious freedom
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with an emphasis on
separation of church and state.
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My guest on the
program is John Ashmeade,
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Attorney John Ashmeade,
and your position is...
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Apart from a lawyer
and in private employment,
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you work with the
Seventh-day Adventist Church
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as Associate
Director of Public Affairs
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and Religious Liberty
for the Eastern Seaboard,
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basically of the United States,
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the Atlantic Union, we
call it within our system.
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That's correct.
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The world that we live in
is increasingly complicated,
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and nobody has all
the answers on any topic.
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But we all want to know,
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as human
beings, we're inquiring.
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And I think it's worth you
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and I discussing
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what is commonly known
as conspiracy theories.
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But basically these
are folk explanations
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to complicated issues.
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That's...
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I've never heard
that description,
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but that's how I
would describe it.
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But thinking on
the Christian model,
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which, of course,
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religious
liberty, as Christians,
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we hack back to Christ,
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and then the creation of
man as a free will agent,
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right to choose right or wrong.
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But in the Christian context,
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it seems to me one of
the first conspiracies
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was a story told when
Jesus was raised from the dead,
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you remember?
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Right, right.
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The authorities
spread a tale that
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He had been stolen by
His disciples, and so on,
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and so the stories
were bouncing around.
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What had happened to
Him? How had He risen?
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And to this day,
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a lot of the
critics of Christianity
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sort of go back to
that basic conspiracy.
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So, you know, what's
your take on the things
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that are free
floating around us today,
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conspiracies in
the political world,
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in the scientific world.
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I've joked with you privately
about the Flat Earth Theory.
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There were a lot of
proponents in that those days.
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There are conspiracy theories
that involve space aliens,
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and certain
newspapers on the stands
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often had
pictures of space aliens
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with the current
president, not our current,
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but I mean every
president that was current.
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Do we just dismiss these as
the ravings of ill informed,
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slightly deranged people,
you know, what's going on?
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Sure, you know, my
very first encounter
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with conspiracy theories
took place a few years ago.
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I was actually at church
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and there was an
announcement that,
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you know, the young
people in our church
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would be putting on
a program on prophecy.
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And, you know, I said to myself,
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"Well, I can't miss this."
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And, you know, when I,
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you know, I went
to the AY program,
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and the title of
the presentation was
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Obama and the New World Order.
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And, you know,
that was shocking to me.
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You know, like
many African-Americans,
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I was overjoyed
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at the election of the first
African-American president.
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And so to see him
depicted in such negative terms
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so early in office was
really troubling to me.
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But basically what was
done was they'd cobbled together
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a number of videos from YouTube
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and different
places on the internet,
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and painted a
picture of the president
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as part of a secret organization
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that was seeking to
create a one world government.
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And so we were on the
verge of a one world government
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with our newly elected
African-American president.
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And that was
deeply disturbing to me.
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And as I, you know,
looked at that program,
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I decided to
investigate the issue further.
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And, you know,
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found an
overwhelming number of videos
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on YouTube online
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on conspiracies not
only involving Obama,
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but almost every president.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, and no real,
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you know, we have no
real ability to assess
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what's true and what's not true,
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what's not true
because it's just online.
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And this is what
bothers me about conspiracies.
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You know the greatest
conspiracies are linked,
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that is slightly
linked to reality
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are the ongoing
discussions about
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how, and who, and why,
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and, in all the details
about Kennedy's assassination.
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And the irony is that
I've thought many times,
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"It's not impossible
that one of these sites
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or one of the investigators
stumbled on the truth.
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But by the nature
of conspiracy theories,
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you can't prove the stuff,
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it's free floating information,
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you wouldn't even know if
you stumbled on the truth.
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So it's a little pointless.
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Yeah, the problem that
I see is just the sources,
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you know, where,
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you know, where you're
getting the information,
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how reliable is the person
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who's reporting the information?
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A lot of times
they cite to books,
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but then who was
the author of this book?
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Does the author
have any expertise?
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You know, they cover
a broad range of issues
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from history to science,
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the philosophy to
political science,
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and, you know, far off more,
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you know, more often than
not, these people just have,
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don't have the
educational credentials
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to make the
arguments that they're making.
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But, you know,
some conspiracy theories
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in fact, a lot of them
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are somewhat based in fact,
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but then people
launch out into the unknown.
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And on this New
World Order certain facts,
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I'm sure you
remember George Bush Senior
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actually saying publicly
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that we were heading
into a new world order.
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And most recently
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Pope Benedict,
not Pope Benedict,
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Pope Francis quoted
in newspapers in Europe,
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didn't seem to come
the side of the channel.
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He was frustrated with
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what the US was
up to at the time,
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and he said, "The sooner the US
comes under global governance,
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the better."
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So global
governance must be an idea
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that's floating around
with certain of these planners.
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But that's not necessarily
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the same as the New World Order,
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which is a shadowy movement
of people you don't know about,
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but seem to be able to
pull all the strings in history,
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and, yes, you and I
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being somewhat
familiar with history,
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you know, that even Napoleon
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can't pull all the
strings to their satisfaction,
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much less this
massive conspiracy.
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And it's sort of...
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It's almost a
superstition often to ascribe
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great power and influence
to these invisible forces.
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Right.
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You know, there's
always a secret cabal,
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the secret group that's wielding
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all the power behind the scenes
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and making all the decisions,
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determining who
becomes president,
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you know, all of
those kinds of things.
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And, you know, it
seems almost incredible.
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It really
raises the question of,
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"Well, why do we even
vote in our elections?
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Is this really a mirage?
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And that's the real danger
of these conspiracy theories
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is that it can create a scenario
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where people are no
longer engaged in the process
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because they believe it's fixed.
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And, you know, so
that's the real danger,
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and we're seeing more of these
theories proliferate around us,
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and we need to begin to
make some comments about them,
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you know, even
within the Adventist church.
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You know, we have... Right.
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We have our own
unique perspective
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on how things will
unfold at the end of time.
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Well, too that I think
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you and I spoke
about that privately.
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There's an
individual within our church
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who spreads
very good information
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on many, many topics,
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and two of them
just offend me greatly.
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The Islam supposedly,
according to this man,
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a purposely made organization
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by the Roman Catholic Church
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to sort of a stalking
horse for their own interest.
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That's, I mean,
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the known facts of
history go against such a thing.
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And then another one
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is that the Mason,
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the whole Masonic order
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again was cooked
up out of nowhere
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to suit Roman Catholic interest,
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flies against the most
simple acts of history there,
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persecution of
the Masonic orders,
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complicated, of course,
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by the fact that
there have been masons
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within the Roman
structure, but...
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Or even the masons
in the early Adventism.
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And our co-founder Ellen
White had to deal very directly
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with that sight of the pastors,
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a Christian pastor shouldn't be
a member of the secret society.
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We know secret societies exist,
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but, you know, by and large,
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the guys that ride
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little motorized
scooters in public parades
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and have nice drinking weekends.
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Right, but, you know, I think
you make a very good point.
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The fact that you could
say the Roman Catholic Church
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is align with the
Illuminati or Freemasons,
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and then on top of that,
you're going to say that,
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you know, the
like, you know, many,
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like movie stars and singers
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they're also part of this group,
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and they've all aligned
to create one global system
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that's going to dominate us.
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I think it's incredible,
and it really ignores history,
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it ignores how
this country functions,
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you know, and it just doesn't
really make a lot of sense
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when you pull back the curtain
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and you begin to
examine the details of
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what's really being shared.
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Yeah, I agree with you,
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and you've touched on something
that is worth mentioning here
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because it is significant.
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You can go online and
you can see endless videos
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of public figures, entertainers,
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mostly and others in the US
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with all sorts of capitalistic
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and New Age, spiritualistic,
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purposely about to
give one, but I shouldn't.
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Signs, that's real enough.
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I think there's a
certain trendiness of evil
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where they want
to be in the in group
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to show that they
know the secret symbols.
00:10:47.54\00:10:51.28
But I don't think they're
00:10:51.31\00:10:52.71
directly part of some
grand conspiracy at all.
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It's just evil
writ large in the world
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as it from a Christian base.
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So a classic example of
what you will see in the video
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is you will have one president,
00:11:02.96\00:11:04.49
and they will put up
a little hand signal.
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And then another,
they show another image
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of another president
doing it, and so forth.
00:11:09.30\00:11:12.33
And then all of a sudden,
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the custom one has
put up a hand sign,
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and no context is given,
00:11:15.77\00:11:18.47
all, you have
this grand conspiracy,
00:11:18.51\00:11:20.74
they're all aligned,
they're all in the same group
00:11:20.78\00:11:23.18
with the same agenda,
00:11:23.21\00:11:25.45
and towards global government.
00:11:25.48\00:11:27.48
And as an Adventist,
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I think that runs counter to
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what we believe will
happen at the end of time.
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And I think that's
important for our church
00:11:33.96\00:11:37.03
not to embrace
these kinds of views.
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We don't believe
in global government,
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we actually believe in
separation, and tension,
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and conflict
towards the end of time,
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and that really is the order
rather than a coming together
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under one global system.
00:11:50.44\00:11:52.31
Well, it may not be a
single global government,
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but there is a coalition
with the kings of the earth
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give over their power for
a season to a grand system,
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which might or might
not be the US itself.
00:12:02.68\00:12:06.35
But like, and this is the
thing with these conspiracies,
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they're not totally
just plucked out of thin air,
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they're sort of funhouse
mirror versions of truth,
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and then made more complicated.
00:12:19.40\00:12:21.24
This is the irony.
00:12:21.27\00:12:22.60
The people that
get into conspiracies,
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I think, many of
them want to uncover truth
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and find the
meaning behind stuff,
00:12:26.34\00:12:28.04
but they
actually complicate life,
00:12:28.08\00:12:29.71
they've thrown
in layer after layer
00:12:29.74\00:12:33.08
of conspiracy and
complication to...
00:12:33.11\00:12:36.55
What if you look at it simply,
00:12:36.58\00:12:39.89
and I think I
alluded to it earlier
00:12:39.92\00:12:42.06
President
Eisenhower warned the country
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about military
industrial complex,
00:12:44.86\00:12:47.53
that's real enough.
00:12:47.56\00:12:49.46
But then if you sort of
mix it with a globalist view,
00:12:49.50\00:12:52.97
and the Bilderberg Group,
00:12:53.00\00:12:56.10
and behind closed doors,
00:12:56.14\00:12:57.47
these great power
brokers are manipulating.
00:12:57.51\00:13:00.44
I think the evidence is greater
that the kings of the earth
00:13:00.48\00:13:03.41
and the business leaders
are more and more perplexed
00:13:03.45\00:13:05.81
about how to control stuff.
00:13:05.85\00:13:07.18
They're losing
control, not gaining it.
00:13:07.22\00:13:08.92
Right, right.
00:13:08.95\00:13:12.42
The question is
always to me, you know,
00:13:12.45\00:13:16.16
the groups that
they pull together to say
00:13:16.19\00:13:18.96
that they're all
working together,
00:13:18.99\00:13:20.46
are they really
working together?
00:13:20.50\00:13:23.20
You know, what does...
00:13:23.23\00:13:26.20
Is Jay Z aligned
with the Catholic Church
00:13:26.23\00:13:29.40
or is Rihanna
aligned with Muslims
00:13:29.44\00:13:32.37
or, you know,
they're not working,
00:13:32.41\00:13:34.28
they don't have the same agenda,
00:13:34.31\00:13:36.51
and that's really the problem,
00:13:36.54\00:13:38.45
we just throw things together,
00:13:38.48\00:13:40.42
and we put music
behind it in the video,
00:13:40.45\00:13:43.55
it's scary music in a video,
00:13:43.59\00:13:45.25
and all of a sudden
we have this grand theory
00:13:45.29\00:13:47.66
that kind of governs the world,
00:13:47.69\00:13:49.72
and I think it is
just not based on reality.
00:13:49.76\00:13:52.36
We need to warn against it.
00:13:52.39\00:13:53.73
And I think another enabling
factor in conspiracy theories
00:13:53.76\00:13:57.83
is there are often people
00:13:57.87\00:13:59.20
who are not well
informed generally.
00:13:59.23\00:14:01.14
They might be well informed
on the conspiracy supposedly,
00:14:01.17\00:14:04.61
but if you have...
00:14:04.64\00:14:07.24
If you're observant
with things that go on,
00:14:07.28\00:14:09.14
if you have studied
the backdrop, history
00:14:09.18\00:14:11.65
or know the
political background,
00:14:11.68\00:14:13.95
things are a lot
more self evident.
00:14:13.98\00:14:15.52
It takes a lot of the
mystery out of things,
00:14:15.55\00:14:17.25
you're not so inclined toward
00:14:17.29\00:14:19.55
what we correctly
call it conspiracy.
00:14:19.59\00:14:22.32
I mean some people dismiss out,
00:14:22.36\00:14:25.49
you know, a real
explanation events,
00:14:25.53\00:14:27.06
"Oh, he's just a conspiracist,"
00:14:27.10\00:14:28.93
but it may be very true.
00:14:28.96\00:14:30.77
So we need to be
careful we don't just run away
00:14:30.80\00:14:33.13
from someone
using the term lightly.
00:14:33.17\00:14:35.44
That I think is a
good point to make.
00:14:35.47\00:14:38.34
Stay with us on this
conspiratorial program.
00:14:38.37\00:14:42.61
But we're looking at
it honestly as we can
00:14:42.64\00:14:45.08
because it's based
on religious liberty.
00:14:45.11\00:14:46.51
Stay with us.
We'll be back shortly.
00:14:46.55\00:14:48.05
Okay.
00:14:48.08\00:14:49.42