I’ve sometimes wondered what it might be like to travel back in time with our current understanding of the physical world to a time when people thought witches cast spells, that comets were harbingers of the future, that thunder and lightning were from the gods. What kind of frustrating hell would that be to experience others making decisions — occasionally life and death decisions — based solely on uneducated superstition? We would watch in horror as pseudo-physicians drilled holes in epileptics’ heads to allow the evil spirits to escape. We would watch aghast as women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake, crushed, drowned, and killed in ineffably evil ways. We would witness the spread of the Black Death through Europe and the accompanying brutal attacks against the Jews, whom the non-Jews viewed as responsible for the plague through supernatural means.

With all this swirling around us, we would, I think, find it difficult to keep quiet. As we would attempt to explain to these scientific illiterates the reality of germs, epilepsy, and the complete lack of evidence for the efficacy of witchcraft, we would likely find ourselves labeled as perpetrators of similar acts. Our defense would get us labeled as being “in league with the devil” and likely result in our own persecution or death. If we kept quiet, the frustration of watching people killed, maimed, and tortured in the name of superstition and illogic would take quite a toll on our mental health.

Yet we don’t have to imagine what it would be like to live among the scientifically illiterate who have only the most tenuous grasp on logic because we already do. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching Qanon proponents try to explain that there is a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who harvest adrenochrome from kidnapped babies who are then raped and devoured. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching people make unsubstantiated claims about stolen elections even when adequate evidence to the contrary exists. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching people fall in line behind the far-right position that Russia is the good guy in its war with Ukraine, which has in fact been in various nefarious conspiracies with this or that group bent on world domination. People are swallowing whole lies that are so obviously and ridiculously false that it strains one’s imagination that anyone could respond to such suppositions with anything other than incredulous laughter.

Why would people believe this?

It’s simple: they’re primed to believe things like this. Most of those who hold these various conspiracy theories are on the far-right of the political spectrum, and that usually aligns with the fundamentalist wing of Christianity. These individuals are disproportionally evangelical Christians, and this means they take the Bible literally. There really was a talking snake in the Garden of Eden (indeed, there really was a Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve). Balaam’s donkey really did rebuke Balaam for beating him. Jonah really did survive in a fish for three days. People really do suffer demon possession that results in behavior suspiciously similar to epilepsy. And behind this all lurks an evil spirit secretly pulling the strings of all left-leaning individuals, institutions, and ideologies in an effort to ensnare souls and drag them down to hell with him.

Evangelicals are not the only ones holding these conspiracy theories; Catholics increasingly are falling for them as well. Their view of the source of evil in the world so much the less nuanced that they have a prayer about it:

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Yet no matter whether Evangelical or Catholic, these fundamentalists have one thing in common: their religion itself is a conspiracy theory.