The problem lies in the fact that hollywood could have done it (although again people there lies the biggest problem....tooo many people involved). However why lie about it and spend tons of money on it when eventually they will get to the moon no matter what, with technology advancing and everything, and of course the race to the moon with the russians. It makes no sense.

I think the problem with this conspiracy is in the intellect of its creators. I remember seeing a program that billed itself as a documentary that was examining evidence. The end viewpoint of the program was that the moon landings were hoaxes, and had all been faked. The amount of evidence presented and the way it was presented was extraordinarily brilliant. After watching it, I truly began to wonder, and did my own investigations. At which point the vast majority of presented evidence was thrown from my head. I never had every question answered, but more than enough of it was to dismiss the claims of a conspiracy in a similar light to claims of god, alien abductions, and santa claus. However, in my experience, not all or even many people are so self motivated to prove or disprove things, so they will believe or disbelieve according to their own acceptance of the material until real evidence in thrown in their face. That rarely happens.

Most people will stick with their beliefs even in the face of evidence. Sad, but true: ideology beats logic. Even amongst us "rationals."

I both love and hate the sorts of shows you just described. I love 'em because they expose the absurdities some folks hold dear; and I hate 'em because it gives those same folks validation.

In the case of the moon-landing-hoax crowd, there's one simple question: What's the purpose of faking the moon landing? I've heard it's because it was too complex to actually get to the moon. Hogswallop, I say. Where's the evidence for that?

The group I like even more are the ones who say there were aliens flitting about just outside the camera view. Like the aliens were doing the little "V" with their fingers behind the astronauts' heads while taking pictures. That there are glass structures on the moon, built by aliens. To me, that's even cooler than the moon-landing-hoax folks.

That's the $10 billion/month question, Matt.

I think it's a cultivated psychosis. Seriously. I believe our nation is innundated with misinformation at every turn, from the Bush administration pushing through bogus "evidence" in a drive to war, to the oil companies pushing misinformation about global warming, on down to the Discovery Institute intentionally lieing in an effort to destroy science (because it's the fault of science that our culture has become materialistic, and turned away from Jesus, praise His name).

That's what I think. I think we're trained from an early age to be confused about things, to pick sides and form battle-lines. We see it all the time: vi vs. Emacs, everybody else vs Christians, all other people who call themselves "Christians" vs. those that really are Christian, Democrats vs. Republicans, Coke vs. Pepsi.... and so on. How many XBox 360 vs. PS3 arguments have there been? And why do people get so het up about it?

I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think it's just certain groups with power working hard to maintain their power, and are willing to say anything to that end.

It's the poor idiots in the middle who are inundated with contradictory information that are stuck trying to figure out what to believe. No wonder so many people turn to God; at least that's a simple belief. Irrational, sure, but simple. 

I'd be more interested to find out what percentage believes as Palin does that we are in the end-times, and God's Holy War is emminent.

Was it Buzz Aldren that punched that one moon landing conspiracy nut in the nose? I saw footage of that and laughed. If that was Buzz, my hat goes off to you sir or to whichever astronaut it was.

Text editors for programming. It was a geek joke.

Americans are good at denying things: global warming, moon landings, the Holocaust, evolution... the list goes on. The only thing those folks don't deny is the existence of God.

Funny, that. Things with real evidence: deny. Things with no evidence whatsover: don't deny.

I think that's the problem with the moon landing and global warming. There's too much evidence.

YES!! Thanks Matt. I like how Buzz wasted no time giving him the knuckle sandwich.

This one I believe was from 2006 - and the Hoax stories have been more prominent in the last few years. Again, look at how many believe in other ridiculous things mentioned - and the 9/11 conspiracy nuts. I see on other websites how people talk - not anywhere close to as rational as people on this site (and I include the vast majority of theists who last any ammount of time here) tend to be. From what I can tell MOST people in the US have at least somewhat of a belief in psychics and ghosts - and fewer than half believe evolution true (regardless of the fact they know next to nothing about it) , the number who think global warming is anything other than a fact and man made -  not to mention the overwhelming majority that believe in God. I often feel that most people here are so stupid they may as well be unconscious.

They deny Pearl Harbor ever happened?????? Or do you mean the ones who say it was left to happen?

The best and most logical motive I've ever heard of was that it was the only way to beat the Russians there.

I too seek clarification. I've never heard of a Pearl Harbour denial. Impressive. It only takes 50 years for someone to turn reality into fiction now. Progress...I suppose....

Of course! NASA's mission is not to explore the universe, but is a complex conspiracy invented by evil scientists to lure people away from Jesus. 

Curious... that was one of my favorite assigned readings in high school.  I found that I identified with Willie more than was comfortable for me.  Maybe I should re-read it now that I'm older and substantially more jaded.  Then, I'll re-read 1984 and try to drink enough gin to induce a coma.

(No, I'm not feeling depressed or suicidal.  The above is context related humor of the darkest variety.  I'm in quite a pleasant mood, actually.)

And this all goes back to a total lack of critical thinking in the school curriculum.  Any school curriculum.  Hell, I didn't get a lot of it in college through two degrees.  I had to learn most of it myself.

As JillSwift very eloquently pointed out, credulity is much easier when we've been taught that facts are things to be memorized and repeated, rather than sought out and discovered.

Wow... I like that.  I think I've got myself a new sig.

Sorry, I'm not always the fastest to respond...

They deny it happened the way the 'official' story reports it. Saying that it couldn't have been torpedoes that sank the Arizona or something like that, etc. I'll have to go look again to mine out some other gems, as I kind of just started hearing 'blah blah blah' after a few sentences and don't remember all of the details.

http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

What more proof do you need? Seriously.

*face-palm*

You seem to be spectacularly good at getting things completely backwards.

ok, this is only half on-topic, but i have to ask:

does anyone else remember a short film that aired on saturday night live about 8 years ago which shows neil armstrong as an old man (i think it was the actual neil armstrong) and lets you hear what he's thinking as he goes about the course of a normal day?  and all he's thinking constantly is stuff like, "i did it.  i went to the freakin' moon."  at the end of the film, he's making love to his wife and screams, "ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND!" and she pushes him off and says something like, "get over it, neil," and he says, "no way."  then he goes outside, looks up at the moon, and says, "you sweet bitch, you ruined me."

does anybody else remember this???  i've never seen it since and i can never find it on youtube or anything.  i'm beginning to think i dreamed it.

This is rather a good point. Show me the evidence. However, it is not good enough. The hoax crowd thinks that they have already shown the evidence and any attempt to debunk the so-called evidence is proof that one is part of the conspiracy. Tin foil hat proof but never the less, it is seen as proof. Um, I was 5 years old at the time of Apollo 11, so how am I part of the conspiracy?

In any case, the hoax crowd has to do more that just show a fancy fake documentary to establish that what they are saying has any shred of truth to it. They need to say exactly why we did not go to the moon and when did we stop trying.

Having read up extensively on the matter, here is a sketch of the events that led to the effort:

1957: The Soviets launched Sputnik 1. Much anguish was felt in the Eisenhower White House.

Shortly thereafter, a series of meetings were held to discuss what America was going to do in response. Again, much anguish was the result as no matter what, we would be playing a game of catch-up to the Soviet Union and if/when we did surpass them, it would be a nice feather in our cap but it would not be a major achievement on the world stage.

In fact, we actually were not that far behind the Soviet Union and we did start doing real work in space in as little as four months later. However, there was still the element of catching up to deal with. By 1961, Vostok 1 took the first man once around the world, another first for the Soviets. Much anguish was felt in the Kennedy White House and a series of meetings were called to see what we were going to do.

Here is where the real history of the moon program begins.

Kennedy wanted a real and major accomplishment for America that the Soviets could not beat and he used his incredible force of will to insist that his advisors give him one. At this point, it would do well to remember that we are still playing catch-up and that it looks like we will for a very long time.

Enter Werner Von Braun.

Basically, Von Braun made a powerful case to President Kennedy that no matter what, the US would be playing catch-up even given an effort on a massive scale. If memory serves, Von Braun used the building of the Panama Canal as the standard for what had to be done. In any case, the next targets that were of interest to the rocketry community were technical milestones that, while important in themselves, would not be likely to serve as the major score that Kennedy wanted (even if we were the first to each of them).

At this point, President Kennedy asked Werner Von Braun what he could give him. To which came the reply that if he was given the ability to do the many smaller things, it would be possible to extend the reach of the USA incrementally to the point where it would be simple enough to make each next step in it's turn and before the decade was out, we could go to the moon.

This in turn led to the 1962 speech at Rice University where President Kennedy basically announced that we were going to the moon.

I would hope that the hoax advocates do not dispute this much, as the Rice University speech unquestionably happened.

Following this, the early space race consisted of (at least on the part of the USA) a series on incremental steps, each one doing just a bit more than what came before.

First we send an astronaut straight up and down.

Then we send an astronaut around around the world (first once then several times).

Then we do some space walks.

Then we do orbital rendezvous and docking.

Then we do higher orbits.

Then we do (unmanned) lunar orbits.

And so on, each mission being one more step on the path that eventually takes us to the moon.

I will say this again to the Hoax advocates:

Show me exactly where in this series of steps we decided to stop trying and exactly why. If you do not have that, you have nothing.

Nah, Rev.  Paul and the writers of the Gospels did more for the fiction of Jesus Christ than I ever could. To call Jesus a reality, you need that nasty, annoying stuff called evidence.

Got any yet?

The moon landing was fake.  IT was all done by me in my basement.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...... 

FDR's administration was, according to most intelligence sources, relayed the warning from Australian intelligence of a Japanese strike force that appeared to be headed in Pearl's direction.

Now, I used to be of the opinion that this strongly implied that FDR simply let the attack occur in order to garner the support he needed to fund an intervention in the European theatre (Roosevelt was rather eager to do something about the deteriorating situation overseas, for obvious and hardly malicious reasons - but the American public at the time was not supportive of joining what sounded like a very violent and dangerous situation (because, well, it was) ). However, one must admit that there are many possibilities, and that this scenario is only one. It could be that the intelligence was lost; it could be that it was intercepted by Japanese counter-intelligence; it could be that the defense department did not think the intelligence was credible; etc.

The Arizona wasn't torpedoed, so anyone who claims that 'torpedoes couldn't have sunk her' (they're correct; Arizona was a Pennsylvania-class battleship, arguably the most rugged and durable class of battleship ever conceived, designed to be bracketed by a full salvo of torpedoes while screen flat tops and remain afloat) is making a straw man argument. Arizona was ripped in half when an exceptionally lucky bomb from a Kate strike hit her forward magazine, resulting in a catastrophic explosion:

(To get an appreciation for the scale, measure the explosion with your thumb and little finger, and then compare that to the entire aft section of the ship - and bear in mind that these vessels were some 185 metres in length!)