Why Dr M cannot be trusted: Doomsday & common sense

Last year, two English writers penned a novel Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler.

The content is outrageous. The book says Hitler did not kill himself after Nazi Germany lost the war. Instead, he left for Argentina with his mistress Eva Braun under the auspices of the US intelligence agency until he passed away in 1962.

The authors Gerrard Williams and Simon Dunstan claim they've found evidences of Hitler's escape from classified files, and that the dictator was spotted by eye witnesses in Argentina.

The book fails to cause a stir in the market, as someone has earlier published a book claiming that Hitler fled to Bandung, Indonesia, after the war, married an Indonesian woman and lived until 1970.

Besides Hitler, some Americans believe Elvis Presley has not died, and still lives today in seclusion.

Such "discoveries" would pop up every now and then and are no longer novel. They somehow manage to capture a sizeable market as there are plenty who would buy their claims.

However, none of these findings and discoveries have altered to way most people see things. From what most people have come to know, Hitler and his mistress took their lives after Germany was defeated in the second world war. He even ordered to have their bodies burned.

Common sense also tells us that Osama bin Laden masterminded the September 11 attacks, which were carried out by his al-Qaeda terror outfit.

Weirdly, Mahathir has his own interpretation. In the "International Conference On 9/11 Revisited: Seeking the Truth" organised by his Perdana Global Peace Foundation, Mahathir said neither al-Qaeda nor the entire Arab world had the capacity to bring down the World Trade Centre. It had to be a plot designed by Washington itself to justify an offensive against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Among the so many beliefs cherished by Dr M, this could have been one of the most formidable, for he still hosted an international forum to promote his idea even after Osama bin Laden was killed.

This conspiracy theory of his is oceans away from what most people have come to believe.

While such outlandish conspiracy theories might make a fun read and spice up a conversation, stubborn addiction to them would only smother our common sense and irrationalise our behaviours.

I guess that's how delusionary fantasies come about.

The doomsday theory started to resurface in recent months, claiming that the Earth and all of its inhabitants will perish when the Earth, Sun and the Galaxy are on a straight line on December 23, blacking out the Sun and turning the Earth into a pitch dark planet with annihilative storms for three consecutive days.

The day happens to be the end of an Era in the Mayan calendar.

Scientists have refuted the talk that our planet will be plunged into total darkness next month, while Mayan scholars expound that December 23 indeed marks the final day of the current Era but not the end of the universe, as a new Era will dawn the following morning.

I believe I will still see the sunlight when I wake up on the morning of Christmas Eve, as I choose to trust the common sense.

-Sin Chew Daily