Talk:258: Conspiracy Theories

I have an alternate interpretation of the last panel: instead of Randall using the concept of religion as a conspiracy theory, Cueball clearly believes in a god that exists and this god answers when directly addressed. The existing paragraph's explanation seems to bypass most of the humor in favor of the irony in the religion-conspiracy link. Each time I see this comic, I view the last panel as Cueball (who I would expect to participate in user-driven software quality assurance) legitimately contacting the author/creator (of the universe/Earth/Humanity) to submit a bug report in the same way he would contact the Firefox developers about a bug in their browser. However, it does stand to reason that Randall could have intended both the in-place joke and the external irony.Tryc (talk) 14:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there is nothing in the comic to suggest a 'religion' or 'atheist' conspiracy theory. I personally would just trash it, but people are sensitive to religious crap, I find. I also have a personal belief that the majority of the 95% (or whatever the true figure is) of Americans who believe in God do so only to the extent that they will answer 'Yes' to a survey question asking if they believe in God. Such a belief does not otherwise inform or alter their lives in any perceptible way. 108.162.219.223 19:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Religion is not a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists have proof. 199.27.128.63 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

For me, the most interesting tension comes from ("self-reflective") bug report which doesn't (only) refer to conspiracy theorists but, maybe even more, to Cueball himself who beleives in God but still thinks that his own belief in God is a bug to be reported. Reporting could be seen as reporting to God in which he beleives. And that's the simple one. But also reporting that bug could be a report to the consciousness existing beyond the constraints of very comic Cueball is part of. That consciousness is then xkcd audience. Existence of such a consciousness beyond comic's universe would be the equivalent of God in some other universe. Self-reflective awareness of that "alien" existence, and not having a proof for its own comic universe, would make Cueball a religious guy. Randall Munroe decides about the proving possibilities in this particular case. Marcell (talk) 00:39, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

There's a bug in paragraph three... As of the time of this comment, the second sentence reads "The people are more involved in this questioned issues are just getting frustrated about this human behavior." As written, this is nonsense, and clearly exhibits several grammar errors. Unfortunately the explanation lacks clear clues as to what this sentence is intended to convey, so I have no point of reference from which to fix it without occluding the intended meaning. Help, please. 108.162.216.88 02:18, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I've done my best to fix it to what I think was the intended meaning, and to make it flow with the surrounding explain.162.158.92.6 02:34, 26 July 2015 (UTC)