It’s November 22, so you know what anniversary will be dominating the news today. Inevitably, a portion of the coverage will shift to the persistent belief among some that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone.

Earlier this week in the Jolt, I posed the question: Are conspiracy theories beginning to occupy the space that religious belief used to hold in Americans’ lives?

The week before Thanksgiving is an opportunity for those with soapboxes, large and small, to drag those old, dusty conspiracy theories out of that chest in the attic one more time: Will Saletan, writing in Slate, notes that a lot of polling blurs the line between those who believe in conspiracy theories and those who say they think some element of the truth has been hidden from the public:

In 1963, shortly after JFK’s death, the National Opinion Research Center asked Americans what they had felt or suspected on hearing the news. Fewer than 30 percent said they felt strongly that a communist, segregationist, or other extremist had killed the president. But 62 percent said they thought other people had helped the shooter. Last year, in a UVA/Hart Research survey, 75 percent of the public affirmed that “there are still too many questions surrounding Kennedy’s assassination to say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted by himself.” That’s not exactly a conspiracy theory. It’s a refusal to close the case. A similar pattern shows up in reactions to the 1993 siege at Waco, Texas. In April 1995, a CNN/Time survey asked, “Do you think government agents deliberately set the fire in which the Branch Davidians died, or do you think this was an accident?” Sixty-six percent said it was an accident. Only 14 percent said it was deliberate. But three months later, when the same pollsters asked whether “federal law enforcement officials are covering up anything about the role of government officials at Waco,” a plurality — 49 to 39 percent — said yes. The July 1995 survey also asked about the suicide of Vince Foster, a former aide to Bill Clinton who was thought to have known secrets about the president. Only 20 percent of respondents said Foster had been murdered. But 45 percent said the government was “covering up” something about his death. Again, these vague suspicions that something is being hidden — we can’t say what — sound more like doubt than belief.

There’s an element of show-off hipster-ism in the pose of the conspiracy theorist or the outspoken skeptic; the tone is always, “Oh, you believe the official story? I guess you’re not as discerning or knowledgeable as me. I hope you’re happy with your naïve little sheeple illusions.”

The actions of most conspiracy theorists suggest that they themselves don’t really believe what they say. It was a point made about 9/11 Truthers — if you really genuinely believed that a shadowy cabal within the federal government had plotted to kill thousands of Americans and then covered it up, you would not be writing about it on the Internet and making YouTube videos. You would be going to the hinterlands, forming a militia, and preparing to overthrow the government and retake the country from the irredeemably evil and ruthless people running this place. Because a cabal ruthless enough to kill thousands is sure as heck willing to whack you in order to preserve the cover-up.

Is the number or percentage of Americans who believe in conspiracy theories growing? PPP did an intriguing poll on this in April: 51 percent of voters say a larger conspiracy was at work in the JFK assassination; 21 percent of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and the U.S. government covered it up; 20 percent of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism; 15 percent of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV-broadcast signals; 15 percent of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money; 14 percent of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack-cocaine epidemic in America’s inner cities in the 1980’s; 11 percent of voters believe the U.S. government allowed 9/11 to happen; 6 percent of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive; and 4 percent of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power.

(Of course, it’s well-known and documented that PPP is secretly controlled by the lizard people.)

For many generations of Americans, organized religion was the previous primary source of reassurance, guidance, instruction and wisdom — a set of beliefs and philosophies to turn to through life’s difficulties. As we become a less religious nation, perhaps some among us are turning to conspiracy theories as a coping mechanism.

At one time or another, all of us are left to grapple with theodicy, coming to terms with why bad things happen to good people. Sometimes we see it on a small, personal scale. Almost everyone has experienced some tragedy, some loss, some disappointment, perhaps some part of life turning out much different, and worse, than we expect. Perhaps it’s a reflection of “special little snowflake” taking root in our culture, ascribed to Generation Y, but it is by no means limited to people of that age. Some of us spent our teen and college years preparing for a bright future of limitless possibility, and then life doesn’t quite live up those glowing expectations.

And sometimes we see this on the grandest scale. We live in a world where random events — hurricanes, tsunamis — can kill many with little warning, and the actions of an individual like Lee Harvey Oswald or a small group like the 19 9/11 hijackers can commit crimes that shock and horrify millions of people.

Cursing fate, luck, or God seems insufficient. Much more reassuring to think someone out there did this to us, to put a face on our misfortune, to feel that if we could somehow pull back the curtain, and expose the evildoers who caused our troubles, that somehow that pain and trouble will be undone and we will be made whole again.