Know Your Enemy

Know Your Enemy is an audio book/video series by Mark Fairley that mixes Christian apologetics with conspiracy theories. The name, of course, should be a warning sign about the sorts of people who believe these books' contents.

The series attempts to use pseudohistory to shoehorn evolution and every religion into being a creation of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Expect a lot of quote-mines, straw men, and stuff made up.

Many apologetic websites support the series, as it gives them an excuse to deny all science that they think tries to disprove God (as if that's science's job and obsession), and believe every single religion other than Christianity was created by the Illuminati. How in-depth the series seems to go is actually pretty astounding.

Some even make you pay for it, which would be a waste of money, considering it allows them to make more bullshit.

Some episodes of this "documentary" don't even attempt to pull anything out of their ass. They just attempt bulverism (they created this/that to get away from the truth, etc.). For example, the Deist Episode just boils down to "Science realized that something can't come from nothing, so they created deism in order to explain the origin of the universe, and of course Freemasonsdidit, the conspiracy theorist's version of Goddidit."

Quote-mining
The series is extremely notorious for quote-mining, especially obscure freemasonry books, to try to fit anything Mark doesn't like into the Conspiracy.

Evolution is a masonic philosophy?
In his video about evolution, Mark quote-mines numerous times to try and fit Evolution into Freemasonry:

For example Wilmhurst's quote in his book The meaning of Masonry:

Quote-mine in bold

'''This—the evolution of man into superman—was always the purpose of the ancient Mysteries, and the real purpose of modern Masonry is, not the social and charitable purposes to which so much attention is paid, but the expediting of the spiritual evolution of those who aspire to perfect their own nature and transform it into a more god-like quality. And this is a definite science, a royal art, which it is possible for each of us to put into practice; whilst to join the Craft for any other purpose than to study and pursue this science is to misunderstand its meaning.'''Hence it is that no one should apply to enter Masonry unless from the deepest promptings of his own heart, as it hungers for light upon the problem of its own nature. We are all imperfect beings, conscious of something lacking to us that would make us what, in our best moments, we fain would be. What is that which is lacking to us? "What is that which is lost?" And the answer is "The genuine secrets of a Master Mason," the true knowledge of ourselves, the conscious realization of our divine potentialities.

The very essence of the Masonic doctrine is that all men in this world are in search of something in their own nature which they have lost, but that with proper instruction and by their own patience and industry they may hope to find. Its philosophy implies that this temporal world is the antipodes of another and more real world from which we originally came and to which we may accelerate our return by such a course of self-knowledge and self-discipline

as our teaching inculcates.

Of course if you read the entire book, he didn't mean the theory at all.

Another example:

The "height" of the Lodge ("even as high as the heavens") implies that the range of consciousness possible to us, when we have developed our potentialities to the full, is infinite. Man who has sprung from the earth and developed through the lower kingdoms of nature to his present rational state, has yet to complete his evolution by becoming a god-like being and unifying his consciousness with the Omniscient—to promote which is and always has been the sole aim and purpose of all Initiation.To scale this "height," to attain this expansion of consciousness, is achieved "by the use of a ladder of many rounds or staves, but of three principal ones, Faith, Hope and Charity," of which the greatest and most effectual is the last. That is to say, there are innumerable ways of developing one's consciousness to higher degrees, and in fact every common-place incident of daily experience may contribute to that end if it be rightly interpreted and its purpose in the general pattern of our life-scheme be discerned; yet even these should be subordinate to the three chief qualifications, namely, Faith in the possibility of attaining the end in view; Hope, or a persistent fervent desire for its fulfilment; and finally an unbounded Love which, seeking God in all men and all things, despite their outward appearances, and thinking no evil, gradually identifies the mind and nature of the aspirant with that ultimate Good upon which his thought, desire and gaze should be persistently directed.

Mark withheld the explanation of what Wilmhurst really meant from his quote.

He then goes on to claim that Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's Grandfather, started the Evolutionary Theory, and since he is a Freemason, that makes Evolution false.

He also claims that John Locke created evolution from the Hindu concept of Reincarnation (what?), but he withholds his source.

In the parts concerning the French Revolution and the American Revolution (parts 59 and 51 on the youtube listing), he tries to imply that the American Revolution was a "change of venue" of the French Revolution. Apparently illuminati freemasons were capable of time travel, as the American Revolution took place between 1765 to 1783, and the French Revolution between 1789 and 1799.

If you must
Don't buy it. Watch it here.

Pagan origins?
Another strawman he creates is that we "can't become better than perfect", and therefore evolution teaches we become better and better until be become Gods, implying we always become better when we evolve, when in reality, species can lose abilities too (ever hear of blind cave fish?). Species don't get "better" from evolving. Natural Selection just selects what is best for the habitat. If what is "better" like arms, or eyes, isn't fit for the habitat, then evolution will get rid of those traits.

Mark claims Natural selection has to be a God, because of Charles Darwin's quote:

He then goes on about about how Evolution starting life is like "The Occult concept of Golems", and how "the magic

Sequel
There is a sequel called "stay free" that does the opposite of Know Your Enemy: Instead of arguing why all other religions are wrong by saying Illuminati/Freemasons did it with bogus "evidence", Stay Free argues why Christianity is such a great religion.

You can watch it here.

Trilogy
And of course another sequel: The Restless Church. After ruling out all other religions, and arguing why Christianity is so great, they decided to rule out all the denominations by creating this series.

Watch it here.

Testimonies
To top it all up: testimonies. No ministry can be complete without anecdotal evidence.