Rene-NASA-Mooned-America

Historically, our western beliefs are to some degree cyclical and oscillate to and fro: sex
is bad, sex is great; war is bad, war is good; God is cruel and vindictive, God is just and
merciful; children need discipline, discipline is traumatic to kids; the poor are depraved, the
poor are deprived; the universe is "natural" or uniformitarian, it is "supernatural" or cataclysmic;
etc. In most cases our imprinting controls the operation of our minds for the rest of
our lives. It's as if our EBS is to our minds as the operating system is to a computer.
As adults, when our EBS is threatened by contrary facts or logic, we either bias our
perception of the facts, ignore them completely, or become filled with irrational rage.
Whether longshoreman or philosopher, anything that threatens our rice bowl, pride, prestige,
or EBS, will be met with one of the above responses. This is an intensely human reaction.
Our EBS is capable of modification only to a small degree. Change mainly depends on
the subject matter and the logic of the person involved. The old saying, "You can't teach an
old dog new tricks" derives from this observation, because changes are usually slow and
very limited. Neither brain nor computer can function outside the limits imposed, whether
it's the EBS in man or the operating system in a computer. EBS governs what we are allowed
to think about, what logic we may use for decision making, and what facts we may consider.
Hypnosis is an excellent demonstration of the usually temporary distortion of a person's
EBS. The hypnotist, by modification of the subject's sensory input, enables the subject to
believe he sees or hears only what the hypnotist commands. The hypnotic subject may also
be given input that is contrary to reality or logic, yet he will still accept that input.
Not even science escapes our EBS. If it did, then the Ptolemaic system of astronomy
could not have remained in vogue for well over 1,000 years. The philosophers of yesteryear
were as intelligent as modern ones. Yet, due to an implanted EBS, they consistently set
about proving that all celestial bodies were embedded in hollow crystalline spheres that
tinkled as they rotated, each one inside the other, encircling this flat world.
For over a thousand years the basis of the Christian religion was the Old Testament
wherein God was depicted as ... a cruel God, a vindictive God, a jealous God! For that same
period of time the philosophers believed that our Earth was sculpted by forces generated by
incredible volcanoes, humongus waves, and world shaking earthquakes. This was aptly
named "Catastrophism", and it was in harmony with the religious thought of that time.
When the New Testament unveiled a just and merciful God, catastrophism began to
fade, and newer philosophers, exemplified by Charles Darwin, came to believe that our
world was molded by slow and subtle processes. This philosophy, diametrically opposed to
the old, is called "Uniformitarianism" and it too is in harmony with the religious thought of
our time.
Experts of every denomination, whether religious or scientific, do not always espouse
the truth, even if they happen to know it. Harmony between philosophy and religion doesn't
necessarily give us the truth. As I said at the beginning, people have great difficulty reconciling
facts anomalous to their basic philosophy, or EBS.
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