They do What?

Why do so many adults hang on to their childhood religious beliefs without ever reevaluating them as an adult? And, it doesn’t matter how crazy the beliefs are. For example, I was brought up as a Catholic and taught to believe in transubstantiation; a belief that every time a priest prays over the bread and wine during communion, they are literally transformed into the body and blood of Jesus.

Catholics are certainly not alone. Mormons and Muslims both teach that both Joseph Smith and Mohammad respectively taught that their “Bible” was given to them by Angels, believe in polygamy and once they die, they will be entering paradise to be greeted by beautiful women awaiting them to serve them sexually for all eternity.

Ancient Greeks, believed in gods such as Zeus, Poseidon, Neptune, etc, but none of them are believed in today. They are now understood as fictitious characters seen at the movie theatre as a form of entertainment only. As brilliant as the Greeks were, they too adopted faulty beliefs taught to them in their youth. If the Greeks were fooled, as smart as they were, how much more should we be on our guard from faulty beliefs.

Fill Er up?

As a six-year-old, I was educated at a Catholic school where Nuns filled up my brain with so many crazy ideas that found an empty and defenseless brain as their target.

As a gas pump is to a car, so were my teachers pumping faulty beliefs into my head. Being so young, I couldn’t even reach a pump.

Adding to the fact that my Nuns were determined to get my mind into conformance, they did so with intimidation.

Paralyzing Fear

As an adult, I found it difficult and frightening to revisit my childhood beliefs and challenge them. I was afraid to rethink and modify my beliefs even as a well-educated adult. To do so could land me in hell, which is one of the preached consequences for vacating my Catholic teachings.

Fear of hell is one thing, but there are other consequences for rethinking and reshaping beliefs. Being exiled by friends and family is a real and present consequence for abandoning what you once believed, which is often misinterpreted as an affront and betrayal to family, friends and God. It takes a lot of guts to challenge one’s childhood beliefs and many don’t want to take on the challenge.

The Apostle Paul most certainly fought such battles. The Jews were intent on jailing and even killing Paul for forsaking what he once believed. And, new Christians converts of his day too were trying to bring him back into bondage of old and outdated Jewish rituals such as requiring new believers to be circumcised.

I think at some point, he didn't give a damn what they thought and maybe he needed to get to that point to sever once and for all the bondage of religions of Jews and Christians.

In I Corinthians, he says to those to both Jews and Christians:

"But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord"

A rebel for God as opposed to being a Conformist to men. God, how I love this verse. It has gotten me through so much.

How Could Anyone Believe That

Imagine if someone comes to your door trying to convert you to a religion that believes in something that is just “nuts.” Assume this person is a Muslim proselytizing for Jihadist recruits. He tells you that if you volunteer as a suicide bomber resulting in killing infidels (anyone who doesn’t believe as he did), you will be rewarded. He is told that at the moment of his death, he will be immediately escorted to paradise and greeted by 70 beautiful virgins awaiting him.

Note: Many Islamic scholars contest this 70 virgin idea; they believe the correct interpretation is 70 raisins. Surprise!

So, do you invite the person into your house to learn more? Of course not because you are an adult who knows crazy when you see and hear it.

This example, as ridiculous as it is, is not ridiculous to many who still preach and teach suicide bombing to little kids as a way to get to heaven quickly. But, these little kids will someday grow up; some of who will act on these insane beliefs; those which he never challenged as an adult.

I challenged myself years ago to check out what I was taught as a kid to see if I had crazy beliefs influencing me. In review, I did not have crazy and deadly beliefs as Jihadist do, but I did have irrational beliefs and ideas that were impacting me mentally and emotionally.

After inventorying and modifying my beliefs, I am happy to report I am doing better especially when it comes to guilt and fear.

In addition, it turns out that I did not lose faith; instead I found it and now it makes sense.

If you are up to the challenge, sit down and write out what you were taught as a child and then asses their influence on you. If you are like me, your search will likely come up with a number of crazy ideas buried somewhere in your brain. They may have been well hidden, but their impact upon one’s emotional and wellbeing were quite visible.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Unlike years ago when you were a kid, you now have something very good and important. As an adult your brain is fully formed and capable of reason enabling you to immediately dismiss crazy beliefs offered to you now as an adult. However, those beliefs that entered your mind as a child are not as easily dismissed. As discussed above, fear is likely the #1 reason one hangs on to them.

But there’s more to it. I recently heard someone on TV explaining the difficult process of kicking out the old and bad beliefs for good ones. It made sense. Afterwards I began to process what he said and as a result I came up with the following translation.

When a child is young, there is no defense to protect him from consuming the craziest of ideas and beliefs when shoved into their tiny brains. In a sense, a child’s mental protective shield is down or non-existence and as a result he is vulnerable to incoming and unhealthy beliefs and thoughts. In time, when one reaches the age of reason, the shield goes up preventing any more damaging ideas to enter. However, the mental shield cuts both ways.

With one’s “force shield” up as an adult, it is difficult to get new and crazy ideas to penetrate one’s brain which is great. But, with the shield up, it also makes it difficult to get the old ones out as they too are being blocked by the raised shield. Old beliefs have proven to be stubborn. After being there so long, they think they own the place. Regardless of the fight, you must kick them out to save yourself.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

For the fearless who have seen enough of what faulty thinking delivers, they do their homework to check their beliefs out. Following this exercise, they then cautiously let down their mental shield ushering in the reasonable ideas in and escort the old ones out. It is something Jesus clearly did. As as an adult, He at some point said "enough is enough - this is not From God" and he let the

religious leaders of his time to know it, which eventually got him crucified.

Jesus gives us an example of how to seek and find truth as a replacement for lies. For Him, it meant challenging every Jewish belief and religious leader teaching and preaching in His day. His fight for the truth was a fight for man’s emotional and mental wellbeing and remains available to anyone who follows His teachings.

Are You for Sale?

Your mind is on the market place every day regardless if you are aware of it or not. Vendors of all sorts are fighting for your mind’s attention through continuous and non-stop marketing campaigns hoping to convince you to buy whatever they are selling. In essence, they see you for sale and are doing almost anything to purchase your brain so you will turn around and purchase their products.

Marketing is often invasive and subliminal designed to reach your decision making part of your brain incognito to get you to buy

whatever they are peddling.

More conventional marketing comes in the form of advertisements that are everywhere. They are displayed on TV, the internet, in magazines, on billboards and any in any media capable of influencing you to buy their product.

Does it work? Of course it does! Why else would corporations spend so much money to advertise their products on TV, on the Web, and in or on virtually every form of media known to man. Their method of influential marketing has proven to be successful time and time again and the profits made as a result far exceed their marketing expense.

Not long ago, I was at a shopping center and discovered my phone was sending me ads and sale notifications of stores right in front of me. I quickly realized that I was being followed by GPS tracking enabled by my smart phone nudging me into a store that had similar products that I had previously showed an interest of when searching the internet. From these searches and past purchases made on line, I had been profiled, targeted and coaxed to go into that store immediately in front of me to buy something similar to what I had previously purchased.

I am simply amazed how easy it is for technology to read my mind while simultaneously tracking where I go and when to push my buying buttons.

There is no escape from those who are intent to influence and attempt to manipulate you to their will. Your only defense is to be cognizant of the forces chasing you and to fight them by using reason and discipline. It’s a simple answer but extremely difficult to be successful at. You must be an independent thinker who knows and trusts himself more than others who relentlessly fight for your attention.

Is America For Sale?

What greatly troubles me is the means by which political operatives have influenced our elections and so easily through TV commercials, internet, flyers, etc. It is reported that during the Presidential campaign in 2016,

“Americans spent more than ever -- about $6.8 billion -- in that pursuit, including the nastiest presidential election in recent memory, between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. That’s more than what consumers spend on cereal ($6 billion), pet grooming ($5.4 billion) and legal marijuana ($5.4 billion). If you count the free media coverage, you can add another two billion dollars more.”

Some very powerful people are spending a lot of money in an attempt to influence and to get you to vote for them or their representatives into office for no other reason than power; power that is certainly not interested in you once you’ve pulled their lever.

They are voting on you to vote them into power. Said a different way, they are trying to buy you so they can buy and own America itself and it seems to be working.

Personally I am very offended that some think they can alter and manipulate me to vote for their candidate through campaign adds. Why do they think campaign commercials will influence my voting decision? The answer is that is that it works. I assume it works because many powerful people believe and are convinced of the following about many American voters. They believe:

1. That you are most susceptible to being persuaded and manipulated

2. That you are not smart enough to catch thought manipulators in the act

3. That foreign powers like Russia and other hostile nations towards the USA believe and have proven that many Americans are not very smart.

4. That they know how to manipulate and how to use Religion and Religious leaders to get their followers to march as good soldiers to the voting booth to vote as intended.

In short, Political forces know that paid advertisements work—they discovered many Americans can be bought quite easily and cheaply. They determined the average American is a sap and they laugh at our softness and lack of any conviction that matters.

Independence Day

Free yourself from manipulative thoughts imposing on you and be your own man. Think for yourself, research what you are told, and be strong and confident in yourself to be INDEPENDENT.

Don’t wait until July 4th, to celebrate your independence. Celebrate your mental and emotional Independence everyday—consider yourself emancipated from those who wish to enslave you into their way of thinking so as to manipulate and exploit you.

Un-pump yourselves from your childhood beliefs by forcing them to undergo the scrutiny of your God given gift of reason and free will. Those beliefs that don’t belong there, kick them out. Evaluate and invite only beliefs which are reasonable and beneficial to you and the world you live in. Be an example to those who need their independence.

Show Nations using mis-information that your convictions are firm and not susceptible to deceptive advertising. As Americans, imagine how strong we would be if we collectively embraced truth and sound beliefs that build up the world rather than destroy it. We can do this!

THE AMERICAN DREAM

WOULDN’T IT BE SOMETHING IF CAMPAIGN AD MONEY DIDN’T WORK ANY LONGER BECAUSE AMERICANS BECAME WISE, RESOLUTE AND UNSHAKABLE IN THEIR CONVICTIONS.

IMAGINE IF YOU VOTE BASED SOLELY UPON A CANDIDATE’S PLATFORM, THEIR PROVEN TRACK RECORD AND CHARACTER.

RUSSIA AND OTHER HOSTILE NATIONS TO AMERICA ARE AT WAR FOR YOUR BRAIN AND IT APPEARS THEY ARE WINNING. IT DOESN’T TAKE GUNS OR A NUCLEAR BOMB TO DESTROY AMERICA. IT APPEARS THAT IT ONLY TAKES A TV COMMERCIAL.

BE A WINNER AND CELEBRATE YOUR INDEPENDENCE