How difficult it is to challenge someone’s beliefs?

Believe me it is not an easy thing to do, much much better people than me have tried and failed miserably!

Why do you think this is so?

Well here is my idea’s on the subject, you might or might not agree.

Comfort Factor

Humans are basically hunters, but we have been the hunted as well, this has engendered some very basic responses in us. We are not comfortable when things change, as hunted the worse thing that can happen to you is that the environment you rely on suddenly changes fundamentally, this makes you vulnerable, so change is not good, or the first reaction to change is, what the Hell? No way am I having that, we just have to be dragged kicking and screaming

You don’t have to think

If we accept things as they are (or as they always have been ), then we do not have to think, we do not have to make decisions or take responsibility, so much easier don’t you think !!

Everyone says so

You believe what you are told by your parents, your teachers, what you read in the newspapers and what you watch on the television.

Surely the newspapers know better don’t they? The television people are professionals they know what they are talking about, and if they say so, who are you to argue with it?

My parents/friends parents did it this way

 

You remember your parents or your friends telling you that their parents did it this way, so it must be correct, mustn’t it?

 

I read it in a book

 

You read it in a book that was written by an expert on the subject!

 

 ·        Someone said it on television

 

Again a so-called expert told you on the television/newspaper/book, and who are you to challenge this expert!

 

 ·        Genetic Coding

 

Organisms learn by their mistakes and eventually this becomes recorded in the genes and gets passed on to your progeny. This is a survival trait and is present in almost all living beings (I am an expert and I say so, so you better believe it !!!)

 

Now let’s look at these factors.

 

The comfort factor

 

Not only it is easier to do things as they always have been done, you don’t have to think!
So we go with the crowd, what our peers do, our friends do, what we are taught at school and what we read in the media and are shown on television. The trouble is that we never question what we are being told, because that would make us stand out and visible!

The television tells us our sweat stinks, so we go out and buy de-odorants by the dozen, the newspapers says we need jeans by Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren to look good, because Cindy Crawford or Elle McPherson always wear those jeans, otherwise we are going to look fat and lumpy. We need to buy so and so brand of T-shirts, we need to eat so and so food, otherwise our health will suffer ruinous harm!

Do we stop and think, Hey this is to the benefit of the people whose products we buy? Like Hell we do!

I mean what a brilliant advertising idea, you buy a designer jeans or T shirt, they have their name plastered all over this pair of jeans or T shirt, you pay a fortune to buy this piece of clothing and then provide the company with free advertising!!! How gullible have we become! Go on look at the clothes you wear, the deodorant you use, the perfume/aftershave you are wearing, the food you are eating. Which one of these did you buy because it was good value for money? Or was actually good for you? Work it out! If you can afford it you will buy what the television or radio or the newspaper told you to buy. Do you do any kind of research about what the materials/ingredients are? Where was it made? What was involved in making it? Was there for example child labour involved in manufacturing the T-shirt you are going to buy? Like Hell we do!! We buy whatever the current buzz word is, only those of us who cannot afford it go to Wal-Mart and buy their brand, it is not out of choice and you know it. It is easier to trust the media than have to work to find out the details. Believe it or not this is exactly what the people who screw up your lives depend on.

 

My parents/teachers told me

 

What we learn from our parents firstly and what we learn from our teachers secondly are the two biggest factors that dictate our lives and shape them.

As parents we tell our children what is right and what is wrong, but is it really the truth?

I have the religion of my parents, because that is the way I was brought up, but is that necessarily the right religion? Is my view of God and the creation the right view? People from other religions will tell me that is not so and I have been misled! So who is right?

This person who might have studied the religions of the world for the last 50 years and has the scriptures coming out of his/her ears or my parents? The answer as all of us know is my parents!! Long live Pavlov! For those of who don’t know Pavlov was, he was a Russian scientist who did experiments on behavioural science mainly with dogs, he established that repetition would make a response reflex. This same fact is used by all of us in our common lives, sportsmen practise the same shot over and over until it becomes ingrained in the brain and can be played without thinking, we read our course books over and over and memorize the text for the examinations. Thus have we been conditioned by our parents and our teachers and it is extremely difficult to forget these responses. You have to unlearn and then relearn completely new responses and who has the time for that? Right? Right! So we carry our burdens with us and then pass it on to our children.

Teachers shape our lives, a lot of what we believe after what our parents tell us comes from what our teachers tell us, but as adults what we forget is, that these teachers are as humans as we are, they have the same weaknesses, they have the same flaws of character that we do, and they have the same conditioning as we have from our parents and teachers! So what makes their view the correct one? Nothing!

What do I need to become a teacher? Attend a course receive a piece of paper that says I qualified and I am a teacher! Believe me I am not belittling teachers in any way or form, I have great respect for teachers, but what I am trying to convey to you is that they are not necessarily right.

But that is the way we are brought up and that is what we are conditioned to believe.

 

I read it in a book!

 

I read it in a book so it must be correct mustn’t it? No is the emphatic answer!

We are brought up to believe that whatever is the written word is correct, that is what we are taught in schools, the teacher opens up a book reads it to you and then gets you to memorize it, and that is what the truth is, who ascertained the truth? Humans like you and me, who wrote the book, humans like you and me, they might have done more research than you, but don’t forget they also had the opportunity to colour it with their prejudices and views as well.

 

I saw it on television

 

Over the last 20 or so years television has become the media of choice, I can bet that most of our children watch more television than they read books or newspapers! At least the majority of ours, I know someone will stand up and say well my children don’t, I believe it, I am talking about the majority.

Remember what I said earlier about Pavlov and his dogs? Well if you sit a kid in front of the telly and let them watch the same message over and over, what do you think is likely to happen? Does the penny drop? Yes they are going to start believing that what they are being told is the truth, in most cases, a young mind does not differentiate between truth and lies, good and evil, after all these are man made concepts and a child has not learnt them yet, so it is accepted without being examined and evaluated.

 

Genetic Coding

 

When an organism is faced with survival, it will learn or it will perish. Major reflexes are ingrained in us, like who teaches a newborn baby how to suckle on its mother’s breast? How can a new-born baby swim? These things are survival traits and have been learned and deemed crucial to survival so haves become a part of our genetic coding.

And now what is all this leading to….?

I want you to examine your surroundings, your life your interactions with other people and see how much of it is learned reflex and how much of it you actually think about, using your thinking mind, not the learned reflexes of Pavlov’s dogs.

I truly believe we are slowly stagnating, not because we want to, but because we are being forced to, there may be a conspiracy theory I don’t know so I will refrain from doing so, but I truly believe that we are being turned into a society of unthinking uncaring automatons, we are being slowly conditioned to stop thinking for ourselves and let someone else do the thinking for us. If you do not believe me look at the world around you, look at the houses we are living in, look at the cars we drive, look at foods we eat the programs we watch on television, the books we read. Do you see a similarity? Look closer does something scream out to you that things are not heading the way they should?

Why do we need lights or doors that will work by voice commands? Why do we need cars that will decide our route and our speed for us? The message here is that we are totally incapable of making such decisions. Why do we need so much automation in our houses, in our lives? Why do we need machines to do our work for us? The message again is that we are totally incapable of making a rational decision, the machines we have made can make these decisions better for us, so why don’t we shut up and let our betters decide for us! If you watch television, or read magazines, or read the papers the message is the same, our decision making capability is suspect or worse totally non-existent, so we should let others make the decisions for us. You draw your own conclusions!

 

Are we becoming lazier than our ancestors? The answer is maybe we are! Or at least led to believe that we are. Why do we keep on being told that automating this or that will be good for us? Why are we being told that we need to genetically modify food so that more can be grown per acre? What has happened to the acreage of the world? Has it suddenly reduced, I know that the population of the world has gone up and much more resources are needed, very true, but what about all the food that we waste? How about the millions of tons of grain, of produce that is destroyed, to keep artificial prices in the market place? Won’t that have balanced out what we are trying to do by artificial means?

Why are we being told to inject all kinds of poison into our bodies on the pretext of being good for our health? If I told you to break your thermometer take the mercury out and inject it into your veins on the pretext that will be good for your health will you do it? No but if your doctor gives you the same thing packaged in a bright shiny packet and tells you to do it, you will happily oblige! Why? Is it because the doctor told you so? Or the package makes it more authoritative? Or is it because some super model told you so on the television? Or some actor wearing a doctor’s white coat told you in an advertisement, which also showed happy laughing children playing in a playground? Go on admit it, it is one of those isn’t it? You never investigated what the doctor gave you in the shiny package, did you look at the list of ingredients? Did you even understand what they meant? Did you even know what the side effects would be? Did you know what that shiny package is going to do to your body? A big emphatic No is the answer!! I know people who will go berserk if I smoked a cigarette in their presence, because all the harmful effects of smoking but who then will go the next day to their doctor and get their kids vaccinated! God’s above you tell me the logic of this! People will tell you the evil of hunting and killing animals and then happily go fishing and use hooks to catch fish, oh we throw them right back! Yeah right! The fish don’t feel the pain of the hook! Yeah right! And how do we know this gem? Because some expert told us so! The same experts who told us, that our earth is the centre of the universe, the same experts who told us the world is square!!!

Let’s wake up and try to think again for ourselves, let us not forget that we reached this privileged position because our ancestors thought, if they had followed the same route as before them we would still be living in caves.

 

Make your decisions because of informed choice not because your doctor/clergy/teacher/friend told you so, take responsibility for your actions, you are the one who will suffer the consequences if your decision is wrong. Take an example if you vaccinate your kids and they get brain damage who suffers? You and your kid! Not the pharmaceutical company that made the drug! What are you going to do? Sue them? So what, they can afford to pay you some amount of money which is totally meaningless to them, because they have made billions upon billions and what is a few thousand paid out in recompense, in the meantime you are the one stuck with heartbreak and tears for the rest of your life. So don’t go on the assumption that you can make them pay, it will be a meaningless gesture, make the decision before you act, don’t follow blindly, don’t follow the hype, don’t follow the phony advertisements and statements made by so called experts, remember these people are getting paid to say whatever crap they are spouting, your welfare is the last thing on their or their benefactors minds.

 

The government will look after your interests! If you believe that you probably also believe that pigs fly! These are same governments which will build stealth bombers at 20 billion a throw but only spend 50 billion on the whole of the welfare budget for the country! Do you realize that if the U.S. government decided to make just 2 less stealth bombers they could double the budget for Health Care?  And you believe these people are going to take care of you?

I love the line from Men In Black where Tommy Lee Jones is telling Will Smith

 

A thousand years ago we knew the earth was the centre of the universe, 500 years ago we knew the earth was flat and 5 minutes ago you knew we are alone in the universe.

How very true! How many other truths like these we know ??

 

Try and read the following statements with a straight face and mark them as true or false as you believe them

 

·        Politicians are honest and they work untiringly to make our lives better

·        Pharmaceuticals companies make drugs because they have your good at heart and they have absolutely no interest in making billions.

·        We need genetically modified food because we do not have enough land left for farming

·        We need pesticides for our crops to protect them

·        Experts know what they are talking about and would never lie or admit they do not know enough openly and honestly

·        Most researchers do research because they want to make the world a better place

·        This research is funded by completely honest upstanding moral people who have the good of mankind at heart

·        You believe in statistics

·        Pigs fly

·        Vaccination is good for your kids

·        All the chemicals and additives in our food are necessary for our well being

·        Doctors always tell you the truth, they do not get any backhanders from the drug companies to promote certain drugs

·        Car Mechanics always tell you the truth when you take your car for service

·        Vaccinations have been the root cause why disease is being controlled today

·        Most of the modern diseases are not man made, or man caused

·        Atomic, Hydrogen and Neutron bombs were made for the welfare of mankind

·        Genetically manufactured food is good for you

·        Pumping mercury, formaldehyde, aborted fetus cells, and virus leaden animal cells into your body is going to make you healthy

 

I will continue this in part 2 of this article, in the meantime let me have your thoughts, I am not afraid if you laugh behind my back or brand me a lunatic! But then again maybe you shouldn’t be either for the sake of this earth and the future of our children.

© S Ayaz