Can You Change A Core Belief?
Left is history. Up is happy. Right is correct. Or is it?
How Hard Is It To Change A Core Belief?
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to realize a core belief you had all of your life is not true? Would you admit it?
Take a close look at the timeline below. Is anything confusing?
You probably think this timeline is backwards. Everyone knows a timeline always goes from left to the right to show the past progressing into the present or future … correct? But what if you had grown up learning to draw it the opposite way with the past on the right and the future on the left?
Critical thinking is an essential tool one can use to separate truth from one’s bias of truth. There are many examples of God encouraging us to think critically and not be deceived written in the Bible. Search and see for yourself.
Critical thinking is based upon at least three categories of assumptions.
Structure
Truth assumptionsCulture
Truth assumptions learned from othersExperience
Truth assumptions learned from personal observations
The Word of God is the foundational truth assumption for the Christian. It is the basis of a Christian worldview that influences and is influenced by culture and experience.
Structure
All truth passes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed.
Second it is violently opposed.
And third it is accepted as self-evident.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
Remember learning to walk? Probably not, but I bet you remember learning to ride a bicycle. You just hopped on and rode away, right? That is probably not how it happened. However you could practically ride it in your sleep now even if it has been a long time since you rode.
But what if the bike was built in a fundamentally different way? You would still have learned to ride it although it would take learning a different skillset. If I could give you a bike constructed in a fundamentally different way, could you ride it? If you did learn to ride it you, would this relearning affect your original bike riding ability?
Well, someone did just that and here is what he found out.
Smarter every day bicycle
Having knowledge is not the same as having understanding.
You can learn to walk, you can learn to run, you can learn to ride a bike (forward or backwards) , you can learn to drive a car or fly a plane. But if something fundamental in any of those things change you will have to accept the change and learn something that contradicts what you previously learned. The further outside of your comfort zone the change is, the more difficult it will be to change.
The same holds true in our beliefs and worldview. If something we always believed as truth is found to be incorrect or incomplete it is going to be hard to accept it, adopt it, understand it and live by it.
Predictive Index
God tells us to train up a child according to the way he is made and it will stick with him for life (my “live with your brain turned on” paraphrase of Psalm 22:6). God fashioned each of us to be individually unique with our own way we think, learn and function. This predisposes each one of us to be attracted to, enjoy and be good at certain things while there are other things we cannot do well or hate to do. Fortunately there is someone else uniquely suited for those tasks.
There have been several personality tests I have taken over the years and the one I think comes closest to revealing the way a person is wired to behave in a useful way is called the Predictive Index.
The Predictive Index concept was conceived in 1942 when a twenty-six-year-old U.S. Army Air Corps volunteer shipped off to England. He became a flight navigator on a bomber and his team soon logged more than 30 missions—all without a single combat casualty. When commanders noted the team’s record, they sent a psychologist in to work with them and study just what made their teamwork so successful. This became a process for recognizing how each individual is “wired” to respond to people and things working together to make an effective team.
The answers to a series of questions are used to plot an individual’s view of normal into a matrix to discover the strength of one’s preferences regarding things or people. The preferences are further analyzed to understand the strength of that each preference for new things compared to old familiar things. In the case of people whether they prefer meeting new people or hanging out with their buddies. The combination and strength of those preferences have profound implications in understanding the careers and positions within careers each person will thrive in.
Probabilities and standard deviations are used to discern how close a person’s job is to their natural comfort zone. A person who finds himself in a job far outside of their comfort zone, greater than a 2 sigma deviation, may be capable of doing that job for a short time until the emotional energy required to maintain that stretch will quickly over-stress his energy. This aligns with the wisdom of the Bible telling us a child raised in a way that matches their God-given design will thrive and find it very difficult to depart from it later.
My PI score identifies me as a “bridger.” Think of as being the switch hitter in the personality matrix. Someone who likes people but also likes things. Someone who likes spending time with old friends but also loves to meet new people. Someone who can spend hours with the latest gadgets and also likes that old familiar pair of slippers. Someone who can be an introvert but also enjoys a party.
A person with this norm can stretch towards any extreme from the center more easily than someone with a more extreme norm can. This person near the center can understand people at opposite extremes and “bridge” the gap between them. It is not that one personality is better or worse than another. We all have strengths to contribute and weaknesses to overcome. People at the extremes tend to be very good at what they do. It is all about how you use those strengths and weaknesses to the best advantage.
A “bridger” comes in handy when the extremely technical engineer and the big picture executive are in the same meeting, translating so each can understand the other. Yes, I can do that. My career as a Sales Engineer leveraged that ability. I enjoy helping one person understand another person. I can also attest that it takes a lot of emotional effort to bridge between far extremes because it is still a stretch from my comfort zone. I have no desire to remain very far from my God-given design for a longer time than I have to.
I can be the go-getter, cold call sales guy but not for an extended period of time. I prefer warm call sales. I can also be the guy working by himself deep in the details of a very complex problem but again only for a limited time. Then I need to take a break to get up and spend some time with people.
It is important to have a clear picture of who you are. As Popeye reminds us, “I Yam What I Yam and Dats What I Yam”.
It is good to know how different people you have relationships with are wired. It can be used to build effective teams and have more understanding to resolve conflicts. Large problems arise when people who know how this works desire to use it to control and manipulate individuals for a desired outcome. History is full of such people. I believe there are a large number of them alive and surrounding us today in greater numbers than we have seen before.
Culture
When you collect a group of people with a particular mix of common beliefs and a particular mix of personality types you get a culture.
If I asked most of you reading this to draw the timeline of events into the future like I have at the beginning of this post, you would draw it with the past on the left, the future on the right and the present somewhere between the two. This is the same timeline drawn the “right” way.
Now pretend you were taught from birth to draw it the opposite way. Is one way correct and the other way incorrect? No. Now you begin to see that the direction of past, present and future is not based on truth but on a cultural assumption of truth.
Each culture has different gestures and body language. If you have traveled outside of your culture you know many things you consider universally true are not viewed the same in some other cultures. The same gestures may mean something totally different or opposite your view.
For instance, Greeks nod their head for “no” and shake it for “yes.” The Greek hand sign to signal “yes” resembles our American “no” gesture. A Greek “yes” is tilting the head to either side making a sideways motion while slightly closing the eyes. It’s quite similar to the gesture Americans make when they are confused about something. Are you confused yet? If you are not from Greece try shaking your head and saying “yes” at the same time or nod while saying “no.”
If you are not confused yet, the word for “yes” in Greek is “naí,” (sounds like “neh”) which sounds like “no” or “nah” to someone who knows only English. The body language a Greek uses for “no” is rather like the American “yes.” Greek people raise their eyebrows and tilt their whole head upwards, while softly clicking with their tongue to signal “no.” It resembles a half-nod. It is like the backwards bicycle, confusion guaranteed.
Some cultures write their words down left to right, others right to left or even up and down. At one time the Greek language was written right to left but modern Greek is written left to right like English. There was even one time in history Greek was actually written left to right for one line, then right to left for line two, left to right for line three and so on, back and forth down the page. Does any written language still do that? Try it for yourself and see if you can write it or read it.
Obviously, an adult moving from Greece to another part of the world will find it very difficult to get used to the opposite gestures. Even when they do get used to them, it will always seem a little bit wrong because their entire life they grew up believing the original gestures they knew were the only true way to express those ideas.
The same thing happens with things taught in the home, in school and in university. Once we accept it as true, it will be very difficult to see it as false. The longer we hold a belief as true the more difficult it will be to change our mind.
Part of that is electrochemical. Memories are stored as hard-coded patterns in the brain. In order to accept something that goes against a previously stored pattern may require physical destruction of that pattern for the new one. Your brain does this constantly for transient memories like remembering the color of the third car you passed today driving to work. Unless something emotional happened to tell your brain that was important information to retain it actually destroyed that memory pattern to recycle the memory space for important memories. Since emotions are linked to our memory patterns and are integral in our recall it those long term memories become physically harder to change. Plus, we hate to be wrong. It is particularly difficult to admit to being wrong if our job depends on it.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
— Upton Sinclair
Then there is just one more minor thing. Sin entered the world.
Total depravity
The doctrine of total depravity asserts that people are, as a result of the fall, not inclined or even able to wholly love God with heart, mind, and strength, but rather are inclined by their nature to serve their own will and desires and reject God’s rule. Aka, we want to be our own god. Sound familiar? Truth be told, we really want to be able to tell everybody else what to do and have it benefit us or at least take what others have produced and make it our own. Again, sound familiar? If you doubt that then explain why we need security any time we are in a network involving people.
Before the fall, man was perfect. Adam and Eve had no bent towards evil. Yet, man yielded to the deception of satan, tempted by the lure to set himself up as a god and become his own authority who can declare what is good and what is evil. After that fateful decision man is born imperfect with the desire to be a god; to be elite. That is total depravity. It may not be present to the same degree in each of us, but it is ever present and we constantly struggle against it. We still understand deep down that there is an authority greater than ourselves leading us to set up idols that we claim give us the authority we demand. I believe the prevalent modern idols are man himself, artificial intelligence and information technology. The internet of things (IoT).
Man’s desire to be in charge and control can be good when it comes to machines. A machine is made with no volition of its own but for the purpose of the maker. This has given us many modern conveniences. Machines do what they are designed and told to do, at least when made well. But the desire to be in charge and control quickly turns to evil when it is applied to rule other people.
Those who want to be in charge, who see themselves as the elite, surround us. They are actively declaring their goals and actively usurping power over the whole world. Here are about six minutes of highlights of what many of them believe and are taking steps to accomplish.
Yuval Noah Harari | Klaus Schwab Lead Advisor "In the Future the Elite Doesn't Need You."
Experience
If you can question it, it’s science.
The recent podcast that prompted the writing of this post is an interview of some amazing doctors who were wise enough and courageous enough to call out false claims of high medical authorities. Claims masquerading as medicine, many of which they previously believed.
It is so difficult to accept that fundamental principles one was taught to believe are not true and even more difficult to stand against that formerly accepted belief. I am grateful to see that doctors, like Pierre Kory and Paul Marik in the linked video, have come to recognize and stand strong against “authoritarian medicine.” Medical practices that align with our body’s God-given ability to heal and remain healthy are not taught in modern medical school. What is taught is medicine based on agendas from profit seeking mega-companies that declare what medicine to use rather than on objective research.
It truly is incredible to think that this could be done on purpose with so many being involved and so few objecting. It has taken decades to get to this point (1971: THE YEAR THE WORLD GOT THE SHAFT) but here we are. How difficult it is to comprehend the depth of malice and deceit involved. Up until now this agenda was carefully woven deep into the fabric of medical and educational thinking to carefully avoid alarm bells. Now it is out in the open. The alarms are going off but ignored because of the long conditioning and because the high places of previously trusted leaders who we looked to as authorities have been captured. You are no longer allowed to go against or even question the declared authority. Laws are ignored because the authorities are above the law. Even science has become what the declared authority says it is, not what true observation reveals because you are too small minded to know what to do with it.
Obama's True Feelings!! "Ordinary Men & Women Are Too Small Minded To Govern Their Own Affairs"
Fear
You have to ask, why are the self-proclaimed authorities targeting a single disease? Why do they specifically require protocols proven not to work that actually cause harm by emergency use fiat? Why do they prohibit therapeutics proven to work over decades and continue to work now with near perfect results in actual practice?
Christianity does not oppose scientific discoveries but it does oppose scientism. Science is a method of inquiry, while scientism is philosophy. True science inquiry puts us in awe of the vast creativity and fathomless knowledge of God. Scientism seeks to replace both true science and the true God with counterfeits. Mandates, universal forced treatments with no exceptions, and government control of health are all ideas that do not belong in a Christian worldview. If you do not have sovereign control over choices regarding your own body then you are a slave. God reserves the right to declare absolute mandates only to Himself.
I learned that a lot of what I formerly accepted three years ago as science about health was not science and instead based on business and marketing. Learning what the true science was transformed my health. So, I have an idea how difficult it is for someone deeper into the health system than I was to accept that the mainstream allopathic medicine they practice is wrong if they have not experienced it. Doctors who practice allopathic medicine (“Rockefeller medicine”) are taught to view the practice of homeopathic, naturopathic and all the other -pathic approaches because of a lack of proper education and label them as quacks. This has been happening for a very long time.
How Rockefeller Took Control of the Medical School System (on Rumble)
I never thought I would see doctors from these various, often opposing, practices of medicine reaching out to support each other, seeking out each other’s viewpoints and even standing on a stage together in agreement and standing against what they were taught in school.
Who ever heard a “standard of care” doctor talking about the microbiome or gut health or nutritional supplements before now? Most doctors would tell you that is nonsense. They believe supplements and vitamins are a total waste of money and it does not matter whether you eat GMO food, processed food or conventionally raised food as long as you get enough calories and protein and limit fat because it is evil. If that is what you believe then congratulations, you are one of the leaders in the race to get the most chronic diseases. If you would like to stop going in that direction learn from my change in direction described in my post about Optimizing Health.
Many traditionally-trained western doctors are now understanding that life and health is a more complex, integrated and balanced system than the pharmaceutical mantra of a pill for an ill teaches. Symptom management is not the path to cure disease and maintain optimal health rather it is way to turn patients into repeat customers for life. If they want to achieve the goal of using medicine to help their fellow man they need to get out of the box they find themselves in.
I encourage you to take the time to watch this interview.
Amazing New Discoveries for Treating the Vaccine-Injured: Dr. Kory & Dr. Marik Break Down Their Findings
The discoveries discussed regarding the microbiome, nutritional support and supplementing vitamins and minerals no longer found in healthy concentrations in modern industrial food are not new but the modern western medical education system has scorned them. There is no recurring profit model in that agenda for those in control of medical education. I am talking about the drug companies. If you doubt they are in control tally up the number of drug commercials in one hour of TV and get back to me. You are being hypnotized.
I have had tremendous encouragement hearing doctors who only a short time ago would have scoffed and ridiculed the protocols they are now promoting — and at the risk of being censored by their own medical boards — that blend western medicine with healthy lifestyle, supplementation and correcting root causes of disease instead of just medicating symptoms.
The mainstream medical system has bought and paid for the “randomized control trials” that prop up protocols benefiting the medical establishment and drug companies instead of the health of the patient. They are designed to make sure you see what they want you to see. Because if you get well instead of loading up on symptom-managing drugs the revenue stream from you is lost. I am not anti-doctor as I previously wrote. But too many doctors have become victims of the system, not willing to do their own homework or kept so busy they don’t have time to do it.
I am grateful that Dr. Kory and Dr. Marik, along with many of their colleagues, have the desire, the integrity and the courage to go against the system as they recognized it was not only ineffective but actually causing injury. It was not easy and it was risky to their careers. Doctors not willing to stand for their patients and what they know is right are criminals.
So for one who knows the [o]right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.
James 4:17
You might think it harsh to blame those that will not take that risk or the time to discover and proclaim the truth but I will blame them because taking that risk is the right thing to do. Yes, they risk their career, reputation and livelihood but so did I. I would not ask anyone to take that risk unless I am willing to take the risk myself. In my case, my employer fired me for somehow being “a direct threat” because I would not bow down and risk my health and my life to an experiment even though I am clearly a healthy individual that worked remotely from home for 14 years. Dr. Kory and Dr. Marik and thousands of other doctors and millions of other people have made similar stands. If you were deceived, confused or unsure I don’t blame you. But once you wake up you have to stand up.
It is difficult for the doctors and nurses to wake up because they were trained by the captured medical schools. Who are the schools captured by? The drug companies. What if the illegal drug lords controlled what is taught in the medical schools? Are you sure they don’t? What is the real difference between illegal drugs and legal drugs? It is estimated that one dollar of every three dollars made by the “pharmafia” is paid out in fines, many fines are for criminal charges, but nobody goes to jail. Why can you legally be told by your doctor to take a dangerous drug but you cannot take the exact same drug if you got it from a source labelled as illegal? I will let you figure out the answer to that.
One of the silver linings of our health struggles the last few years is that there are a lot more doctors now who see the value in a more holistic, integrated approach to health and medicine. Doctors who would have never thought that fasting, microbiome health, exercise, vitamins and supplements have as much or more effect on the health of a patient than pharmaceuticals and now recommend such things. Allopathic, chiropractic, naturopathic and homeopathic doctors are sharing a stage and supporting each other’s arguments. They do not completely agree but they see the value in understanding a picture beyond their previous education. That did not happen before we came under the pressures we have endured since early 2020.
If they remain silent it will mean the death of real medicine. They have become warriors for the truth. I applaud them. To see one man’s journey read Robert Malone’s substack post about being vindicated.
I will highlight his key takeaway here so you don’t miss it. He does not mince words.
The biomedical world that I thought I was living in has been revealed to be a sham. The legitimacy of the industry and discipline that I have committed my entire professional life to is in shambles. I am now embarrassed to call myself a vaccines and biodefense expert, because the fundamental corruption inherent in those domains has been so clearly revealed. I cannot unsee what I have seen. I cannot recapture all of those years spent in a profoundly corrupt academic system, spent supporting a deeply compromised discipline which appears primarily driven by financial interests rather than by what I had naively believed was a commitment to saving lives. I chose to not pursue the careers of my father and father in law, which were spent building weapons of war. Only to find that I had inadvertently played a significant role in enabling one of the most tragic medical follies in the history of man.
...
I now have a very different worldview than I had two years ago. I have no regrets.
How do you change and how do you spread the change?
That is the 64 thousand dollar question, or the billion dollar question if you take inflation into account.
Some are waking up because in spite of doing everything they were told to do they are still having to take failed and recalled tests, wear a useless mask and take the same failed shots over and over while they continue to get sick. They begin to realize the only thing that makes sense is that some entity is making a lot of money forcing the use of things that do not work while that entity gains more control of what a person can and cannot do.
When does it become clear to someone that doing what you are told to do is not producing the results you were told it would? When does it become clear that constant testing of healthy people with a useless, failed and recalled test does nothing but make the test providers wealthy and promote fear and disease in the tested? When does it become clear that taking a shot said to protect from a disease is the cause of that disease? When does it become clear that emergency use products are ineffective and dangerous while tried and true medicines used for decades are still working great? When does it become clear that your grandmother knew more about health and healing than the current medical establishment?
When does it become clear that you have become so afraid of dying that you are afraid of living?
Will you be able to separate your culture — left is history, up is happy and right is correct — from truth?
