SSN to 1,000 virgins

I had a productive day yesterday. Those are rare, and it made me feel good to be me yesterday.

I went to Chase Bank to correct my SSN mishap and the lady who had the clearance or the expertise to do so was not there. I could say what I think about the woman in Lancaster who used my SSN, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make an assertion like that. I'd like to think it was an honest mistake, that she typed one wrong number in, twice. I could just as easily think she did it to be a thieving scoundrel. I think this is a good time to talk about being a skeptic.

Skepticism is a good thing and in short supply in this society. Being a skeptic means holding ideas or beliefs that could change as information changes. Some people can't do that. They get a belief and hold onto it and fall victim to Confirmation Bias--that is preferring information that coincides with their beliefs or hypothesissisisisis. Another way or an easier way to say it is looking for evidence for your belief and ignoring counter evidence.

For example if you believe in the god of Abraham, and believe he intervenes in the everyday affairs of mortals, then when something good happens to you, you may think he is watching out for you, especially if it happens a few times.

A real world example: Loo's grandma once hurt her ankle so bad she cried and tried icing it, massaging it, wrapping it, elevating it, but nothing worked. As a last resort she prayed and prayed for God to take the pain away. Suddenly the pain stopped. She believes the creator of the universe healed her hurt ankle.

Here is another one. Have you ever wondered about why "La Virgin de Guadalupe" is so prevalent in Latin America? I'll tell you.

After the Spanish Catholics destroyed the indigenous cultures in Mexico, they set up a colony to send goods back to the queen. They had the surviving indigenous people make churches and started to convert them. One day (this is true, or as historically accurate as is possible to know) it rained all day and flooded the town/city where these destitute Mexican (Aztec) people lived and they were losing everything to the flood. So, being uneducated and subjugated they had nowhere to turn but the Spanish Cardinal in his church (palace/cathedral). They asked him how to make the rain stop. He told them that they had to open their hearts up to the lord and pray that He stop the rain. So they went back and did that, the whole town got together and prayed for God to stop the rain.

(side note: this is ironic because Yahweh was originally a storm deity of a diffuse desert pantheon. This also explains why he punishes man in the bible with things that rain down from the sky--frogs, fire, floods, etc)

They prayed and prayed but the rain kept falling, washing their food crop away and destroying their mud-brick houses. They returned to the Cardinal and told him it didn't work. The Cardinal said that it should have, and that someone in their number didn't have enough faith. He told them to go back and pray harder. So they did. They relayed what the cardinal had said and urged everyone to have a lot of faith and pray extra hard for God to stop the rain. And still it rained.

They returned to the cardinal. The cardinal was baffled and told them that someone among them still didn't totally believe and wasn't praying hard enough or long enough. So they went back and prayed even harder and longer than they had ever prayed before. And still it rained.

Desperate, they tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked. Finally they prayed to la Virgin de Guadalupe--aka Mother Mary, Mommy to Jesus--a marginalized mythic figure at the time.

(the Spanish Catholics refused to accept her as an important religious figure worthy of attention until they finally made her the patron saint of Mexico in 1996--about 500 years after this event).

After they prayed to la Virgin de Guadalupe the rain stopped.

The people rejoiced and believed in the power of La Virgin de Guadalupe over the power of God. It had such an effect that the Catholics were unable to squelch their belief. And that is why La Virgin de Guadalupe is so prevalent south of the USA, and, well, north of the USA as well.

Another side note: as indigenous cultures are conquered, subjugated and forcibly converted by the colonizers, they secretly--amongst themselves--disguise their beliefs into the religion forced on them. For the people that were once Aztec that meant transposing one of their important mother Goddesses onto la Virgin de Guadalupe. To an outsider, like a Spanish cardinal, they looked as though they were worshiping the mother of Jesus, which wasn't ideal but better than worshiping their heathen gods. But in actuality they were praying to this Aztec mother-goddess, like a Greek Hera, or a Viking Frigga, or a Japanese Izanami. The name of this Aztec goddess has been lost, but pictures of her still exist as archeologists uncover artifacts that the Spanish failed to locate and destroy.

Over time generations learned less and less about their mother culture and their mother goddess until eventually they forgot all about it. Now all that is left is an almost inexplicable adoration of la Virgin de Guadalupe.

Ok, back to the main point. With both these confirmation bias stories, both the pain in the ankle and the unending rain and subsequent flooding, something obvious is being overlooked. And that is that both a seemingly unending pain in the ankle and a seemingly unending rain storm will, eventually, inevitably, end. And whatever you were doing at the time will confirm your bias. In Grandma's case God healed her. In the other case La Virgin de Guadlupe stopped the rain and saved the town/city. The reality of the situation is that pain and rain both stop eventually, and would have ended on their own without any supernatural help. (sometimes pain doesn't stop, like for the terminally ill, but I think you get my point)

And that is through no fault of our own. We are pattern-seeking animals. If you can make a headache go away by drinking milk or eating something you will remember that the next time you get a headache. If you can get increased cellphone service by tilting your head a certain way you will probably do that. It is human to do that and often times throughout history pattern-seeking has been good for us. Like if you ate a plant that smelled good but gave you dysentery, you would learn not to eat that plant anymore. Or if you threw virgins into a volcano and the 1,000th virgin made it stop you would keep 1,000 virgins nearby and handy in case that volcano started acting up again.

Now we know this about ourselves, well, some of us do, and we can understand why we do things. That is the first step to correcting or changing ourselves and our behavior.

So skepticism is holding ideas in your head based on evidence and changing those ideas as evidence changes. This means you don't have, or rather shouldn't have, a fondness for a particular idea or belief, or you will lose your objectivity/skepticism, and the idea may change.

This is counter intuitive, but its the only way I know how to think.

Was this too long? I think it is, so I'm moving on to another post.