“The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period of birth to age six. The more fully the needs are met, the greater will be their success in the next…”
- Dr. Maria Montessori

“Love one another as I have loved you.”
- Jesus - John 15:17

“ Let he without sin cast the first stone.”
- Jesus - John 8:1

January 5th, 2006

People are more like computers than they care to admit.

Think about it. People's language and senses provide a basic input/output system (BIOS) and through their BIOS they influence and are influenced by others around them. Normally, people can only communicate with others that have the same type of language and/or compatibility and are reluctant to interact with those people who are unable to communicate with them in a way they can understand.

When a child is born, it is essentially a new install fresh from the factory line. It is, in essence, a blank slate essentially with a crude BIOS attached to it. Unlearned behavior, at this point, comes from either genetic or hormonal conditions that already exist within the infant. When an infant is hungry, thirsty, tired, or uncomfortable it communicates the only way it knows how to and it cries. When an infant's needs and desires are met it will do nothing, sleep, or smile. It is a very primitive form of communication, but nonetheless, it works.

Of course, during that time, there comes an emotional attachment the infant acquires to its parent. That is also based on whether the infant's emotional wants and needs are fulfilled. The adherence of new input coming from the parent is most effective if the emotional relationship between the child and the parent is a strong one based on love and mutual positive emotional feedback. If the connection is strong, communication should be good (Just like any other kind of download connection).

According to Dr. Maria Montessori, “The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period of birth to age six. The more fully the needs are met, the greater will be their success in the next…” And it is true. In the first two years of life a child will learn the rudiments of a language, and how to travel using its own body as a vehicle: walking, crawling, etc… And during this time of software installation, and I call it this because the child is using every bit of input it comes in contact with and assimilating it into its own being, it is being programmed.

The child will do what is most pleasing to it. If the child itches, it scratches. If the child enjoys sucking on a pacifier, it will do it. A child will perform an action if it brings good or positive stimulus. Pain or negative stimuli are usually avoided. In essence, they develop a human operating system based upon what their environment dictates. In the early years of childhood development, parents provide the environment and program the child with a system of beliefs and societal norms – like not letting the child pick his or her nose in public or running around stores naked. These beliefs form a rudimentary system of right and wrong and a percentage of that translates out to a specific religion or mythology.

If the parents base their behavior on a Judeo Christian mythology model, the child will learn Judeo Christian beliefs. If the parents base their behavior on the teachings of Mohammad and that mythology the child will develop Muslim beliefs. These mythologies, as Carl Jung would put it, come with certain specific archetypes and role models that help teach people how to be and act. Initially, a child will learn from its parent and imitate what either his mother or father does. “Good behavior”, behavior that is in accordance with the parents morals and norms, is rewarded and encouraged just as “bad behavior”, behavior that is against the morals and norms of the parent, is punished and discouraged.

This is basic programming.

The programming is unique to each family. As the child grows older, it starts to learn the fundaments of a system of beliefs based on a religion or mythology on which it will use as a way of working or operating within its environment. Religion or mythology is a person's operating system. And just like a computer, software (the program or culture a person is exposed to) will not run easily on an operating system it's not compatible with.

Most people, when asked, will work within the religion or mythology they were born into. This is both good and bad. In order to function within a culture or society, a person should have a general idea of right and wrong. But philosophically, what is right and wrong? What is right for one culture of people is taboo in another and vice versa. For example, it is wrong for a Hasidic Jew to eat a pork product, however, there's nothing wrong with a Christian or Atheist eating a ham sandwich.

As a child grows into his or her teens, she begins to apply her learned system of beliefs. And while still learning the difference between what the child perceives as right and wrong, he or she will operate within the rudimentary framework of what he or she understands as a basic credo. This forming credo starts to evolve into a philosophy and that philosophy may or may not evolve into a belief structure based on the religion they were born into.

It is not until that system of belief is put to a test that the individual decides whether their credo is right for him or her. And if it isn't, he or she must reexamine their system of belief or continue down a different road to a philosophy that will accommodate their personal worldview.

Robert Fulghum, author of Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and Unitarian priest preached both that “the unexamined life is not worth living” and also that “ignorance is bliss”. The former statement would apply to those who walk the road to Buddhism and many of the eastern based religions. The latter statement would most likely apply to most western and Middle Eastern “faith based” religions.

Personally, I take the side of comedian, Lewis Black. He said that Old Testament, written by the Jews, was written at a time when people were savages (at best) and so the elders came up with the idea of a God. Not a kind loving god like the Christian God, but a “ I CAN SEE EVERYTHING THAT YOU DO AND I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR F#%KING ASS!!! ” god.

This was to keep the people in line to set of rules that would help them along so they could survive. This theory seems to hold up especially when it comes to pork products and shellfish. If pork is not treated correctly a person could get trichinosis. I'll leave you to your imagination as to why you shouldn't eat three day old shellfish that's left in a desert environment. They were rules written for a specific time and place. Most of the rules do not really apply in this modern day of science, technology, and proper food preparation techniques.

And were the human race prone to staying with the rules and regulations of a religion that would deal death for some of its transgressions or prohibit man from exploring his environment and the universe around him the bible would be a perfect handbook for living in the Middle East. But because science and technology have advanced due to such Christian fundamentally forbidden practices like grave robbing (to study human anatomy), stem cell research, genetic engineering – ironically this was due to Gregor Mendel, a monk, who wanted to know why peas were different - the world has moved on.

Charles Darwin observed that life evolves differently in a closed environment. It's like the sea turtle in the Galapagos Islands or the mating rituals of the emperor penguin and the bald eagle. If an environment stays the same without contamination or interference, there will be enough food and resources to allow a stable population to survive indefinitely.

Religion is useful in providing rules to help govern survivability within such an environment. Science, which is used to improve living conditions, changes the relationship that man has with religion and makes the religious rules obsolete. That means that a religion must change to accommodate the new living conditions that fit human kind's new worldview.

The decision to change your philosophy, religion, or system of beliefs sometimes is not an easy one. Where traditional family structures are involved, there may be emotional pressures to stay within that belief structure. Sometimes, it is helpful to get another point of view regarding this decision and put that to the test. An individual may seek out a religious leader, priest, shaman, or counselor for insight. The answers that that person gives will either reinforce their new system of beliefs or help the individual turn from the path most often traveled.

Regardless, it is imperative that an individual chooses a religion that will accommodate his worldview or else that individual will head toward a psychological breakdown. Ironically, sometimes it is through these breakdowns that a higher knowledge or breakthroughs can occur. Many of the individuals that have become shamans have become so because of a near psychotic breakdown and have come back to reality transformed with either a new philosophy or a new way of living.

This story is common in mythology.

Knowledge sometimes comes with a price. One must go through either a physical, mental, or spiritual trial in order to acquire this wisdom. This is illustrated in most myths as a voyage to the underworld or through theft. It is clearly seen in the myth of the titan Prometheus' theft of fire and his subsequent torture of having his liver eaten everyday by vultures. It is seen in Norse mythology of Odin's nine day sacrifice of hanging from the tree of life. It is seen in the biblical myth of Jesus' decent into the underworld after his crucifixion. It is seen in Buddhism when the Buddha sits under the tree after a long meditation.

Individuals experience this kind of trial and find themselves transformed. How many times do you find yourself in a situation that was “a baptism of fire” and when it was over, you found yourself transformed into a more capable person able to contribute to whatever goal you were working toward? All these myths are, are stories of how to deal with such things or lessons learned from one generation to another. It's not the actual story that matters it's the meaning of the story that counts.

Take The Bible, for example, when it is read as prose and taken at its literal meaning, the message of peace and faith is completely corrupted. When The Bible is read as poetry, and the symbolism of peace and the lesson each parable is taken figuratively, the message becomes something quite beautiful. And after all things are said and done with the four books of Christ's life, what is the main message? It's one of compassion. “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Unfortunately, when the four books are read as prose, the message may turn into something like “Let he who is without fault, cast the first stone.” How many lives were lost because the Spanish Inquisitors took The Bible in its literal form? Or how many widows were burned for their land because Christians took the literal word from the King James Bible that no one should stomach a witch to live? Or what would the world have been like if DaVinci were executed for heresy? All have been or could have been perpetrated because of the literal word of The Bible.

I don't want to preach. All I want to say is: watch what software you're downloading. Christianity can be a beautiful religion if the message is taken correctly and downloaded properly. Zen Buddhism is high performance but requires a lot of maintenance and lots of time for installation. If the software you're using isn't working for you and your operating system, it's time to change software to something that will work with the system you operate within.