Belief can alter observations, sometimes to the point where evidence to the contrary will reinforce one's belief.
For instance, people who continue to believe in a paranormal event or phenomenon after it has been proven false, even by the author of the event, will mutate the proof into something that further verifies their belief.
What's most curious is that the evidence isn't being denied, it's being accepted but mentally designated to another part of the brain.
How does this happen?
Q. When was the earth created?
A. Archbishop James Usher, working out a chronology from the Bible, calculated in 1654 that the earth was created on the night of October 23, 4004 B.C. Other timetables reach back as far as 10,000 years.
Q. What about oil and coal, which seem to have been generated from ancient forests millions of years ago?
A. They are evidence of a Great Flood about 4,400 years ago, which laid down all the layers of sediment at once. They are nowhere near as old as evolutionists and archeologists say. A fossil claimed to be 200 million years old, found in Nevada in 1917, shows a shoe print.
Read more here:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc
I think this type of mental gymnastics is the result of age and our brains decaying.
How many people do you think would believe in Santa Claus if they weren't told he didn't exist until 30?
When someone is still young it is easier for authority figures to tell blatant lies and get away with it. The same authority figures are also the only ones that can undo the lie, but not without tarnishing their credibility.
After someone has aged they become the authority on certain aspects of their life, mainly their beliefs, and no longer allow those they consider equal or beneath them to influence these beliefs.
Conveniently, anyone who doesn't share their beliefs is automatically beneath them.
"We must observe that the moose probably does not seem absurd to itself."
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