What I believed and why I believed it - a vaccination story

Years ago I listened to a short, entertaining story on one of my favorite radio shows - This American Life.  

Before you continue reading, please take 4 1/2 minutes and watch the video.

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My Experience:

A few months back (April 2022), after I had scheduled to get my 2nd Covid booster shot, I remembered an experience that I had been wanting to tell my girlfriend for some weeks.  Here is the experience as I remembered it:

  

I went to CVS back in November of 2021 to get my 1st Covid booster shot.  The lady behind the pharmacy counter asked for my Covid shot record so she could enter my booster information on it.  I pulled out my wallet and handed my card to her.  I then went over to the man behind the partition, rolled up my sleeve, got the jab, then went back to the counter and waited.  The lady returned and handed me my Covid shot record - and as she did she informed me that, due to my card having been laminated, she had to transpose all the previous vaccination information onto a new card.  

I shrugged, took my card, said thanks, and departed the facility.

End of my experience.

So, as I began to share this experience with my girlfriend, I quickly walked down the hall to retrieve my Covid shot record so I could show her as I finished telling my story. 

 

As I began to walk back into the living room, shot record in hand, I continued with my story. Then I paused again and looked down at my shot record and was quite perplexed to find that each entry on my card, the initial shot, the 2nd shot from 6-8 months later, and the 1st booster shot, all were written in different handwriting and slightly different blue and black inks. 

 

This made no sense to me - why would the pharmacy lady write all the shot entries - on my new shot record -  in different inks and different handwriting?  

I stood entirely confused, just staring at my record.  I told my girlfriend that this makes no sense, and slowly began to finish my story from where I left off.  As I continued I noticed that she was looking at me with an odd expression.  She stopped me when I got to the part about my card being laminated.  She then reminded me that it was HER shot record that was laminated, it was HER that had to get a new card made up, it was HER experience with the pharmacy lady, and she reminded me that she had told me that story months ago after getting her 1st booster shot.

This explanation, while clearing up this discrepancy in the differing inks and handwriting on my Covid shot record, it did not diminish my attachment to what I had believed was MY personal experience.  As I stood looking at my card I still felt confused - I still felt like I had the experience.  I still felt like I had the experience!!!  I could still see and hear the pharmacy girl telling me why she had to make up a new card for ME!

In other words - I KNEW that I had experienced this, when in fact, I only BELIEVED that I had experienced this.  And even after I had been informed that I didn't actually experience this, I still FELT, in spite of my acceptance of the facts relayed to me by my girlfriend - it still FELT like I KNEW that this was my experience.  

This was uncomfortable, this feeling, having to slowly realize that what I had known was now revealed to be only a misguided or misappropriated belief. 

I have no idea why I hijacked this experience from my girlfriend.  I didn't desire to have this experience as my own.  This was a mundane, day-to-day, insignificant experience.  Why would it somehow become imprinted in my mind to the point that I felt, I believed, I KNEW that it was my own personal experience?

If I had of relayed this story to a friend they would have believed me.  They would of had absolutely no reason to doubt that this story of my experience was true.  There is no reason for me to NEED this story to be true, and yet, I actually believed that I had experienced it.

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Christian - the next time that you claim you have "experienced" God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, and you claim these "experiences" are justification for your faith, perhaps you should re-consider.  You not only desire these "experiences", you also emotionally need them.  You need them in order to maintain and justify your faith.  This desire / need is why Christians will often claim to have experienced supernatural interventions from God:  

~ Almost all will claim God answers their prayer(s) while minimizing the obvious probability that it was coincidence at best.

~ Some will claim to have experienced divine healing while ignoring the probability that it was medical science - or - they just got better.

~ Christians who desire / need these experiences will very likely view perfectly normal human experiences as being supernatural interventions from God.

This makes it all the more difficult for Christians to understand that - what they think they KNOW, is merely a BELIEF, and because it is such an important BELIEF to them, it is almost impossible for them to realize and admit that it is merely a belief, and is very probably exaggerated, rendering it greatly elevated in importance, to the point that it masquerades as knowledge - and after all - how can something that they KNOW that they KNOW, simply be a figment of their imagination?  

Exactly! How indeed?

"A rational belief is one, where every attempt has been made to eliminate the influence of cognitive biases upon the act to believe, and one where belief-revision is practiced in the same manner upon acquisition of new evidence.

A faith-based belief is one, where little or no attempt has been made to eliminate the influence of cognitive biases, even to the extent of engaging in activities that use cognitive biases to aid in that belief formation."

~unknown

"What is faith?  To me, it is nothing more than holding the opinion that an idea is true with a certainty that exceeds available evidence, and too often, ignores contrary evidence."

~unknown

"Truth doesn't depend on what you want it to be."

~Brian Larnder

bob

r.u.reasonable@gmail.com