Saturday, June 4, 2016

Mandela Effect: Reality, or Illusion?

"Forever, O LORD, Thy word is settled in Heaven."  (Psalm119:89)
   You know, it grieves me that I have to take time to write about stupid stuff, instead of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. But, as my blog is about the Church, the World and the times- and we're living in stupid times- well, there ya go. So what is this so-called Mandela Effect? In a nutshell it says things ain't the way we remember them, therefore the things changed.  No, I kid you not.
    As an example, everyone thinks Humphrey Bogart said, "Play it again, Sam!"  in Casablanca. Well, if you go back and watch, he really said something along the lines of, "Whatever you played for her, PLAY FOR ME!" (just a paraphrase.) SO....the theory goes that Bogey really did say "Play it again, Sam" like we all remember, but books and maps and movies and the like are being changed by the power of CERN, the notorious particle accelerator super collider thingey. No, really: I don't make this up!
   Now, good ol' Occam's razor holds that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably or usually the right one. Sure, there could be a complex, convoluted chain of events leading up to an occurence, but generally speaking, the simplest explanation is our go-to. In the above example, it's merely a case of Bogart impersonators flubbing the line, and their rendition of the scene is what sticks in our minds. Case closed. Right?
    The plot thickens. Some suggest that evil CERN has even changed our Bibles! One claim is that CERN changed Isaiah 11:6 from "lion & lamb" to "wolf and lamb" Well, I've been reading & studying the Word of God since the mid-'70's, and it's always said wolf. 
   In the KJV, Isaiah's prophecy of the Millenial Kingdom goes like this:
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them" Isaiah 11:6
   Then why, in the public's memory did the prophecy say the lion and the lamb ?
   Simple. In 1937, when Big Band leader Tommy Dorsey wrote (There'll be) Peace in the Valley, he summarized Isaiah's prophecy of Christ's kingdom this way: 
Well the bear will be gentle, and the wolves will be tame, and the lion shall lie down by the lamb and the beasts of the wild shall be led by a child...
Nothing changed the Bible! Tommy Dorsey reworded the prophecy to fit his melody, and that's the way most people remember it. In fact, setting God's word to music in order to teach is encouraged in the Bible itself (Colossians 3:16)! Nothing sinister or Twilight Zoney about it.
   Your memory is very fluid- there's a reason we have this phrase in our vernacular: "if memory serves me correctly"......cuz a lot of times it doesn't! Memories can easily be changed. Insurance investigators learned back in the fifites that a witness's memory of an accident could be subtly altered just by the way the interviewer phrased a question.
  It looks like this: I see a Dodge hit a Nissan. Now the agents from the drivers' insurance companies chat with me to learn what happened.
 Gecko: And em, at what speed would you say the cars were moving when they rolled into each other?
 Me: I dunno; maybe 25-30 mph?
Gecko: Excellent, Mate! And did you chance to notice if there was a broken headlight?
Me: No...I don't think so...
Now the other car's agent.
Flo: So how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?
Me: Oh! at least 45 or 50!
Flo: And didja see the broken headlight?
Me: Now that you mention it, there WAS a broken headlight!
 Hello! Why did my testimony change? Did Big,Bad CERN re-arrange the accident? Why did I tell the lizard one thing and the wacky lady something else? It's that Flo planted a thought in my mind when she said the broken headlight. And my estimate of the speed was influenced by her use of the word smashed. Psychologists know this. Advertisers know it, politicians know it, lawyers know it. Memories are not indelble.
 What if I told you the very first case of the Mandela Effect happened right there in your Bible, back in the Garden of Eden? Watch closely, Ladies & Gents!
And the LORD God took the man,and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die....
Fast forward awhile later, when the serpent stops by and asks Eve, "Yeah, has God said, 'Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"  And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ' Ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die'."
   Oh, and just how do take care of a garden without touching the plants? Did God say they couldn't even touch it? How 's Adam supposed to trim it or prune the tree without touching it?Where'd she get that from? She didn't hear it from God 'cuz she was just a rib when God set the boundaries. Maybe her dumb husband explained the rules wrong?
   Or did the serpent confuse her with a carefully crafted question? Hey, um, didn't God say you can't eat from any of the trees in the garden? He knew God didn't say that. He's planting a thought in her mind that God doesn't want her to have good stuff.  Literally the oldest trick in the Book! She took it and ran with it, and in her memory embellished  just a little. So you see we've been doing this straight from The Beginning!
 It wasn't CERN, it was the SERpeNt messing with her mind. Things are different from the way we remember because when we don't remember we adlib. "Or has time re-written every line?" like the song says. The Mandela Effect could really be called the Eve Effect.
   Reality didn't change. Our memories merged with our imagination. And God's Word never changes. CERN isn't changing anything or opening up parallel universes. Don't believe everything you hear. Or think you heard.
Peace.

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