Musings on the Social and Cultural Construction of Reality...

I think the first time I learned that people create on construct their own "realities" was when I was a Biblical Studies student. It quickly became clear to me while taking Biblical Studies classes that many Christians had been socialised or brainwashed during Sunday School into Harmony of the Gospels bs. As a result of this socialisation or brainwashing, they couldn't see the obvious contradictions and inconsistencies in the gospel texts. They couldn't see, for example that in one gospel Jesus is born in Nazareth while in another he is born in Bethlehem. They couldn't see that in one gospel Jesus goes to Egypt while in another no Egyptian excursion is mentioned whatsoever. Since then, I have seen people constructing their realities often out of manichean comic book whole cloth again and again. I guess it really is true that most humans prefer fairy tales to the messy reality that is all around us.