[mythrwy]

What you say seems to be the case. I've been thinking a lot about it lately.

It's pretty easy to see this programing in others, but remarkably more difficult to perceive regarding oneself.

The thing is (in my opinion) we can't really get by without some level of automatic programming. If we had to stop and weigh each decision and figure everything out from first principals we would have immense trouble operating. So we get cultures, religions, customs and ethical "hard facts" to help us get by. They work in a limited time and space but often break down as circumstances change and many (most?) people have a very hard time adjusting to the new reality.

I still think people should be a bit more critical (and cynical even), looking at who benefits from masses holding a belief and trying to determine "truth" from first principals more then they do now, but think I understand why this isn't the general case.