Coming out of the closet

[UltraBudgie]

Galileo wasn't jailed because he entertained the thought that the sun was the center of our solar system, he was jailed because he held to his assertion that the sun, not the Earth was the center of our solar system.

He held strong to his faith in the vision the model he presented tried to incorporate. He actually would have been better off being a little less attached to the rational explanations he gave, for example, of how the tides worked, as they turned out to be quite contradictory. Nothing wrong with that, in fact laudable. As is the irrational vision of a larger world that drove those monkeys you mention in the mythology you presented.

I suppose I should clarify, that in my previous post when I mentioned "belief-systems", I was referring specifically to rational, formal belief-systems. Those which may be delineated by a set of facts, observations, assertions, hypotheses, etc., and not to the irrational or transcendent "belief" which drives vision, gives us the impetus to develop and strive, and as you rightly point out, is irrepressible and rooted beyond the personal.