Thank you, Cassius for your answer to my question. I can see that this is an issue of reducing uncertainty and protecting one's confidence when faced with external ideas that may induce fear. At this moment, I am not bothered by some level of existential uncertainty, so this is not a problem for me and am not really interested in discussing physics for now. Perhaps I will be interested later. I appreciate and respect your thoroughness.
Thought I'd make this clarification on my beliefs: I also find the ever-changing opinions of science an issue and prefer to experiment and think for myself instead of believing everything scientists say. I do not consider myself a skeptic. I have my own opinions that very strongly convince me that I should not fear death, or fear that pursuing happiness/pleasure for its own sake is somehow punishable way to conduct my life. That is why I'm not very interested, not because modern scientific consensus appears to contradict Epicurus' physics.