Here’s my psychobabble for the day –
When people have significant emotional investments in maintaining a certain belief, their brains will often “help” them maintain this belief despite contradictory evidence by literally erasing, minimizing, or distorting threatening information, so the belief system can proceed unimpeded. I believe this is what truly separates True Believers (not in the casual sense of the term) from people trying to sort things out and seeking more information. True Believers, although they don’t realize it themselves, are not allowing contradictory information to be fully processed.
From my experience, it seems to me that True Believers often carry a heftier emotional investment paradigm than others. Just a couple of examples from people I know: (caution: of course I can’t read the minds of any of these individuals, this is just speculation based on observation)
1) Death – While losing any loved one is traumatic, there are some deaths that are even more so due to their sudden, or untimely, fashion. I can’t imagine, for example, losing a child. I do not know how people deal with that sort of trauma and remain sane. One person I know can only deal with this loss through the belief that they will be reunited one day. The loss of the belief system that allows that equilibrium to be maintained is too threatening to the psyche. Belief must continue for the individual to remain sane and function, so their brains “protect” the individual from truly having to confront threatening information. I’m not criticizing this because I really don’t know how people survive the death of a child. If it happened to me, I have no idea what sort of processing would enable me to continue functioning in any sort of meaningful way.
2) Traumatic Life Event – One female believer I know quite well was molested by her father throughout her childhood. Her father started molesting her at such a young age she has no memory of “pre-molestation”. He stopped when she reached puberty. Her father, and her entire family, were super active uber believers, and still are (with the exception of one child who left the church as an adult). The molestation was revealed when all the children were already adults. It obviously caused trauma to the rest of the family. The mother had a troubled relationship with the daughter anyway, and the mother seemed to partially blame the daughter. The only way the daughter has been able to process all of this and retain familial relationships, which she desperately wants, is to focus on the teachings of repentance and forgiveness. People can truly repent and change, and others are morally required to forgive. Were she to lose faith in the church, this fragile construction would likely fall apart immediately, which is threatening to her psyche. Again, I’m not being critical or superior, because I have no idea what I would do or believe to cope with such a trauma.
3) Abandonment of Core for Belief – I know a couple of people who fall into this scenario. Sometimes belief in the LDS church requires an immense sacrifice of something that could be called “core” to the individual’s self. One example is sexual orientation. Someone who is, by nature, homosexual, yet believes in the LDS church, may sacrifice the idea or hope of ever having a truly fulfilling intimate relationship (either by remaining asexual or engaging in heterosexual relationships not out of natural desire, but obligation). As time goes on, alternative choices seem to disappear altogether. The script is written. A tremendous sacrifice has been made, the nature of which most of us will never fully understand or appreciate. If one were to lose faith in the very belief system that necessitated this sacrifice, then the sacrifice would seem meaningless and cruel, particularly if so much time has passed that it is no longer realistic to imagine living any other way. The belief system must be maintained so the sacrifice always seems meaningful and just.
Obviously, there are other factors, these are just some I’ve observed personally. I think when people seem to “shut down” as you suggest Wade has done, it is possibly that the individual is a True Believer whose brain will simply not “allow” them to process information that, if actually processed, could present a serious challenge to the maintenance of faith.
One of the stranger things about so-called debating or dialoguing with believers over a period of several years is that you notice how certain information gets erased. I’ve seen certain believers repeat the same claims, over and over, even when those same claims were repeatedly debunked. (I know Randy J on RFM is very familiar with this phenomenon as well). I don’t believe these people are engaging in this behavior deliberately, and, in fact, may actually believe the OTHER is the one engaging in the behavior. Nor do I believe, most of the time, deliberate deception is taking place. It’s just an extreme form of confirmation bias.
http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html
Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs.
This tendency to give more attention and weight to data that support our beliefs than we do to contrary data is especially pernicious when our beliefs are little more than prejudices. If our beliefs are firmly established on solid evidence and valid confirmatory experiments, the tendency to give more attention and weight to data that fit with our beliefs should not lead us astray as a rule. Of course, if we become blinded to evidence truly refuting a favored hypothesis, we have crossed the line from reasonableness to closed-mindedness.
I don’t know Wade in “real life”, so can’t make any sort of reliable assessment in regards to whether or not this is taking place with him. All I can say is that it looks that way to me.