Cognitive Dissonance or How we Resolve our Dissonances.

[_moksha]

It was when I realized that I didn't "know" after all.

So you became like Socrates, who was the wisest man in Athens, because he realized he did not know. However, as Elder Packer would undoubtedly point out, all not knowing is of equal value. For instance, not knowing where you put your care keys is of less worth than admitting you do not know the answer to epistemological type questions.

[_beastie]

But I think I can see what you mean with formal operational thought and concrete operational thought. People who deal only in facts can't deal with abstract concepts. People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

It's been years since I studied this topic, but even I recognize how completely messed up this statement is. I can only hope you stuck to the textbook as an instructor and didn't add your own strange interpretations.

Interesting. Then are you saying that all apologists are so enmeshed within the Mormon belief system, they are stuck with it, or lose their self-identities?

No, not all.

Some apologists are still working their way through all of this, and sooner or later will either abandon their former beliefs altogether or will modify and liberalize those beliefs until they'd be almost unrecognizable to mainstream LDS. This can be a long, painful process, and in the meantime, the believer will continue to act as apologist - in a way, they're trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else.

But definitely some apologists are so enmeshed within their belief system that they cannot conceive of an "I" outside it. Their self identity IS Mormonism.

[_JAK]

Cognitive dissonance is part of the reason why we learn. It is neither bad nor good. It just is.

Just stop with the twisting of Piaget. Its getting pathetic...ok, even MORE pathetic.

Turn your degree back into Devry and call it a night.

You see, charity, here is the telling factor. So far as I know, Mercury doesn't have an educational background steeped in Piagetian theory and yet he can detect the twisting. You need to rethink your hypothesis, charity. It just doesn't work and the process of taking in information, evaluating and revising schema is a far more complex process than you've made it out to be.

Additional thoughts: You have not factored in culture, moral development, social development, personality nor have you accounted for the onset or lack of formal operations in adults. There were no comments in your post regarding compartmentalization, convergent vs divergent thinking, religious indoctrination (that would be convergent thinking), the effects of didactic vs facilitative education, or the relationship between socio-ecomonic status and the quality and availabilty of education and life experiences in your posts. (That's off the top of my head)

Hey, I ain't doin' too bad for a Jersey Girl!

:-)

p.s. Please don't begin a post with "school teacher" time and then proceed to chop Piaget to pieces where I can see it. Weren't you the poster who not so very long ago commented that posters should move beyond kindergarten replies and get out of concrete operations?

See anything wrong with that?

Jersey Girl,

You have written a fine piece even further detailing analysis here. I especially regard highly your introduction of “…cultural, moral development, social development, personality…”

In addition, the issues of “…compartmentalization, convergent vs. divergent think, religious indoctrination…” are large and most important aspects in the issues under discussion.

In order to avoid such a long post, I included a Jean Piaget link for Charity to demonstrate his breadth of coverage with which Charity seemed unfamiliar.

Thanks for the enlightening post. Perhaps it will be helpful.

JAK

[_JAK]

Isn't the mantra of the anti-Mormon that they want archeological proof, and scientific facts, etc.? Sounds pretty concrete operational to me. "If I can't see it, I can't consider it."

On the other hand, religious truths are abstract, require an open mind, a willingness to believe in what can't be seen. Doesn't that say formal operational to you?

This is a fundamental mistake I see over and over. There are religious truths that you must take on faith (God exists, Jesus died for our sins), and claims that religions make that can be tested (a Hebraic people migrated to the Americas in 600 BC and lived there for 1000 years). When we conflate the two, then facts don't matter in the least. If your religious truth involves 12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians dwelling in 1940s Argentina, then you can take it on faith and no one can or should convince you otherwise.

Runtu,

You make many fine posts, but there’s something here with which I take exception. Your last statement:

Runtu states:
If your religious truth involves 12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians dwelling in 1940s Argentina, then you can take it on faith and no one can or should convince you otherwise.

This appears to support your earlier statement in the same post that information should be discounted or dismissed in the face of information and evidence which contradicts claimed beliefs -- which equal "religious truths."

Why would you say that? It’s relevant to the distinction between what we know (or can know by research) and what we imagine (or take someone else’s imagination). Absent that clear, transparent evidence which is critical to reliable information, religious truths are based on what?

They are based on the ignorance of the past and the imagined “12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians…” for which the is no evidence. Hence claimed religious truths are irrelevant.

If man was intended to fly, God would have given man wings.

Well, man does fly and with wings, but not like a bird. The religious truth was not true. And it took skeptical review along with information and knowledge to prove that man could fly. And now we (man) are in space, have been to the moon and back, etc.

“Religious truths,” when examined objectively, are often false. Religious dogma masquerades as explanation. It is not explanation and never was. However, centuries ago, when literacy was virtually non-existent in the masses, religious truths were passed off as explanation. People then had great struggle just to survive sufficiently long enough to reproduce. Some civilizations died out entirely as a result of various factors which transcended their capacity to adapt and cope with truths they did not and could not understand (at that time).

So called religious truths have been a drag and a stifling factor in the evolution and emergence of increased knowledge. Generally, religious dogmas have had the effect of keeping people ignorant. Again, they masquerade rather than discover. They contribute to cognitive dissidence.

JAK

[_JAK]

But I think I can see what you mean with formal operational thought and concrete operational thought. People who deal only in facts can't deal with abstract concepts. People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

It's been years since I studied this topic, but even I recognize how completely messed up this statement is. I can only hope you stuck to the textbook as an instructor and didn't add your own strange interpretations.

Interesting. Then are you saying that all apologists are so enmeshed within the Mormon belief system, they are stuck with it, or lose their self-identities?

No, not all.

Some apologists are still working their way through all of this, and sooner or later will either abandon their former beliefs altogether or will modify and liberalize those beliefs until they'd be almost unrecognizable to mainstream LDS. This can be a long, painful process, and in the meantime, the believer will continue to act as apologist - in a way, they're trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else.

But definitely some apologists are so enmeshed within their belief system that they cannot conceive of an "I" outside it. Their self identity IS Mormonism.

Beastie,

I think your conclusion can be applied to a wide variety of religious dogmas. The more a religious school can indoctrinate from cradle up, the more difficult it is for people so indoctrinated to ever escape that level of mind control.

Your point is quite valid in analysis regarding “will modify and liberalize.”

You point also is valid regarding “a long, painful process.”

Without question, information and knowledge (the real thing) is a threat to any religious dogma. Some here have thought I merely criticize LDS dogma. Such is not the case but that’s the dogma often presented on MDB. We understand from news reports that children as young as 10 are being recruited by religious/political groups in Iraq to wear bombs and enter highly populated places as suicide bombers.

We think that’s terrible. It is. Other suicide bombers have been much older. So how does a group get people to do this? They do it through indoctrination. They capitalize on cognitive dissidence. They indoctrinate such people to believe something which virtually all who participate here would find abhorrent.

You’re correct in the statement: “But definitely some apologists are so enmeshed within their belief system that they cannot conceive of an "I" outside it. Their self identity IS Mormonism.”

So we are looking at the degree or the level of indoctrination and just how powerful or weak it may be in particular individuals. We might also be looking at one’s propensity to be indoctrinated, to believe without question.

I know brothers and sisters in the same family who had similar rearing from cradle up. Yet one might be described as an agnostic-atheist and the other a faith-based member of some religious group (not necessarily LDS).

One went to the university, studied, was exposed to a variety of genuine information and is well educated. The other never attended any formal education beyond high school. While they are siblings, their environment afforded one a larger perspective with no “painful process” of escaping religious dogma. It happened early in life (relatively speaking).

I think, on the other hand, that people who began to think, really intellectualize about religious dogma at age 40 or higher (or lower), those people have a much more difficult time, a “painful time,” as you stated in recognizing with fuller awareness a larger world of ideas.

JAK

[_BishopRic]

I suppose the thread is about finished...love the comments so far. I'll just add a couple of my thoughts.

There is a reason many of us former Mormons use the term cog-dis quite a bit. It fits perfectly. Sans the technical jargon, I see cog-dis as the event of experiencing something that conflicts with what you've been taught to believe.

The good and bad of Mormonism is that it teaches the way to "do" life down to the last detail -- and gives reasons why. With the concept of "you are rewarded for that commandment which you obey," it is easy to test the paradigm. If it doesn't pan out, you either need to change your paradigm, or question if the paradigm is accurate, or true, for you. For many of us, there was enough cog-dis, it triggered a re-evaluation of our beliefs, and we concluded that it wasn't true for us.

What I see many mopologists do is justify to the nth degree, the reasons for the cog-dis, placing blame on the person whose logical conclusions led him out, rather than the issues themselves. They see a smoking gun, and say the smoke came from the next room, and a person is an idiot to conclude the gun could have been shot by the person with the fingerprints all over it -- there is no conclusive evidence of it!

Would God really test our faith that much? Did "he" not give us a brain to use to figure things out? Would he put so many stumbling blocks in our way to keep us using ONLY FAITH and inconsistent feelings to determine truth?

Like others have said, if he does, then I don't want to hanging with him wherever he is!

[_Dr. Shades]

Some apologists are still working their way through all of this, and sooner or later will either abandon their former beliefs altogether or will modify and liberalize those beliefs until they'd be almost unrecognizable to mainstream LDS.

Hence the birth, and rise, of Internet Mormonism.

[_antishock8]

Some apologists are still working their way through all of this, and sooner or later will either abandon their former beliefs altogether or will modify and liberalize those beliefs until they'd be almost unrecognizable to mainstream LDS. This can be a long, painful process...

Truer words have never been spoken.

[_Runtu]

Runtu,

You make many fine posts, but there’s something here with which I take exception. Your last statement:

Runtu states:
If your religious truth involves 12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians dwelling in 1940s Argentina, then you can take it on faith and no one can or should convince you otherwise.

This appears to support your earlier statement in the same post that information should be discounted or dismissed in the face of information and evidence which contradicts claimed beliefs -- which equal "religious truths."

Why would you say that? It’s relevant to the distinction between what we know (or can know by research) and what we imagine (or take someone else’s imagination). Absent that clear, transparent evidence which is critical to reliable information, religious truths are based on what?

They are based on the ignorance of the past and the imagined “12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians…” for which the is no evidence. Hence claimed religious truths are irrelevant.

If man was intended to fly, God would have given man wings.

Well, man does fly and with wings, but not like a bird. The religious truth was not true. And it took skeptical review along with information and knowledge to prove that man could fly. And now we (man) are in space, have been to the moon and back, etc.

“Religious truths,” when examined objectively, are often false. Religious dogma masquerades as explanation. It is not explanation and never was. However, centuries ago, when literacy was virtually non-existent in the masses, religious truths were passed off as explanation. People then had great struggle just to survive sufficiently long enough to reproduce. Some civilizations died out entirely as a result of various factors which transcended their capacity to adapt and cope with truths they did not and could not understand (at that time).

So called religious truths have been a drag and a stifling factor in the evolution and emergence of increased knowledge. Generally, religious dogmas have had the effect of keeping people ignorant. Again, they masquerade rather than discover. They contribute to cognitive dissidence.

JAK

You're preaching to the choir, JAK. Maybe you misunderstood, but I was articulating the problem with charity's approach, which is simply that facts and verifiable truths are irrelevant to religious truth. She told us that religious truth is outside the realm of verifiable fact. That's clearly the case for some ideas, such as the existence of God, but not for all. If I read charity correctly, and she hasn't contradicted what I said, if she believed in the green skinned Norwegians, no facts would matter to her, as long as she had a spiritual witness that the Norwegians really did exist.

[_charity]

For all you who are incluiding long passages of Piaget, of course any fully developed theory is complicated, and you can't adequately cover it all in a couple of posts. You can't even cover Piaget in a whole year of course work in college. But you can distill out specific elements for casual discussion. And despite what you want to believe, this is only discussion at the very most shallow level.

But I am glad that you again have demonstrated the ultimate anti-Mormon philosophy--that you are all superiorly enlightened. And those LDS who are intelligent will eventually come to adopt your point of view. Those who don't are just too "brainwashed" to be able to escape the clutches of evil Mormondom.

You don't think that is just a tad bit arrogant?