Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Cognitive Dissonance
“We need only in cold blood ACT as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.” - William James
Cognitive dissonance is a weird human phenomena, something that I have been experiencing for a while. I would guess that all humans have some form of paradoxical ideals, but I would bet that all religious people tend to harbor some form of cognitive dissonance in their belief system. Religion is so much about faith, about believing in things inexplainable in human, observable terms. This leads to a unavoidable conflict.
Let's take the belief in god as the prime example. Every religion has long and poetic verses of the greatness, infallibility, omnipotence... about their deity. We wax on about how glorious his name is, and how blessed we are to be created in his image. Then every person experiences and observes the opposite. We see sickness, evil, horror, in everything around us. Now instead of saying that god is cruel, you hear statements like: " we can not understand his ways", or " god works in mysterious ways". You hear that after tsunamis wipe out hundreds of thousands of people and after innocent children die in horrendous ways. In order for someone to actually continue believing that their god is great there has to be some sort of cognitive disconnect.
When I started doubting the authenticity of my belief system, the biggest question to me was such a paradox. I realized that humans are the only species that have consciously accepted the idea of a creator, of a god. Yet along with that must come the accompanying belief that we do not understand his ways. Without the second nobody would believe in the idea of a god. That combination sounds very cruel and malicious. Firstly if god is good as religion wants us to believe, he would have a big problem seeing his creations in pain and suffering to such an extreme extent. But on top of that, to create people that have the ability to recognize a higher power orchestrating all it but unable to understand why, is sadistic.To continue to believe that a god exists and fits this paradoxical paradigm, is cognitive dissonance at its finest.
Never be told!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thank you for alas giving me a term to equate with what, I myself, have felt for a very long time. I am Roman Catholic and for a very long time had these same questions. And you are right, at least in my case, having these paradoxical ideals and questioning my indoctrinated faith values. One of my main questions is if I am not supposed to question my faith in what I have learned in my religion then why was I given my intellect to do so? I asked this of my priests and nuns who were my educators. And it was always turned around that "we must have faith". Thank you for sharing your words. I would like to follow and subscribe. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteRereading your blog post as I consider to what extent do my beliefs reflect an agenda supported by cognitive dissonance. Thanks again for pointing me in this direction. (GS)
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I like the way you rationalized your own conflicting intuitions by deducing that there must be no god and than try using the same concept to poke fun at the believers. Jewish chuzpah at its best. The truth is that I believe in a god and therefore because of that belief I am forced to conclude that I can't unstand all of his ways. One is a direct consequence of the other. You seem to be struggling with what your purpose in life is. You were brought up to obey rules that you no longer want to observe and ratinalize your resulting behavior. Cognitive dissonance I think.
ReplyDeleteYou very much proved my statement- One must be a direct consequence of the other. God does awful things, you can't deny it. In order to continue believing in the idea of him, you MUST say that you can't understand him. The other option is saying "I believe in an asshole". So thanks for proving my point.
DeleteI have no problem observing rules, as long as I can see a reason. The reason falls to the side the minute the dissonance is apparent. I probably have some forms of cognitive dissonance- as I say most people do. But this is definitely not where it manifests itself. And I am definitely not struggling with what my purpose in life is. Realizing my purpose is a big reason why I was able to see religion for what it truly is.
I reread my post to find the "chutzpah" you mentioned. Enlighten me
of course belief in god means you can't understand his ways. That is the essence of the concept of god. Its the definition not the subsequent rationalization. If you see an asshole and determine well this can't be the god that i was brought up to believe in thats your rationalization. I just found your use of the term cognitive dissonance chutzpidik-i don't mean it in an angrey way more like ironic- I think the conflict and subsequent rationalization is exactly what led you to non belief and you say its what makes me believe. Its all semantics anyway its your choice not believe and choose some other purpose. We're all a product of our culture.
ReplyDeleteValid point, I don't think cognitive dissonance if what led you to belief, I think its a requisite for continued belief.
DeleteAnd I still find it baffling that even after recognizing that contradiction- you still want to believe in, follow and glorify a violent, cruel, malicious god. If it is because you believe that he is actually good, we just don't "get him", then my question is: why would god (supposedly all knowing) create a creature capable of understanding his existence, but in a manner that makes his look like an asshole? If your answer is "we don't understand his ways", then I guess we are done here- but if you have a different angle- one I don't see, I would love to hear it!