Why is it so difficult for those in a cult, either LDS corp, political, and other off shoots of society to change their thinking when presented with verifiable true facts?

It seems whatever the cult behavior organization expounds as truth, no matter it is verifiable lies, the followers refuse to accept they have been duped.

You see well educated and non-educated people doing the same behavior. You see people of different economical groups following the cult leaders. They accept every statement no matter how unbelievable without question.

I was one but once I found the board I simply accepted the fact that I was misled. I couldn’t believe is believed things taught. But it just took one smidgen of truth to turn my head.

But so many refuse to accept the truth and use canned phrases to perpetuate the lies and not feel any embarrassment or any personal shame for continuing.

I just cannot wrap my brain around it. I am losing a friend because I just get tired of listening to rants of cult rhetoric. Ignoring it doesn’t help, trying to get them to stop or change their mind is impossible. What I don’t get is why they are willing to throw away family or friendships for lies.

Carl Sagan:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

What's the difference between ideological possession and "the devil leadeth them down to Hell"?

Perhaps the "cult" is natural to the species. Humans evolved in very different circumstances than what we see today, and what was once critical to holding (small) societies together has become destructive of (large) societies today.

People may understand that logically, but when economic and political problems reach a certain magnitude there is a strong impulsion towards our more basic social instincts. And once a lot of people opt for those atavistic forms of social and political organization, impulsion becomes compulsion.

Brainwashing. Reprogramming a mind is not easy especially if fear and shame is part of the program.

Have you ever been water skiing?
One of the hardest things to do when you're first learning is to LET GO OF THE ROPE WHEN YOU FALL DOWN!

People tend to hold on tight because it's the only thing they've got.
And they get dragged through the water and almost drown.

Instead of just letting go...

Ha! Yup. I actually did that the first time water skiing and drank the lake.

It,s amazing how right we are when we think others are wrong. It fits call if us in one way or another

Most people make their life choices based on emotions, not logic.

Is there absolute truth?
Scientific proof is always subject to review otherwise it isn't science.
The electron theory is a good example
It hasn't ever been proven but all the math and physics backs it up but it still is a theory.
Facts are often manipulated. Truth rests with the individual.

The truth is what actually is, whether or not humans know about it or have it right. Science is the most effective way we have to align ourselves the best we can with what is true.

Truth is independent of the individual. Most individuals add in emotions, bias and things like religion, thinking they are adding truth. Science is difficult and imperfect enough, like you said.

All individual "truths" are not equal. Some align with actual reality outside ourselves more than others.

Science is always limited to observable and measurable senses.
Emotions have great power but can't be quantified.

All truths are half-truths, including Mormon doctrine as made-up as it is. You can only see truth with one eye closed.

Some people let hate guide their concept of Truth.

Some people let their emotions cloud their judgment instead of looking at all the facts first.

There's a fine line between truth and downright stupidity.

No, there is not.

I remember taking a class at the US War College and the instructor wanted to drill into our heads not everyone shares the same reality. For example, one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist.

You have to assess what the reality is in whatever part of the world you are operating. Most people don’t understand this. They view the world through what they know and understand.

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most people make their life choices based on
> emotions, not logic.
I make most of my chices based on L U S T.
i see no reason to base my choices on anything else because I enjoy the results of LUST

In the case of people in cults, they have made a huge investment and *need* it to be true or else their whole world can come apart and the loss can be devastating. So it may not be that they cannot see the truth, it may be that it's too costly.

This is another good place to resend information about what the sciences say about why we believe. It comes from an article that my younger brother sent to me in 2010 or 2011 and that I've reposted to the Board every now and then whenever this subject comes up. While the information is around 10 years old, I have yet to learn of any new scientific evidence that would contradict or counter the statements in this article.

Note that the article proper will be found at the link below the excerpt. The first link is to (if memory serves) the first or second time I submitted this article to the Board. Read, enjoy, and learn!


https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1750410,1750410#msg-1750410

From the article:

"“A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.” So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger, in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial—the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that—this was the 1950s—and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study in psychology.

Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, “Sananda,” who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.

Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin’s followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea swallowed much of the United States. The disciples even went so far as to remove brassieres and rip zippers out of their trousers—the metal, they believed, would pose a danger on the spacecraft.

Festinger and his team were with the cult when the prophecy failed. First, the “boys upstairs” (as the aliens were sometimes called) did not show up and rescue the Seekers. Then December 21 arrived without incident. It was the moment Festinger had been waiting for: How would people so emotionally invested in a belief system react, now that it had been soundly refuted?

At first, the group struggled for an explanation. But then rationalization set in. A new message arrived, announcing that they’d all been spared at the last minute. Festinger summarized the extraterrestrials’ new pronouncement: “The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.” Their willingness to believe in the prophecy had saved Earth from the prophecy!

From that day forward, the Seekers, previously shy of the press and indifferent toward evangelizing, began to proselytize. “Their sense of urgency was enormous,” wrote Festinger. The devastation of all they had believed had made them even more certain of their beliefs.

IN THE ANNALS OF DENIAL, it doesn’t get much more extreme than the Seekers. They lost their jobs, the press mocked them, and there were efforts to keep them away from impressionable young minds. But while Martin’s space cult might lie at the far end of the spectrum of human self-delusion, there’s plenty to go around. And since Festinger’s day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called “motivated reasoning” helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, “death panels,” the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts."

https://medium.com/editors-picks/adfa0d026a7e

Thank you to everyone who posted. It cleared up things in my mind and made it understandable.

The RFM board rescues again.

I'm actually more confused and wondering who of you is losing their friendship.