"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

—George Orwell, In Front of Your Nose, March 22, 1946

The Book of Mormon certainly fits this description, with FAIRMormon and FARMS being the twisters and turners. All that is missing is the battlefield bit.

I knew a guy, railroad engineer who made a pretty good living, who had convinced himself of some self-serving BS that he didn't owe any taxes because he had no income because federal reserve notes were not real money.

I will note that none of these people ever say "federal reserve notes aren't real money, so take all you want. Why should I care?" I wonder why that is.

He would go on and on and on about fiat currency and Jewish bankers (yes, he was an anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist) and blah blah blah.

So the IRS garnished his paycheck. That was the hard reality he bumped into. Not that it changed his mind. It just convinced him how evil the gummint is. The fact that he was breaking the law was irrelevant as far as he was concerned.

Like I said, self serving BS.

My father finally figured out hat maybe he made a mistake forcing Mormonism onto me. Three weeks later he died.

I think that you believe things based on an elaborately constructed schema that is based largely on your own experiences, values, etc. For instance a very moral person might not be able to comprehend that someone like Joseph Smith would knowingly lie or cheat people. That schema can take a whole lot of chinks before it finally topples.

In other words, you see what you want to see until something is able to override that.

Excellent points--and directly relevant to our discussion of political debate in the other thread.

I noticed that too, and restrained myself from referring to the mountains of "rainbow evidence" about the stolen election.

Rainbow evidence - evidence that seems plainly visible and massive, except whenever you try to actually walk toward it and put your hands on it, it always moves away.

I hear it's an Irish thing.

Except now there aren't even rainbows.

"...and there went across the land rumors of rainbows, and the people who needed to, did believe..."

And all the leprechauns found pots of gold and lived happily ever after.*












*Except for those leprechauns who did not.

It’s like the buried treasure that Joseph Smith would see inside the ground with his seer stone. It slips away when you get close to it. Such problems can sometimes be solved by animal sacrifice. To be taken home afterwards and cooked by Emma, of course. If it doesn’t work, someone lacked sufficient faith.

Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly." - Charles Fort

Proper Authority. Proper Belief. Hypnotic.