Wait for it...




The church of thinking righteously of cognitively dissonant saints.

It is an absolute requirement. In thinking about my loved ones, my wonderful wife, my kids, my extended family, and member friends, they all have a virus that I've worked on inoculating myself from with analysis and much thinking and entertaining doubts.

I don't think there is a member of the church that doesn't have CD. The tell tell sign is a brain fog when confronted with conflicting information like evolution and Adam and Eve, all Noah's annuals, dinosaurs, changing first visions, why Blacks were banned, archeologically definitive proof of the BoM, the book of Abraham, the reason why God commanded murder etc. Etc


Sad. Just a little thing but a big thing to me. I'll never see the CD fog lift in this life.

That's right! Cognitive Dissonance is the lifestyle choice I have made and who are you to judge Me! So there! Na Nanna na na.

Why are you here?

I've been asked that question for the
last 23 years every now and then. It's good to have a place to discuss
The Church without constraints. Sure I'm a TBM but somewhat odd.

What constraints exist in the church that do not exist here?

How are you “odd” exactly?

Claiming to be odd is a way to excuse living with CD. "Odd" meaning quirky which is acceptable and CD meaning at odds with facts, which doesn't sound quite so good. Simple re-labeling.

"Cognitive Dissonance is the lifestyle choice I have made and who are you to judge Me!"

Cognitive Dissonance is only a sin if you act on it.

To me, a testimony literally IS cognitive dissonance. It is the assertion of beliefs held in spite of conflicting evidence. Having a normal, healthy conversation with someone in cognitive dissonance is impossible. It isn’t a little thing, it is everything when you are surrounded by mormons. Your inner strength is remarkable, but you might not see that when who you are is not being reflected back to you from those around you.

It begs the question: what would bring people out of the fog? Certainly not anything we say or using reason - it just makes people dig their heels in more. I don’t think it is completely hopeless, not with everyone. We left. Pretty sure I was once as completely brainwashed as they are (?).

I think the only way someone can get out is if they are willing to ask, "Is it possible that it ISN'T true?"

Once you accept that possibility, things come crashing down pretty quickly.

For me a testimony is nothing more than a hope that something better is coming your way. In the past religion did nothing more than provide a fictional story that a person could insert themselves into and find some kind of answer to the unknown, which provided some comfort.

But in today’s world, we have shown that the story is fictional, and many will hold to that fiction more so out of fear and emotion, rather than applied logic and reasoning. Could there be some truth to an afterlife or a creator, perhaps, but at this time nothing has been empirically proven.

What LDS Inc. has failed to keep up with is the issue of using testimony as the basis of keeping its members active, paying, and in line. As technology continues to march forward, it will continue to show that religious sects in general are simply fictional.

So if religion wishes to grow and give itself meaning, it needs to become a community first and the dogma needs to be more rational to what science and logic have proven. I would be more willing to join a group that had community and a desire to help all people.

In my youth I was immersed in both the dogma and community, but it was when I went on my mission that I could clearly see the difference between the dogma and the community. In my teen years I had weekly activities that were just plain fun, we had road shows, water skiing, winter tubing, camping, fishing, river rafting, basketball, softball, etc. Our leaders were our secondary parents, I could walk to any door in my neighborhood, knock on it, and know that help would be instantly there
My mission switched this and in the following years, community vanished, and testimony replaced it. It was then my critical thinking and logical ways caused me to abandon religion in general, because the one thing that kept me attending was gone……….community.

So no, testimony is not enough to keep LDS Inc. going, if you do not maintain and develop community, then it will experience a slow death. If you look at many of the comments on this board and others, a healthy portion of people stay in the church due to fear of family disruption and loss. However, there will always be followers, who will never move out of the fog, but there will not be enough to maintain the empire, so like all past empires, it will eventually collapse under its own weight.

Today probably CD = testimony.

I was discussing a somewhat controversial church topic with my mother a while back.
When she realized there was no GOOD explanation, she said, "Well, I've believed in the church my whole life. There's no point in stopping now."


That's not even cognitive dissonance, it's just...habit?

This is CD. It is a comment that has a bit more truth in her feeling. There is less side stepping out of CD and more direct I don't know it care.

My TBM mom is a lot like elderbrother's. I sort of think at least half of her testimony is habit. Wielding the testimony is a knee-jerk reaction.


The other half is that my mother has been a contestant in the Olympics of Faith for a long time and she has a lot of gold medals. She knows all the facts or at least has heard them. At the end of the day, it's just another chance to show she has a stronger testimony than anyone. She is "in it to win it". Testimony and faith are the antidote for facts.

Interestingly when I was a teen my mother told me how she got her testimony. She said as a girl she didn't have a testimony but then when she heard about temple marriage and being married for time and all eternity, she KNEW that was true. She was madly in love and about to marry the handsomest nicest man in the county but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. She said once she knew temple marriage was true, then she knew everything else was true too! Suddenly it all made sense!

The problem with the Mormon Faith Olympics, is that we, the children, are one of the prized medals, and when we stop being bright and shiny Mormon trophies for the Olympic champion parent to display, it does not go over well.

Cognitive Dissonance is hard to maintain. Our job is to provide reinforcements. Woe unto those who do not cooperate.

THIS x1000

"Our job is to provide reinforcements. Woe unto those who do not cooperate." Hahahahaha Yes. By kindly keeping our mouths shut!

It's not agreeing to disagree, it's aiding and abetting. And I do. I give Mom what she wants the most. Sealed lips.

I don't think there's anything more important or powerful for Mormons than their testimony. There's a reason they're taught to say "I know the church is true" from the time they're able to form a sentence. It's difficult to stop believing in something when you've told yourself and others it's "true" thousands of times.

I have a TBM friend who returned home early from her mission and told me how difficult it was. She had a rough mission in a very unsafe area. She also didn't like how the other missionaries were treated. Knowing that I am no longer a believer in the Mormon church and that she needs to be an example to apostate me, she concluded her remarks by saying, "I still have a testimony of the Book of Mormon." She usually ends with that after criticizing anything in the Mormon church.

Cognitive dissonance is something to try to get past, to overcome or work around, I don't believe there are any members who don't struggle with it, because we all have different opinions or beliefs, which makes recommend questions difficult to answer. But iv had a lived experience less than ideal and don't seem to fit into what mormondom most values which is family. But those with intact families confuse me. They get validation in every step. So worrying about dinosaurs doesn't seem to be a real worry at all, or a handicap.

Christianity as far as I've studied has been plagued with inequality from the beginning, and cognitive dissonance, 30 years after the passion Paul tried desperately to address it. And fix it, in corrinthians he questions the very foundation of marriage and even approaches critical theory. And skirts critical race theory. Addressing systemic issues. But doesn't quite get there. Religion doesn't seem to get at solving cognitive dissonance very well.

Some religions have 0 CD. You should expand your horizons. Outside of the trinity of a monotheistic God there are lots of beliefs that don't try to square celestial circles.

>Outside of the trinity...

When it comes to Cognitive Dissonance, that is one whale of an exception. The whole heaven and hell thing is pretty CD too. And grace, the necessity of baptism, the resurrection, the atonement, I could go on.

As for other religions, some American are well disposed toward Buddhism or Bahai, but that is because they are not familiar enough with them to be aware of the weird stuff.

They could be well disposed to this as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It influenced a lot of what they know.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2022 06:10PM by Third of Five.

Misplaced



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2022 01:13PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Community is more important than "testimony", but it looks like the Mormon community, which I think used to be pretty strong, is showing a lot of stress cracks lately.

"If we posh air enny hairdar cap'n, she's gunna blow!"