The difference between wishful thinking and truth

What is the difference between truth and wishful thinking and truth?

It is the same difference that exists between pessimistic thinking and truth.
Whether we want or don’t want something to be true or not has no bearing on its actual truthfulness.
Some people are depressed and believe that no one really loves them, even when they have many friends and family members who express repeatedly their undying love and spend large amounts of time trying to cheer them up.
Other people have narcissism and believe that they are the best at everything and that everyone is jealous of them, when in reality most people can’t stand their company and even tell them that to their face repeatedly.
Whether you are wishful of something or pessimistic about something does not mean that it is the truth.
Some fields of study contain theories which are supported by evidence that is very easy to analyze and assess because the evidence is directly observable.
Other fields of study contain theories which are supported by evidence which is very difficult to analyze and assess because the evidence is not directly observable.
When evidence cannot be directly observed, other methods for analysis ought to be employed. These other methods often include forms of evidence that are more difficult, if not impossible to verify. History, psychology, and theology are examples of fields that often rely on evidence in the form of personal experience witness accounts.
This subjects the fields to multiple types of bias, including memory bias, conformity bias, confirmation bias etc. This does not mean that all historical records are automatically unreliable and should be discarded unless the events were directly filmed. Neither does it mean that all psychiatric patient histories are automatically inaccurate and should be ignored.
These fields need to be investigated much like a criminal investigation in which evidence is gathered, analyzed and compared. In the end there really ought to be some “weighing” that occurs based on pragmatic algorithm.
For example—let’s say that everyone you know has given you some evidence that they don’t love you and also some evidence that they love you.
Its likely going to be pragmatic to assume that people generally love you, even if you can’t prove that they aren’t lying to you—even if sometimes they lie about other things. Its just not pragmatic to think that people don’t love you most of the time (there are exceptions of course).
When it comes to believing in some kind of continuation of the soul after death and some kind of benevolent creator and some kind of purpose to life—there is wishful thinking and there is pessimistic thinking. Neither of these kinds of thinking make one or the other “truthful”.
I personally see substantial amounts of evidence (the only type of evidence available in theological, psychological and historical fields of study) from multiple dissociated sources across all of human history on multiple continents and in differing cultures that supports a similar narrative involving continuation of the soul after death and some kind of benevolent Creator. I attribute the often relatively small differences among these accounts in much the same that attribute the differences in history. I attribute these differences to bias that naturally comes from first hand witness accounts-- whether it be from a witness to a crime, a historian, a depressed person recounting their symptoms, or a near death experience.
Then there is that whole pragmatic thing. For me its pretty straightforward—but that doesn’t mean that several doses of skepticism and reasonable doubt are not warranted for a thorough investigation-- and maybe even experiment with other modes of thinking and see what they do for you. I personally have been more satisfied after going through the process that I have.