The Truth Process

The human brain is capable of simultaneously upholding contradictory conclusions. Usually, one of the conclusions is more “preferred” and so the brain seeks for and validates evidence to support this preferred conclusion; meanwhile it does not seek for and even invalidates data that threatens this preferred conclusion. This phenomenon is called “motivated reasoning”, it is a well-documented phenomenon. Sometimes the evidence for a non-preferred conclusion is so compelling that our brain has a difficult time invalidating or ignoring it. Our brain becomes exhausted trying to make come up with ways to invalidate or ignore the evidence. This is particularly difficult when the repercussions of the non-preferred conclusion are particularly severe or when the non-preferred conclusion logically drives us to change our behaviors. Rejecting compelling evidence which supports a non-preferred conclusion OR accepting non-compelling evidence which supports a preferred conclusion requires ...

Question one: When someone is suffering and the solution to fix their suffering is very simple, why doesn’t the Creator just tell people how to make their suffering go away? Answer: (subject to adjustment): Similar to Einstein’s view of God, I think God is mostly a hands off parent (isn’t interfering with agency and natural laws most of the time). He formed/evolved our brains and expects us to use them to figure stuff out on our own. Prayer/meditation, religious ordinances and living morally are activities which can promote conditions of lessened suffering and which can allow us to use our brains more effectively to improve our circumstances if we diligently seek to improve our circumstances. Also, though it may sound heartless, our suffering is less than a billasecond relative to our eternal timeline. God is more concerned about suffering/conditions that will last for eternity. Question two: Does God want us to suffer? Answer: The point of mortality is to allow us to ha...

Throughout time and history there are many people who have quit being religious or switched religions or people who were weren't religious who have chosen to become religious. From that perspective,there is nothing new under the sun. All of these people, in all three circumstances, live their lives and someday they die and the world goes around the sun again and again. Whatever you do, do what brings you the most joy. Life is short and eternity is uncertain. If leaving religion is the greatest opportunity for joy in your life-- then pursue it, try it out. At the very least if religion was making you miserable, then you were doing it wrong-- at most it was because religion is a disgusting filthy evil rotten thing that needs to be destroyed to free humans who are bound down to a false superstitious hope. If that makes you happy then choose to believe in it to the best of your ability. There is plenty of "logic" and evidence out there to demonstrate flaw...

There is a huge error in theological reasoning. A similar one is still very prevalent in medicine. The reasoning is that if you do or think something and then you feel good, it be because what you thought about or did was a true treatment or true idea. This method can make sugar pills into a healing balm. It can also make heaven become a giant fuzzy field of baby kittens into "truth". This is delusion and placebo. It is what I call "pseudo-spirituality", it is VERY prevalent in nearly all religious cultures. It used to more prevalent in medical and psychological cultures, but it's being increasingly identified and slowly becoming less prevalent. I hope the same thibg happens in religion. I myself was a contributed to this line of thinking for many years, but have abandoned it when I recognized it. It is difficult to let go of because it makes us feel good, but like you said-- it's unreliable and it can occur with just about any idea, just like it can occu...

someone said " No religion has a monopoly on strong spiritual experiences." This opening statement is something that DIRECTLY confronts a unspoken cultural belief held my many traditional members of the church. It is however, very true. There are many people within the church who are of the opinion that any spiritual experience had by any person not belonging to the church must be either delusional or deceptive in nature. There are plenty of commonly accepted traditional ideas passed down among members of the LDS church that I do not believe, and the idea that mormons have a monopoly on any kind of spiritual experiences is one of them. Someone said:  People often get intense, personal, spiritual, confirmations of religious truths they believe in.  Houston, Texas offered a very diverse religious population. I interviewed all shapes and colors of Christianity, but also got to meet with people who identified as Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Sikh, just to name a few. During m...

We have come a long way through scientific discovery, but we are still just like babies when it comes to understanding the universe around us. Not long ago, the majority of all medicine was more wrong than right; more harmful that beneficial. Not long ago, nearly all scientific theories have now been proven incorrect... several times over. In another 100 years, they will probably all be overturned several more times. But what of theology? What of the theories of the soul? We have no commonly accepted method to test these theories, as we do with the theories in other fields. Most logical people examine the pool of ideas and find muddied waters. If they taste it, they often get a mouth full of putrid liquid. The cautious ones spew it out and stay clear of the pool. "It is rancid! Do not drink it!" they may cry.  And they are right. Over the centuries, much like medicine and the many fields of scientific study, religion has become full of bias, bizarr...

If there is a God, and this God does communicate with us... why then is religion so messy at times? Some people see the mess and take it as evidence that there is no God and that ALL aspects of ALL theological theories are 100% fraudulent. I have another theory to propose. This theory can be illustrated with an analogy. Image a beautiful river with a pure and clean head that begins at the left. Then there are pools of water that drain into the river. By the time the river gets to the right... its not as pure as it used to be. Sometimes it is absolutely filthy. Feel free to see my ideas about what some of these pools may be. (see illustration below). Overall, for me, drinking water is better than the alternative, but its probably best to filter it a bit (or put a few pool-dams in). Its good to have an idea of what needs to be filtered or dammed off. There are those who don't filter their water at all, and after one taste, spew it out and never drink again. I pe...