When one holds very strong opinions it is bound to happen that one of these will eventually run head first into another strongly held opinion. This happens to me most painfully when it comes to things like freedom of speech. It is something I defend strongly even when it is speech that is detestable. Then [...]
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Soon on my reading list after Mistakes Were Made is likely going to be The God Virus, by Dr. Darrell Ray. In it, he discusses how many religions can be thought of as parasitic memes–literally viruses of the mind, which take advantage of cognitive dissonance in order to thrive and propagate. Consider the Seven Deadly [...]
I don’t think children should be punished for allowing themselves to be indoctrinated, so I sent a token gift.
Are you an atheist? You’re going to hell. Are you a homosexual? Guess what, you’re going to hell, too. Wrong religion? Hell. Believe in God, but not Jesus? Hell. Bicycle repair man? Hell. Well, I guess not that last one, unless you are a bicycle repair man who is a murderer, but if you repent… [...]
This is my attempt to understand then distill and describe how the American legal system can be compared to the scientific method. While this may seem like an obvious notion (it certainly did to me) there is actually an entire field of legal study devoted to comparative law. Who knew? (clearly this Ernest Bruncken guy [...]
The issues surrounding the Skeptic and Freethought movements are an absolute carnival of cognitive dissonance and self-justification. It’s difficult to winnow down, but I’ll take one example. Remember, we all carry the notion that we are intelligent and sensible, and disconfirmation of that notion is a prime source of cognitive dissonance. Some family members of [...]
May 5, 1888 - A Conversation between Walt Whitman and Leonard Corning (who was a candidate for the pulpit of the local Unitarian church) recorded by Horace Traubel….. Walt: “And what may be the subject of your sermon tomorrow? Corning: “My subject? Why—the tragedy of the ages.” Walt: “And what may be the tragedy of [...]
Being nonreligious, I no longer say grace before meals, but I do appreciate the work of the farmer, the cook (typically myself) and, especially, nature. So as a parent, I want to convey to my daughter the appropriateness of thoughtful reflection on where our food comes from, but I also want to be clear that [...]
Last week I had a revelation. I was in a gas station bathroom projectile vomiting from eating a green hotdog “cooked” in the very same gas station (I was hungry and I will eat just about anything, though I won’t be eating any green hotdogs from that gas station anymore) when I saw a pamphlet [...]
This is the first of three planned posts, each dealing with a different aspect of cognitive dissonance. Due to the length and the detail needed to hit my points, I’ll be posting the sections separately. There once was a boy, who was given a pet box turtle. He wanted it to come out of its [...]
