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Cognitive Dissonance. Can The Urantia Book help?
Ann Bendall, BA, Dip. Psych. Australia
Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental confusion/conflict caused by having inconsistency between values and behavior.
Because nobody likes to live with constant inner turmoil, most folks will seek some way to resolve their inner conflict. And, most commonly, rather than changing their established behavior patterns, they will modify their beliefs and values to make them consistent with their habitual actions.
Why is it that we opt for change of behavior as an alternative to be avoided if at all possible? Perhaps the reason for this is that behavior is overt, public, conspicuous. If we change our behavior, other people will notice, and may not necessarily approve. We might get ostracized by our friends, members of the groups to which we belong, maybe even our family (similar to that which occurred in Jesus' life). So we simply change our values, or relegate them to a level of non-importance. We can do this in a number of ways, examples of which are:
1. We can say and believe that we truly want to do God's will. Jesus says the only way to do this is to love one another as he loves us. So we have to embrace this value. We might state that we know this is really the best way to behave, but it is really impractical and too idealistic in the current state of the development of this planet. Then we can feel comfortable once again in disliking lots of our brothers and sisters.
2. We rewrite the commandment to say - love the God within one another as Jesus loves us. Then we can happily go out, being really good Christians, being seen to be so loving, loving God like mad every time we meet person, at the same time assuring ourselves that it is absolutely impossible for any normal loving person to love the individual themselves.
3. Now what if we were in a group which really wants to do God's will, knows Jesus' one commandment , but really feels the need, as part of our group identity, to disown a few people from the family of God? Simple!
We can decide that these folks are decidedly non-moral. It is highly likely they have never made a single moral decision in their life, hence they cannot have a Thought Adjuster, they are not survival material, indeed, they are just an animal. Or perhaps the person is insane, so their Thought Adjuster and seraphim have headed for the mansion worlds long ago, complete with soul, personality - the whole box and dice of that person - and we are only dealing with the human shell. Alternatively, from reading The Urantia Book very carefully, we conclude this person is totally iniquitous. All that the Ancients of Days are waiting for is for the human vehicle to stop functioning, and then any remaining vestige of that person is finito. They already are dead; they just wont lie down.
Through the process of changing our values and beliefs, we can concoct an infinity of stories to ensure that our behavior will remain unchanged. Then, with behavior agreeing with values, we will have no conflict and no cognitive dissonance. Unfortunately, a concomitant result of such a decision is that we will have no growth!
It seems so much easier to continue with our current behavior, and have our friends and group members feel smug and comfortable. It is much harder to say, "I have decided to love the sinner and hate the sin. As a matter of fact, I have decided to become a mercy minister, just like Jesus , and opt for it being an error rather than a sin". We could lose our friends by such a stance!
Setting our moral ideals too high
"The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one's moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one's highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him." (1133).
Sometimes we set our personal standards for achievement too high. We are constantly failing--not behaving as we would wish to. We may have been striving for a perfection which we simply cannot achieve at this point in time.
Rather than experiencing disappointment, we can realistically resolve our cognitive dissonance by setting achievable goals, or alternatively by establishing a series of lesser goals to finally reach our ultimate goal. This spiritual growing can be really painful at times! We learn not to make it impossible.
Self-Deception
A decidedly ineffective way of resolving cognitive dissonance is to stifle or suppress the lesser value with a self-deceptive claim to adherence to the more spiritual value. Jesus gave
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