Religion and Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of holding two contradictory beliefs. We all have ‘em. Common ways of dealing: abandoning one of the beliefs (not very common), rationalising (more common), creating some third overarching belief that incorporates the other two (quite common). Religions are masters of the third option, devoting much energy to it:

• In Christianity there’s the dissonance of the primitive worldview in the [early] Hebrew Scriptures and a more advanced view in the New Testament. Solution: doctrines of old and new covenants/supercessionism, and a thriving apologetics industry designed around patching the holes in the various contradictions.
• In Judaism there’s the dissonance of the primitive worldview of the [early] Hebrew Scriptures and a more advanced view in the Talmudic era. Solution: reinterpretation of many stories as metaphorical or as softer than the original (eg. in the Elisha and bears story the rabbis read “children” as “people who behaved like children” [Sot 46b]), the restriction of laws (rom the Bible it seems getting stoned is very easy — in Jewish law it’s almost impossible), and a thriving apologetics industry designed around patching the holes in the various contradictions.
• In Islam there’s the dissonance of contradictory verses in the Koran. Solution: earlier verses (the more peaceful ones) are said to have been revealed earlier and then superseded by latter ones (the more jihadist ones).
• In Buddhism, there’s the dissonance of rich temples like the Potala and peasant children who go through rubbish to survive barely 2 steps away. Solution: promises of Nirvana.
  
• In new-agey beliefs there’s the dissonance of the supposed benevolent universe (eg. the infamous law of attraction) and the harsh reality. Solution: blame the victim (with a concept like karma) and go bathe the billions you’ve made from DVD sales.

However it’s a mistake to think cognitive dissonance is just found in religion, or even that religion has some sort of monopoly on it. I think the greatest example of cognitive dissonance is the Pravda (see pic at the top of the post). This was the main Soviet [propaganda] newspaper, aptly named Truth. The stories it published (namely “everything’s great”) literally had no connection to what was happening on the ground. When Stalin deliberately starved 8 million Ukranian peasants, thousands poured into the cities. There must have been a moment when a citizen of (say) Kharkov would read the Pravda (“all’s great”), glance over it to see a corpse on the street, shrug and go home.

Cognitive dissonance comes very easily to our brains since they didn’t evolve to be optimal. The main culprit is any sort of dogma; where pre-conceived ideas are deliberately NOT updated by new data. It’s very hard for people enamoured by an idea to say “hey, there’s a contradiction here, maybe this scripture ain’t from God” or “hey, maybe the famines/purges are signs Socialism isn’t working”. And just because someone isn’t religious (or dogmatic in politics) doesn’t mean they’re absolved. Chances are most people hold dissonances that are only slightly less egregious than the Pravda one.