© 1994 Ann Bendall
© 1994 The Brotherhood of Man Library
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:
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.
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.
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!
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. UB 103:4.3
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.
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 advice on this technique:
“But let me warn you against the folly of undertaking to surmount temptation by the effort of supplanting one desire by another and supposedly superior desire through the mere force of the human will. If you would be truly triumphant over the temptations of the lesser and lower nature, you must come to that place of spiritual advantage where you have really and truly developed an actual interest in, and love for, those higher and more idealistic forms of conduct which your mind is desirous of substituting for these lower and less idealistic habits of behavior that you recognize as temptation. You will in this way be delivered through spiritual transformation rather than be increasingly overburdened with the deceptive suppression of mortal desires. The old and the inferior will be forgotten in the love for the new and the superior. Beauty is always triumphant over ugliness in the hearts of all who are illuminated by the love of truth. There is mighty power in the expulsive energy of a new and sincere spiritual affection. And again I say to you, be not overcome by evil but rather overcome evil with good.” UB 156:5.5
Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual reflex. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one’s spiritual life with one’s fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The factors of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious. UB 100:1.8
Long before psychologists were invented, the Catholic Church utilized cognitive dissonance to convert those who were not “believers”. The Church knew that, even if a person did not have faith at the outset, if they behaved as if they did, eventually faith would follow. Hence, the Church set up a conflict between a person’s belief system and their behavior, and more often than not behavior won out, with the result that the person became a practising Catholic.
This technique has not been lost on other religious organizations which also practice cognitive dissonance to win converts.
Let’s face it there is not going to be any growth without pain. Have a look at Jesus’s life. Boy did he know pain!
Throughout this and the two following years Jesus suffered great mental distress as the result of his constant effort to adjust his personal views of religious practices and social amenities to the established beliefs of his parents. He was distraught by the conflict between the urge to be loyal to his own convictions and the conscientious admonition of dutiful submission to his parents; his supreme conflict was between two great commands which were uppermost in his youthful mind. The one was: ‘Be loyal to the dictates of your highest convictions of truth and righteousness.’ The other was: ‘Honor your father and mother, for they have given you life and the nurture thereof.’ However, he never shirked the responsibility of making the necessary daily adjustments between these realms of loyalty to one’s personal convictions and duty toward one’s family, and he achieved the satisfaction of effecting an increasingly harmonious blending of personal convictions and family obligations into a masterful concept of group solidarity based upon loyalty, fairness, tolerance, and love. UB 124:4.9
Look at the price he paid for his beliefs and values! And above all, look at the price he paid for adhering to a firm belief in the giving of the utmost of respect for the free will of every person he knew, including the members of his family. He knew that, in his love for them, and theirs for him, he had a chance of persuading them; of swaying their opinion a little more in the direction of reality. He desisted. He awaited their making up their own minds. And he suffered.
Jesus personally knew all about conflict:
“Forewarn all believers regarding the fringe of conflict which must be traversed by all who pass from the life as it is lived in the flesh to the higher life as it is lived in the spirit. To those who live quite wholly within either realm, there is little conflict or confusion, but all are doomed to experience more or less uncertainty during the times of transition between the two levels of living. In entering the kingdom, you cannot escape its responsibilities or avoid its obligations, but remember: The gospel yoke is easy and the burden of truth is light.” UB 159:3.7
Despite the fact that, “All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life—it is a species of civil war in the personality” (UB 111:4.11), and that it causes lots of difficulty for our seraphim, “Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence; the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race;” (UB 111:7.5), conflict is, nevertheless—natural. Gosh, right from the time we are young children we have inner turmoil:
Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven. UB 103:2.7
The progression of religious growth leads from stagnation through conflict to co-ordination, . . . UB 100:5.2
. . . New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings. UB 100:4.1
The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. . . . UB 155:5.11
Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving. UB 100:4.2
So it looks as if we cannot happily chant an affirmation like, “it is my will that Thy will be done,” fold our arms in ecstatic pleasure and await the scenic ride to Paradise. Sorry! That is not the way to perfection. After deciding to make the decision that we truly want our will and God’s will to be so alike that they cannot be individually identified, we have heaps of work to do for a long, long time to come. And we might as well get started.
I have decided that the best approach for me is, firstly to look at every value and belief I hold. All my attitudes towards me, others, life. All my beliefs as to what the world and others are in relation to me. I will have a wander down memory lane, at the same time bringing up to consciousness every relationship I have ever had, every impactual experience. Having done all of this, I will have a good look at each and every little thing. Each belief and value - how does it fit in with what I know Jesus and God would like me to be? And if my behavior needs modifying as a result of discovery of a lovely spiritual value placed in my being by my Thought Adjuster—then there will be CONFLICT and COGNITIVE DISSONANCE! I am going to “bite the bullet”, hang on for dear life to Jesus and change the behavior.
Perhaps a number of my stories of my life to date need rewriting to have me portrayed in a more realistic light —rather than martyr-victim, or saint-hero? Are there any folks I might have been blaming for me and my life? Any folks that I have not forgiven? Any I do not love? Any situations which need a bit of gratitude extended to my Thought Adjuster, seraphim, Jesus, or the next door neighbor?
I may become upset as I face (with the help and love of my Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth) certain rotten mistakes I have made in life. Jesus’ kind words will come in handy then:
Do not become discouraged by the discovery that you are human. Human nature may tend toward evil, but it is not inherently sinful. Be not downcast by your failure wholly to forget some of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in eternity. Lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your destiny, a universe expansion of your career. UB 156:5.8
I am not going to rush over this. I have lifetimes to complete these tasks. I will take one value or belief at a time and examine it objectively. I will discard the outdated one. I am not going to concern myself with what to replace it. My Thought Adjuster is waiting for me to discover its replacement—the spiritual value. I cannot discover it until I remove the garbage hiding it.
And although I will be disappointed in myself if I get cognitive dissonance and opt for the easy way out - keeping the old behaviour, value, belief, lack of mercy etc.—I know that my seraphim and Thought Adjuster will share my disappointment, that they have made careful note, and if it is really important for me to now discard the lesser behaviour, there will be heaps of cognitive dissonance, forcing me to adopt the spiritual value and change my behavior to accord with it. If the behavior is undesirable, but not greatly affecting my growth, I will trip through the rest of this life, conflict free in relation to that behavior, and as soon as I reach the mansion worlds there will be the cognitive dissonance to await me, all ready to be worked on in the aeons of time ahead.
Article in Innerface International: https://urantia-book.org/archive/newsletters/innerface/vol1_4/page3.html
Cognitive dissonance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance