My fellow Patriots,
Humanity, since the beginning of time, has been trying to answer the critical question: what is truth? Is truth how a person perceives a situation or an objective view of the situation? Jesus tells Christians that He is truth and that truth is objective. Of course, not everyone accepts that Jesus is God or even that God exists so they do not accept the Biblical definition of truth. For the majority of the history of humanity, people agreed that truth is objective and unbiased; and people were always searching for truth and working to remove bias from their research. In recent history, starting with people such as Charles Darwin and especially with Karl Marx, there have been movements, both in scientific and political circles, that undermine what people have known to be true for the entirety of history. It was commonly believed that there is a god who created and controls everything, but Darwin brought great doubt with his theories. Karl Marx brought communism to the world, which has always been based on lying to the common folk and tricking them into giving up their freedom. With these seeds of doubt being planted into people for decades, it is very difficult for people to know what is true. When people are presented with truth now, since they have been lied to for so long, they tend to face a strong mental battle that results with them lashing out at the presenter of truth. They then deny the information being true, because it would have to mean that they had believed a lie their whole lives. This phenomenon is called cognitive dissonance. Throughout this paper I will be discuss cognitive dissonance with the goal of finding out why people, when presented with irrefutable evidence of truth, still deny the truth.
The first thing that needs to be answered is “what is truth”? This is an age old question that there is no universal agreement on. Christians will say that Jesus and the Bible are truth, some atheists will say that there is an objective truth, and still other atheists will say that truth is subjective and different for everybody. The easiest part of the question about truth is whether truth is subjective or objective. To understand that, one must look at what the dictionary defines truth as. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary truth is defined as “the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.” That definition should be enough to dispel the idea that truth is subjective. Merriam-Webster is one of the most respected dictionaries of all times and is usually very careful with their definitions.
Regardless of the dictionary definition of truth, there are still groups of people that hold onto the idea that truth is subjective. The first well known person to consider truth as subjective is Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, and even his definition of truth is objectivity. According to Philosphy.Landers.edu (P.L.E.), Kierkegaard believed that “[h]uman existence cannot be reduced to objective reflection.” This does actually make sense. Everybody sees the world differently and experiences different thing throughout their life, but that still does not factor truth into the equation. Kierkegaard was not just a philosopher, but also a theologian and he seems to have forgotten that truth is not a human characteristic, it is something that is higher than this world and it transcends human existence with no regard to how humanity acts. As humans it is quite difficult to discover truth, since we are not perfect and are not all knowing. What is commonly though to be truth could be wrong due to a misinterpretation of evidence or a flaw in human reasoning. Because of that, not even having a majority of people agree on something can be grounds to consider something as true. This of course is not a popular opinion in the secular world we live in. No one wants to be told that they do not know something or that something they believe is a lie. It is probably from that desire to know everything and be in control of everything that the idea of truth being subjective gets its foothold into society. What Kierkegaard is talking about with his ideas of subjectivity is perspective, which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed.” The use of definitions can be overwhelming, but it helps people understand the mindset of people so everyone can understand. It helps to bring perspective to people. Perspective is inherently subjective and because of that truth can not be determined from subjectivity; that would contradict the very definition of truth. Kierkegaard, when talking about truth, tries to relate it to the human existence but forgets that, as mentioned above, truth transcends human existence.
Since it has been established that truth transcends human existence, that means that someone in the metaphysical has to have determined what is true. Thankfully, Christians have found that source of truth, in Jesus Christ. Now for non-Christians, obviously they are not going to accept Jesus as the source of truth, so that is where Christians need to prove Jesus as the Christ. In a letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate writes, “Upon Jesus Christ, whose case I had clearly set forth to thee in my last, at length by the will of the people a bitter punishment has been inflicted, myself being in a sort unwilling and rather afraid.” What is important is not why Pilate was writing Caesar, but who Pilate mentions in his letter to Caesar. He explicitly mentions Jesus Christ, and from the contents of the letter, it seems to be after Jesus was executed. That establishes that Jesus Christ did exist and that he died. What now needs to be see to prove the immortality and authority of Jesus Christ is whether he rose again. According to Michael Gleghorn who writes for Be Thinking there is a letter from Josephus, a first century non-Christian historian, ‘Called the "Testimonium Flavianum,’ the relevant portion declares: ‘About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he ... wrought surprising feats.... He was the Christ. When Pilate ...condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared ... restored to life.... And the tribe of Christians ... has ... not disappeared.’” Josephus was not a Christian which gives him more credibility to validate the Bible. Since he does not follow the teaches of the Bible, specifically related to Jesus Christ, for Josephus was Jewish, there is no influence other than his observations and research, to valid that Jesus rose from the dead. The Bible is actually known as a very credible historical document. According to Josh McDowell who tried to disprove the Bible, “After trying to shatter the historicity and validity of Scripture, I came to the conclusion that it is historically trustworthy. If one discards the Bible as being reliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity.” So the Bible, the existence of Jesus, and the resurrection Jesus have all been confirmed as true, using historical, non-christian writings and accounts of events. From that, we can conclude that Jesus is God and therefore is truth. That gives people an understanding of what truth is.
Now that truth has been defined, what exactly is cognitive dissonance? According to Jayne Leonard, who writes for Medical News Today, “Cognitive dissonance is a theory in social psychology. It refers to the mental conflict that occurs when a person’s behaviors and beliefs do not align. It may also happen when a person holds two beliefs that contradict one another.” While this is a great definition it misses the part of cognitive dissonance that effects people the most, and that is the mental conflict that occurs when someone is presented with information that contradictory to much of what they have been taught. The definition that Ms. Lenard gives makes cognitive dissonance seems like a fancy term for hypocrisy; which it can be, but hypocrites generally do not have a mental battle over their hypocrisy being pointed out. Generally when a hypocrite is called out, they will try to downplay or give excuses; when they realize that excuses are getting nowhere, they will then lash out. As seen nowadays with people experiencing cognitive dissonance, they can very quickly turn to verbal abuse or physical violence as their mind tries to wrap around the idea of believing a lie.
There many examples of people going straight from a conversation to violence. According to Lionel Du Cane of the National File, who was commenting on a viral video, “In the video, the punk-attired woman with a Mohawk screams at Trump supporters as a young man with a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat chants pro-Trump slogans. The woman approaches the Trump supporter and begins screeching in his face until a fellow protester walks up to her to take her away from the scene.” Now this is not a perfect demonstration of cognitive dissonance in the sense that the man with the MAGA hat was not presenting information to the to the Mohawk woman, but he was presenting slogans that she did not like. Because she did not like those slogans she did the mature thing and screamed in his face like a raccoon with rabies. Of course I am being sarcastic, it is quite ridiculous that someone would think that screaming in a person’s face for any reason would be considered acceptable. Unfortunately this is just one example; according to Amy Furr from Breitbart News, “Biden supporters vs. Trump supporters: Biden side screaming angrily and calling Trump supporters fascists while the Trump sides sings the Star spangled banner.” The point of these examples is not to show Biden supporters as crazy and Trump supporters as normal, but to give obvious examples of cognitive dissonance. People who are facing things that they do not like or are contradictory to their beliefs have three choices, listen respectfully to the differing opinion, walk away and ignore the differing opinion, or react violently and get in a person’s face and scream at them. Unfortunately many people react violently and show no signs of emotional maturity.
Not everyone who is experiencing cognitive dissonance reacts violently (thankfully); part of cognitive dissonance is an instinctive reaction to differing information. The most obvious example I can think of is when it comes to the debate between vaccines or no vaccines. This is a pretty seven split decision across the country according to a Gallup poll, “Americans' willingness to be vaccinated… has dropped 11 percentage points, falling to 50% in late September. This sharp decline comes after the percentage dwindled from 66% in July to 61% in August.” If roughly 50% of the US does not support vaccines, why is the other 50% of people so hostile and immediately accuse people of wanted to kill their children? Part of this reason could be that people have been conditioned to consider anti-vaxxers as crazy conspiracy theorists. It is very unlikely that 50% of the population are conspiracy theorists, but the social conditioning remains. According to Nancy Schneck, a former pediatric nurse, “The biggest reason people are hostile towards anti-vaxxers is because it has become popular to not have reasonable dialogue with others and instead to be rude and insulting towards people with whom you disagree.” This is the most common symptom of cognitive dissonance, as has been mentioned before. The point I am making is neither in support for or opposition to vaccines, but to give a common example that which shows how people react to differing view points.
Much of the cognitive dissonance comes from political issues, as seen from the last two examples. What makes politics a source for such discourse and rivalry? In an article from MVHS Oracle, students with different political views were interviewed and according to one of the students, Roo Joshi, “she would only engage in a political discussion with someone on the other end of the spectrum if she ‘saw the potential to shift a perspective,’” That seems to be the problem with much of the political discourse. It seems that too many people agree with Roo Joshi and are only willing to debate if they think there might be a shift in perspectives. What she, and many people forget, is that the point of a debate is not to change the other person’s perspective, but to change the perspective of the third-party listening to the debate. Very rarely is the perspective of one of the debaters changed, since they generally have a firm enough grasp on their position in an argument that they are not going to change their position. Because of that, people engaged in political discourse need to remember who is most likely to shift their perspective. That mindset could help both sides not to become frustrated with a debate, since according to MVHS Oracle, “...63% of liberal Democrats and 52% of conservative Republicans are likely to say they find political conversations with people they disagree with frustrating, according to the Pew Research Center.” This data shows that both sides get frustrated with political debates or “conversations” as the quote puts it. This frustration, while not necessarily cognitive dissonance can lead to it manifesting in a person.
Now that truth has been defined, as well as cognitive dissonance and what causes it, why do people still refuse to accept truth? According to Keith Kahn-Harris, who writes for The Guardian, “Denialism is an expansion, an intensification, of denial. At root, denial and denialism are simply a subset of the many ways humans have developed to use language to deceive others and themselves.” It seems that the hardships of life become too hard for people and they would rather attempt to create a reality that acts as a “safe space” for them to live in. In America, compared to the rest of the world, everyone has far easier lives. This leads people to spent more time living in the hypothetical and their own reality, than in the real world where people have to word long, hard hours to provide for themselves and their family. People become so wrapped up in their own perfect world, that the real world fades away and so does reality. When people are their own gods, they can construct their own reality; but when people step outside into the real world, they feel powerless and feel the need to act powerful or smart to compensate for their own personal insecurities. According to Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, who writes for Psychology Today, “When insecure people feel threatened by the possibility that other people are smarter than they are, they’ll feel irrationally challenged. Even if they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, they’ll put on a show with the hope that their razzle-dazzle will fool the crowd.” The same thing can translate to people who feel physically powerless; they are more likely to act more aggressive so to seem like they are stronger. When a feeling of intellectual insecurity is met with physical insecurity, it can lead to people to revert to what is more natural: physical aggression. This applies to the denial of truth and how people react when they are presented with truth that contradicts everything they though they knew.
The denial of truth can be dangerous to a society, because if enough people deny truth, then it is hard to find enough common ground to function as a society. If a society cannot function, neither can the government or economy that exists within a society. If a nation collapses or the economy of a nation collapses, there is always great suffering among the people as people struggle to provide food and shelter for their families. That can lead to people committing heinous acts just to procure basic necessities such as food and shelter. According to Eogabi Boance, “When people lack money and food, they become desperate. And desperate people do desperate things. Theft and robbery will skyrocket…” People who would normally never even consider committing a crime may be force to so they can live. All of this because people denied truth; these are of course extreme examples. Of course, not all truth (or facts) have the same affect on a society. It is far more important for people to understand that the traditional, nuclear family is the best way to raise children, than it is for people to understand that “[f]our times as many people were killed with a knife than with any kind of rifle in 2019, the FBI revealed in its Uniform Crime Report released late last month.” While knowing all truth is important, knowing what issues are more critical to defend is more important.
In this day and age, where people tend to be more insecure and more arrogant, fighting for truth is not an easy fight. It starts at the foundation of determining what truth is, and Christians should be playing a central role in the fight for pushing truth in the world and in the American society. All Christians who are willing to fight, should research and learn how to prove that the Bible and Jesus are the foundations for all truth and because of that, truth is objective. Christians need to then learn how to debate people and understand what type of person is more likely to have their perspective swayed, the person they are debating or the people listening to the debate. That will help not just Christians, but anyone who is engaging in debate with people, to not become frustrated with the person they are debating. Becoming frustrated and turning to personal attacks is always a sign that the debate is over, and that the person hurling insults has lost. The fight for truth is important to, not just Christians, but to those who want to protect the America society. Of course, that becomes difficult for many people who are not Christians, yet believe in an objective truth, since they have no real foundation for what truth is. That is where it is the role of the Church and Christians to reach out and spread the Gospel, first to those who believe in an objective truth, then, with the help of additional Christians gained from those with an understand of the objectivity of truth, spread the Gospel to those who believe in the subjectivity of truth. As shown earlier, the survival of a society is based on whether the battle for truth is won, and only Christians have full arraignment of intellectual tools needed to win the fight. So Christians, stand firm in truth and may the God of all understanding be with you as the battle over the minds of all people, for the survival of society, and for the advancement of the Gospel is fought in this very day and age.
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