bible and theology on Cognitive Dissonance

As soon as we know that we are wrong, we aren’t wrong anymore, since to recognize a belief as false is to stop believing it. Thus we can only say “I was wrong.” Call it the Heisenberg Uncertainty Prin...

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

We are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be.

It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen

Self-deception is a major part of what defeats spiritual formation in Christ. In self-deception the individual or group refuses to acknowledge factors in their life of which they are dimly conscious. ...

Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself.

It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.

Our goodness is our biggest self-delusion, and all of us seem to be living with it.

Many times men criticize us when we actually are following the Lord. Outside praise or criticism is inconsequential; but the testimony of our quickened conscience is momentous.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen …PS. IF YOU THINK I’M WRONG—about how we think we’re good people...

Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.

One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behavior change often precedes changes in attitude and feelings.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am...

We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy...

Everybody believes that their reality is the real real reality.

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.

Shame has two conflicting instincts. It needs to isolate and hide, and it needs a community in which to be transparent. Hiding, of course, usually wins. It is the easier and more natural of the two. B...

Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

Religion says, "I obey; therefore I am accepted." Christianity says, "I’m accepted, therefore I obey."

The simple truth of our being gets lost in the metanarratives we spin. We become the fictions we live. Consequently, our way of being in the world is so false and unnatural that our presence is thorou...

“I’m not a good person” is a shockingly countercultural thing to say. We all want to think we’re “clean” and that we’ve avoided whatever “big sins” are on our own personal lists. But we trust ourselve...

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

A police officer pulled a driver aside and asked for his license and registration. “What’s wrong, officer,” the driver asked. “I didn’t go through any red lights, and I certainly wasn’t speeding.” “N...