Cognitive dissonance

[Robyn Banks]

Michael Leunig's cartoon:

[Solly]

Ah ha ha. I have always wondered about the level of cognitive dissonance in atheists, who can't give up their homely hermetically sealed assumptions about the world.

Psa 59:8 But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.

[Robyn Banks]

Solly:
Ah ha ha. I have always wondered about the level of cognitive dissonance in atheists, who can't give up their homely hermetically sealed assumptions about the world.
My signature is apt in this regard. :smile:

[Solly]

Never heard of Frye, so i have just done a search. I like these snippets:

In 1982 Frye published The Great Code, which has since been translated into 22 languages. In it, he treats the Bible as a totally unified book, disregarding the scholarly agreement that it actually was written by dozens of writers in three different languages over a period of a thousand years. Frye declares that the coherence of the Bible's narrative as a whole is created by a "U-Shaped plot" typical of comedy. That plot begins with the Genesis creation of a harmonious family and garden state, is followed by a fall into a long alternation of historical disasters and triumphs, and concludes with a final ascent back to harmony in the eternal city of Jerusalem at the end of the book of Revelation. This U-shaped pattern also governs dozens of minor plots of fall and rise subsumed in the major one--for example the stories of Joseph, of Moses, of Ruth, of David, of Job, of Peter and of Paul--each of which functions as a "type" or prefiguration of what follows and of the encompassing whole. Frye discovers the same kind of unifying repetition or typology in the recurrence of specific images throughout the Old and New Testatments--e.g. the image of the tree, the ocean, the tower, the garden, the sheep and shepherd. Such repetitions of plot and image tie the many books of the Bible together, and also create a sense of deja vu and premonition, hinting that discreet events have some greater symbolic significance, that they are both themselves and not themselves, that time may be an illusion.

-that's a good biblical Theology way of doing things.

"The Bible begins by showing on its first page that the reality of God manifests itself in creation, and on its last page that the same reality is manifested in a new creation in which man is participant. He becomes a participant by being redeemed, or separated from the predatory and destructive elements acquired from his origin in nature. In between these visions of creation comes the Incarnation, which presents God and man as indissolubly locked together in a common enterprise." Words with Power, p135

[Zakath]

Cognitive dissonance - "A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat."

The praying fellow does not appear to suffer from conflict or anxiety. Nor does the fellow who knocked down his box. Actually, the cartoon seems to be about the persistence of belief rather than cognitive dissonance.

.

[Robyn Banks]

Solly:
that's a good biblical Theology way of doing things.
It's quite Child-ish. :smile:

Frye is heads and shoulders above most authors. A page of Frye is worth 100 pages of most others. "The Great Code" is compulsory reading.

Robyn

[Solly]

Today @ 12:00 PM
Robyn Banks:


It's quite Child-ish. :smile:

Frye is heads and shoulders above most authors. A page of Frye is worth 100 pages of most others. "The Great Code" is compulsory reading.

Robyn

I have just been skimming a couple of chapters that have been posted on an LDS site of all places. Certainly looks interesting. He'll have to go on the list, alongside Childs (who I will get to one day).

[Robyn Banks]

Zakath:
Cognitive dissonance - "A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's actions, such as opposing the slaughter of animals and eating meat."

The praying fellow does not appear to suffer from conflict or anxiety. Nor does the fellow who knocked down his box. Actually, the cartoon seems to be about the persistence of belief rather than cognitive dissonance..
The cartoon is definitely about the persistence of belief, in the face of apparently contradictory fact. Is belief not contingent on fact at all? Or does it depend on fact in a complex way?

The theory of cognitive dissonance is a statement on 'how' the person persists with his belief in the face of conflicting fact.

Your definition of "cognitive dissonance" was a bit narrow. That is only one example of the phenomenon.

The theory is an attempt to explain internal conflict (‘dissonance’) resolution. Cognitive elements are the things a person knows or believes about himself, his behaviour or environment. Dissonance arises when the person is faced with having to choose between inconsistent or incompatible cognitions. In the cartoon, this is his belief in the box, and the sceptics' disbelief in the box.

Depending on the magnitude of the dissonance, he will want to reduce it in one of 3 ways:
(1) Avoiding the conflicting cognition, by avoiding situations in which it arises;
(2) Social support by association with a group that provides a worldview to deal with conflicting information, propaganda against alternative groups, and the ability to explain most major problems in terms consistent with its cognitive system; and
(3) Explanatory schemes designed to rationalise the source of dissonance.

I'm not sure how he did it. But he did it. And most people prefer to do the same, at least in the short-term.

Hope that helps.

Robyn