cognitive dissonance?

TY.

That actually happens to me all the time but my response/interpretation of it is precisely the reverse of yours.

I like the real world that I am used to, but things keep happening that make me nearly sure God exists.

It's not just me, other people with me are witnesses with equal fascination of what has happened.

I am in utter disbelief of what I have seen lately.

I feel like my subconscious knows God really does exist but my consciousness doesn't want to know.

If I wanted or needed a refresher course on cognitive dissonance, Wikipedia is not the first place I'd go.

I prefer to call this phenomenon "mental compartmentalization," and I have seen it persist in people for years or decades. In 90-percent of their daily and working lives, people can and do make rational decisions, seek credible evidence as the basis for decisions, weigh and analyze that evidence, and then take sensible, practical actions. They do all of this dozens of times per day. And they do all this in spite of sincerely harboring strong beliefs in religious dogma (or in some paranormal, New Age, or other woo-woo ideas) that are irrational and demonstrably false. They have learned the clever trick of (metaphorically) walling off a section of their cerebral cortexes (cortices?) and letting wishful thinking and pious fantasy have free run in one section.

It's really difficult to say what event(s) might cause someone to knock the wall down and admit to himself or herself that the wishful thinking and pious fantasies are no longer comforting or satisfying, and that they are false, illusory. Yes, it could be an accumulation of evidence from the real world, on the other side of the wall. Or it could be that the rituals in which the wishful thinking and pious fantasies are expressed or acted out become stale and less emotionally or aesthetically satisfying. Or it could be some personal, world-shaking tragedy such as the death or terminal illness of a spouse or child, etc.

yeah, like all the atheists who compulsively come to a site designed for discussions of Religion and Spirituality because they want to save us from believing in the eternal virtue of love, that the universe has meaning and purpose, that there is a way to define good and evil that does not rely on brute force of the will to power. Go save somebody else. Your cognitive dissonance is showing.

Edit:

Jeff, been there done that. I guess my "compartmental wall" is indestructible. Too bad. I will continue to believe in the supernaturalness of love. As for evidence, don't you think it is somewhat disingenuous to suggest that all evidence in all subject areas must align to exactly the same criteria? Do you not acknowledge that a mathematical proof requires something different than knowing when to place a margin call? No, to me, that is the stranger compartmentalization, that those who freely use quasi-metaphysical theory in all those areas of life where it is rationally appropriate, come to religion and start demanding strict mathematical proofs. It is evidence to me of a compulsion to avoid what their deeper instincts are telling them, that there just might be something there.

I believe in God. I also understand cognitive dissonance. To me, it's a little misleading to say that you "know" something to be false or impossible when talking about God. You don't "know" that it's false any more than I "know" that it's true. We both have BELIEFS on the subject, but that's ALL they are, and neither of us can prove what we believe to be true. I'm comparatively content with that for a variety of reasons that I won't go into, and I do not generally experience the effects of cognitive dissonance. I have moments where I'm simply not sure, but I know that there's no one who can actually ANSWER my questions, and for the moment, my particular cognitive framework is functioning nicely.

That is the problem, you don't read and because you act hastily on incomplete information you come across arrogant, boorish, and pathetic.

"uncomfortable feeling between what one holds to be true and what one knows to be true...... that occur at the same time, or when engaged in behaviors that conflict with one's beliefs."

My belief system is just fine. I believe I should love God (what do you care whom I love?) and that I love others. There is nothing in my belief system that falters in that realm.

Zealots, although misguided, also don't believe they are straying from their belief system.

However, I would think that atheists that perisist in CONVERTing Christians from their belief system would have a serious case of cognitive dissonance. Why else would you CARE what I believe?

That was beautiful. And like the believers say, amen!

No thanks. Your pool is full of disease.