This video explains the origins of many religious beliefs, and why those origins are not trustworthy avenues to truth. Human cognitive bias is well-documented for its power to push men into belief, even when those beliefs have been entirely fabricated out of nothing. An example case from the peer-reviewed literature (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1957) is discussed to show how this happens, and under what conditions. Then a talk from the LDS church is presented as a textbook example of how psychological conditioning can exploit this exact effect to create belief in a religious faith. Cognitive bias is a great way of generating belief, but a lousy way of generating knowledge. Unfortunately, religion gives higher priority to belief, so it does not matter how manipulative the "proof" for God may be. Anything that generates converts is happily exploited, while skepticism is always shunned. This is where religious converts come from. The only way to stop it is to educate people on their own psychological fallibility.
Keywords: atheism, LDS, church, mormons, religion, insufficient, justification, why, we, believe, psychology, Anti, Citizen
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