chapotraphouse

I had mormon missionaries try this tact with me, that at some point 'deep down' I knew that their truth claims were correct. I don't consider this a workable model, as it basically gives up the game, and forces us to work backward. 'Knowing deep down' or 'at an emotional level' is a common colloquialism but it seems to reifying a sort of compartmentalized cognition where there are multiple cognizers within and individual knowing different things and not communicating, which I don't buy.

I'm not even convinced cognitive dissonance is an actual thing, as it presupposes humans have a need for logically coherent world views, and given that 99% of humans are not even acquainted with the rules of formal logic nor do they use them in arriving at their individual beliefs, I don't see any reason we should experience discomfort when those rules are broken by our beliefs. The psychological studies that I've read that seem to show cognitive dissonance exists could just as plausibly show that people get uncomfortable when their views are publicly interrogated under some formalized system, which is already pretty obvious.