# Actual Freedom – Definitions

# Definitions ## Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Dissonance Theory: • [Richard (based on several web sources)]: The ‘cognitive dissonance theory’ suggests that when experiences or information contradicts existing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs or feelings, differing degrees of mental-emotional distress is the habitual result. The distressed personality is predisposed to alleviate this discord by reinterpreting (distorting) the offending information. Concurrent with this falsification, core beliefs tend to be vigorously defended by warping discernment and memory ... such people are prone to misinterpret cues and ‘remember’ things to be as they wish they had happened instead of how they actually happened. They may be selective in what they recall, overestimating their apparent successes, while ignoring, downplaying, or explaining away their failures. However it is more than merely a foolish head-in-the-sand psychological aberration, because the new, the fresh, the novel is oft-times met with determined resistance, disagreement, opposition and hostility. Indeed, the record of history shows many an occasion where someone who dared to question conventional beliefs was tortured, stoned, rent asunder, burnt at the stake, or otherwise horrifically put to death. It is difficult to comprehend the extent and depth of the brutal ignorance and downright stupidity required of the great mass of people who, unable to grasp innovative things that were to their own advantage, fought to retain the existing mind-set which was inimical to their welfare. It is the strangest of incongruities in regards to human pertinacity that peoples will invent reasons and struggle to maintain a state of affairs that is detrimental to their own advancement ... even those conditions which enslave them. The scientific method has evolved, in a large part, to reduce the impact of this human penchant for jumping to such self-justifying yet erroneous conclusions. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The Diabolical Underpins the Divine: • Mr. Giordano Bruno’s proposal of a single infinite universe (published in the slender Italian book ‘On the Infinite Universe and Worlds’) was to be a most fatal proposition for him to make, in the judgement of the Papal Tribunal, and upon the order of Pope Clement VII he was burned alive (with his tongue in a gag) on February 17, 1600. • Mr. Michael Servetus (the Spanish theologian and physician known for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of blood) had unsuspectingly answered ‘do you doubt it’ to Mr. John Calvin’s leading question ‘then the Devil also must be God, substantially’ during the Protestant trial for his heresy. This opinion regarding the divine/ diabolical dichotomy was to cost him his life ... although Mr. John Calvin pressed for his beheading, he was burned alive by Calvinists on 27 October 1553. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• RICHARD: ... the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ would be better described as a ‘feeling-fed cognitive dissonance’ as it is not just a mental blockage which causes people to be unable to grasp innovative things that are to their own advantage and to fight so hard to retain the existing belief systems which are inimical to their welfare. It is the strangest of incongruities in regards to human pertinacity that peoples will invent reasons and struggle to maintain a state of affairs that is detrimental to their own advancement ... even those conditions which enslave them. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 30, 22 October 2003). RETURN TO DEFINITIONS INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity