Cognitive dissonance, slander machines, and the Bystander Effect

Winter Christian #13

Evil doesn’t work the way people think. Those who commit it boldly know a principle of human nature that few good people can warp their head around: evil creates a blind spot in the public mind.

In this series we’ve been talking about the role of scapegoating in the Tribulation, because they’re deeply tied together. Today I want to add another psychological layer to the story, which will help explain why the world has no choice but to dive deeper into absurdity as it prepares to kill the fundamentalist Christians who refuse to go along with its Aquarian Age narrative, and why most people will do nothing to stop it, even though they know it’s wrong.

The most important tool of a con-man is the ability to generate cognitive dissonance in the listener. The Winter Christian aims to remove all cognitive dissonance from their own lives (and their friends), and so is always on the lookout for con-men. We want to embrace reality in simple terms, by using the Bible and the Holy Spirt as our guides. When we do our job, we destroy the game being played by con-men, and that’s one reason they have to slander us: to protect themselves from being exposed. But this becomes more interesting as we look at the role that cognitive dissonance plays in the larger psychological war happening today.

You wouldn’t dare pop the bubble, would you?

Let me remind the reader that “con-man” is short for Confidence Man, and that “cognitive dissonance” is defined as the psychological effect that happens when your mind tries to deny reality because the situation is too uncomfortable to acknowledge. Confidence Men pull off their outrageous scams precisely because they know people would rather turn a blind eye to a problem than confront somebody, especially if they act confident. People don’t want to acknowledge that they’ve lost track of what’s happening. Confidence Men exploit this every time, because confidence signals that everything happening makes sense. Whenever you’re “under their spell” you are experiencing cognitive dissonance. This effect wears off over time, unless it is compounded by ever-greater levels of discomfort, matched by increasing levels of confidence being projected.

This one phenomenon explains a lot about today. In politics, economics, business, social media, podcasting, and the so-called “Awakening” movement, people are drowning in cognitive dissonance, and con-men are taking advantage everywhere. The two go perfectly hand-in-hand. We are steeped in con-men, as the “Information Age” has morphed into the “Interpretation Age”. Instead of teaching you about reality in a way you can digest, using verified sources and logical conclusions, the new breed of “experts” bombard you with half-truths and untested claims, never proving what they say, but always making you feel stupid if you question them. The more duped a person is, the more they buy into the scam because they can’t afford to admit they’ve been had. The ultimate example today is probably the Flat Earth movement, which is constantly being debunked and exposed, but is always doubling down on fast-talking gibberish, insults, and false dichotomies (ie. “then you must believe everything NASA says!”)

Scapegoating is denying reality

Liars and crooks love to blame innocent people for their own sins, because this creates a strong sense of cognitive dissonance. It’s so outrageous to see somebody blame the victim that it shuts people’s brains down; they can’t accept that they’re witnessing evil. It’s like a state of shock.¹ After all, if an observer allowed themselves to acknowledge the reality of the situation, they would feel obligated to stand up, get angry, and possibly fight the evil—which presumably would lead to them becoming the next victim (who will then get blamed as well). This is why confronting con-men requires a high degree of courage. Subsequently, this is why the New Testament condemns cowards (Rev 21:8), and why Jesus consistently calls for his followers to be fearless:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

—John 14:27

The Winter Christian thrives on bursting the protective bubble called cognitive dissonance, by calling out the perpetrator and framing evil correctly. Once you pop, you just can’t stop!

It makes a loud noise and frightens people. They’ll think you’re a jerk. It’s very rude. It can’t be undone. All of these aspects are funny to the Winter Christian.

One of the ironies of con-men is that they find more success as their plots become more extreme. That’s because cognitive dissonance thrives on extreme situations. Logically, this is unavoidable, because the more uncomfortable the situation, the less people are willing to acknowledge what’s going on.

This is why satanic social engineers must invert all of reality at some point. They’ll even generate extra levels of unnecessary dissonance to trap people into a paralyzing world of paradox. They’ll say things that are blatantly the opposite of reality, and then show you that it’s a lie, just to dare you to start questioning them. We’ve been there for a while, and it’s been labeled “Clown World”. But it’s much more serious than that, and it’s leading to a genocide.

Framing innocent people as worthy of death and pouring guilt upon them generates the most intense degree of cognitive dissonance possible. This is why human sacrifices were conducted in public, and why they chose virgins and innocent people specifically. Entire civilizations have been built on cognitive dissonance, as they multiply their sins and hide from the truth. That’s also part of Rene Girard’s model. It’s something the spirit of antichrist specializes in. If you preach “tolerance” but persecute Christians for believing the Bible, you have cognitive dissonance. Today’s elites literally claim to be saving the world and preserving human dignity while they destroy natural resources and take away their rights. As the Tribulation draws near, things will only become more upside-down, satanic, and irrational.

I recently wrote about “paranoid projection” for this reason. I wanted to show how the world is terrified of Christians gathering together peacefully to protect themselves, because it proves that an evil mind interprets innocence as a threat:

The Bystander Effect

The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation, against a bully, or during an assault or other crime. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is for any one of them to provide help to a person in distress. People are more likely to take action in a crisis when there are few or no other witnesses present.

—Psychology Today (link)

Bystanders watch as the charred corpses of Anabaptist Christians are stabbed with a pitchfork. A Dominican priest stands by to bless the proceedings, acting as the Confidence Man who creates cognitive dissonance in the crowd by acting like everything is normal and good.

While this definition is true, it’s only half the reason why people stand by and do nothing while evil occurs in front of them. The other half is cognitive dissonance. People feel an instinctive—and cowardly—impulse to agree that something isn’t happening. If a large group of people all stand by and watch a crime being committed, they reinforce each other’s shared guilt, which in turn reinforces their conspiracy of silence. Even if people lament the events as being tragic, they don’t take meaningful steps towards interfering, or calling out the hypocrisy and evil of the perpetrators. Bystanders love to produce commentary, but they don’t want to “become a player” by putting themselves at risk.

If our thought experiment is accurate, as Christians are placed in the crosshairs of the Green World Order’s death machine, logical arguments will be few and far between. The New Inquisition, which drags us into the synagogues and questions us as if we’re terrorists or a “hate group”, will be so full of evil and cognitive dissonance that they will feel the urge to kill us just to stop us from popping their bubble.

The Winter Christian is the one who will celebrate this opportunity to suffer for Christ, to be a witness to bystanders living in the bubble, and to show the fearlessness of those who have already died and been born again.

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1. This is a major reason why parents often ignore signs that their children have been sexually abused, or why con-artists like Donald Trump can win even more approval from his followers after destroying the middle class and printing trillions of dollars to give to the 1%.