11/30/2025

Emotional Thinking and the Battle for Our Souls

Every human being, no matter how self-controlled or rational he believes himself to be, is an emotional thinker. We like to imagine that our judgments rise from pure logic, but the sobering truth is that our thoughts are often shaped by how ideas make us feel—how they threaten our ego, challenge our habits, or expose our flaws. And whenever truth pierces too close to home, our fallen nature begins to whisper: Find a reason to reject this.

This is the ancient pattern of self-deception. It is as old as Eden, as common as pride, and as destructive as any sin in the human catalogue.

Like it or not, we are all emotional thinkers. So often, what we think and how we discern is at least partially determined by how things affect us, reflect on us, or cause us pain. When we don’t like opinions, doctrines, details, realities, proofs, or arguments that might reflect negatively on us, very often we resort to dishonest lines of reasoning to discredit such things. In other words, we come up with excuses as to why the information put in front of us should be doubted, invalidated, discredited, ignored, and even ridiculed.

Often, we try to discredit the source, motive, or reasoning without thoroughly or honestly considering things objectively. And we rarely take time to consider our own emotional reasons for this, nor the dishonest incentives we have for doing so.

In this essay, we will explore the whys, wherefores, and solutions for dealing with this most human tendency. This is a battle! — A war for our souls! So, it’s best if we know and understand what it is that we are really up against.

[If you are reading this via the subscription email, please click here to visit this post on my website to help out my website stats.]

The Emotional Roots of Dishonest Discernment

When we encounter evidence, doctrines, warnings, or criticisms that reflect negatively on us, we instinctively feel threatened. And we experience discomfort. That discomfort, if we are brave, honest, and humble, can become the catalyst for correction, improvement, and repentance. But for many, this becomes the motivation for even greater dishonesty and deviance.

Instead of examining the uncomfortable truth, we look for a way to escape it. We search for reasons why the message is flawed, why the messenger is suspect, why the timing is inconvenient, or why the implications are unfair.

This instinct is so universal that the scriptures repeatedly warn against it. Jesus described those who “seeing see not” and “hearing hear not” because their hearts had grown dull. (Matthew 13:13–15) The dull heart is not an unintelligent heart; it is a dishonest and unwilling one.

The Book of Mormon speaks even more directly: “They will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, because of the hardness of their hearts.” (2 Nephi 32:7)

When confronted with a discrepancy between one’s previously perceived reality and the harsher reality suggested by an outside source, we should seek honest reevaluation and humble discernment, rather than becoming resentful and defensive. But too often, this is the opposite of what happens. In most cases, when “great knowledge” is offered “in plainness,” if it somehow reflects badly on us or is inconvenient, we tend to reject it “because of the hardness of [our] hearts.” (2 Nephi 32:7, Alma 30:46)

As we persist in rejecting the truth, because of the hardness of our hearts, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved and is incrementally withdrawn. (Helaman 13:8) As this occurs, those who reject the light increasingly walk in darkness, but are almost entirely oblivious to it. While those who embrace the light repeatedly have the sad experience of discerning and witnessing this great darkness and blindness, again and again.

How We Discredit Truth to Protect Ourselves

When confronted with the possibility of a truth we dislike, we rarely attack the truth itself. That is too direct—too revealing. Instead, we attack everything around it:

• We question the motive of the messenger.
• We scrutinize irrelevant details to find a flaw we can amplify.
• We nitpick tone, style, personality, or delivery.
• We dismiss the evidence because it comes from “the wrong type of person.”
• We invoke slogans (“That’s just your opinion”) that shield us from accountability.
• We pretend neutrality while secretly refusing to engage the argument itself.

These tactics are evasions masquerading as discernment. They allow us to posture as rational while acting dishonestly. Let’s zoom in on each of these more.

The Tactics We Use to Avoid Uncomfortable Truths

1. Questioning the Motive of the Messenger

When a truth strikes too close to home, one of the quickest escape routes is to attack the motive behind the message. Instead of grappling with the substance of what was said, we speculate about why the person said it: “He’s just jealous,” “She’s trying to control me,” “They’re only saying that to hurt me.”

Motive-hunting allows us to dismiss the message wholesale without honestly and objectively examining the merit of the message itself. Yet scripture repeatedly shows that God often uses flawed, imperfect, or even reluctant people to speak needed truth (Jonah, Balaam, and Caiaphas stand as examples).

To obsess over motives is to let pride build a convenient shield against accountability. But, like it or not, we are always held accountable.

2. Scrutinizing Irrelevant Details to Find a Flaw

Another dishonest tactic is to search for some small, irrelevant flaw that can be magnified until it eclipses the argument. A typo, grammatical errors, a misremembered date, an imprecise phrase—anything that allows us to say, “See? If they were wrong about this little thing, I can ignore the bigger point.” This is the logical equivalent of rejecting a life-saving warning because the messenger’s shoes were dusty. Christ warned against straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:24); it is the very definition of intellectual hypocrisy.

Nobody is required to be perfect before being allowed to speak the truth.

3. Nitpicking Tone, Style, Personality, or Delivery

Instead of evaluating truth claims, we often evaluate the presentation. Was the tone too blunt? Too mean? Too emotional? Too egotistical? Too judgmental? Did the speaker seem confident, awkward, passionate, or reserved? Tone becomes the battlefield where truth goes to die. Yet God’s prophets have spoken in every possible voice—Isaiah poetic, Jeremiah mournful, Paul intense, Amos abrasive. Truth is not invalidated by its packaging. When we fixate on tone, we reveal not discernment but fragility and humanity.

I have also often seen proud academics haphazardly reject messages from less academic people. By their sophistication and credentials, they assume they will always be smarter than those of lower academic standing or those with a less academic approach. With these, if you lack academic polish, you will often be judged harshly, condemned, and rejected accordingly.

Of this, the Prophet Jacob declared: O that cunning plan of the evil one!  O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men!  When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.  And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. (2 Nephi 9:28 – 29)

4. Dismissing Evidence Because It Comes From “the Wrong Type of Person”

We often reject truth because it comes from someone we deem unqualified, unorthodox, sinful, uncredentialed, too young, too old, too plain, too flawed, or too unfamiliar. This is one of the most dangerous forms of pride because it elevates social or personal prejudice above truth itself. The Pharisees dismissed Christ, in part, because He was a carpenter’s son. Laman and Lemuel rejected Nephi, ostensibly, because he was their younger brother. The Nephites rejected Samuel because he was a Lamanite. He was a nobody. He wasn’t even a church leader.

Today, we often reject truth because the messenger lacks credentials, institutional backing, or glamor. But truth does not depend on the messenger’s respectability; it depends on reality.

Truth is truth regardless of the mouth it comes from. A dishonest man may occasionally speak accurately; a sinful man may offer a fantastic insight into moral clarity; an uncredentialed man may see what the educated overlook. Even the disreputable Caiaphas spoke prophetically without understanding the gravity of his own words (John 11:49–52). The Lord has never restricted truth to the pedigreed, credentialed, or institutionally approved.

Those who are honest and humble learn to evaluate evidence rather than personalities. They do not allow emotional prejudice to shield them from uncomfortable realities. As Jesus taught, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27)—which means they recognize truth even when spoken through unexpected, inconvenient, or unpolished instruments. They refuse to reject truth merely because their pride disapproves of its messenger.

As Isaiah predicted, the wicked will reject the emissary of light because “he has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:2-3, Mosiah 14:2-3)

We need to stop doing this.

5. Invoking Slogans That Shield Us From Accountability

Modern culture is full of ready-made escape phrases designed to end thought rather than encourage it. “That’s just your opinion.” “There’s just so much we don’t know.” “My truth is different from your truth.” “No one can judge me.” These slogans are not arguments; they are defensive spells cast against self-examination. They allow a person to retreat into subjectivity whenever objective truth becomes inconvenient. Such evasions are the opposite of discipleship, for Christ declared that the truth, not personal preference, sets us free (John 8:32).

6. Pretending Neutrality While Secretly Refusing to Engage the Argument

Perhaps the most subtle dishonesty is the posture of feigned neutrality. We act as if we are simply “not convinced yet” or “waiting for more information,” when in reality we have already emotionally decided to reject the claim. This is the hypocrisy of those who “halt between two opinions” (1 Kings 18:21), not because the evidence is unclear, but because choosing truth would require repentance. Neutrality becomes a mask worn by pride, a way to appear fair-minded while avoiding the cost of moral reevaluation or commitment.

To be fair, often there is evidence on both sides of an argument, which makes reaching a conclusion or verdict understandably difficult or premature. Or perhaps, you honestly admit that you don’t know enough about something to really claim an informed opinion. In such cases, I have often said, “Well, I tend to think this way on that, but I also don’t really think I know enough about it to really claim to have a sufficiently informed opinion.”

On the other hand, I’ve often seen people dishonestly claim neutrality as a passive-aggressive, diplomatic way to evade the argument, while secretly intending to resist or fight what the evidence clearly shows is true.

The Dishonesty Inherent in Defending Institutional Orthodoxy and Legitimacy

One of the most deeply rooted forms of dishonest discernment appears when people defend institutional orthodoxy—not because it is true, but because they need it to be true. Humans cling fiercely to the institutions that have shaped their beliefs and identity, especially religious institutions. Churches, traditions, and authorities become psychological anchors: sources of belonging, meaning, continuity, and social stability. Thus, any challenge to the legitimacy, purity, or correctness of a beloved institution is instinctively perceived as a threat—not merely to doctrine, but to self.

This is why people react with such intensity, anger, or denial when evidence arises that their favored church, party, or organization is flawed or corrupt. The reaction is not intellectual; it is emotional. It is a response rooted in fear, a fear that if this pillar falls, their entire worldview might collapse with it.

A major factor in this is fear of institutional, familial, and social estrangement. Another is the potential loss of the praise and affirmation that an institution gives them. As Jesus said, some “love the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43), and similarly, they love flattery more than truth. Therefore, they cling to institutional validation even when the truth clearly calls them elsewhere.

The primary barrier here is cowardice disguised as optimism. It is far easier to defend the institution as an optimist, no matter how questionable, than to confront the possibility that one has trusted the wrong people, misjudged past experiences, or built one’s identity on the sands of deception. The thought of being wrong in such massive ways, or of losing community, or of having to rethink one’s worldview, can seem terrifying. It is understandable that people would prefer to encounter reality through a rosier lens rather than confront the darkness, chaos, and danger it truly represents. And so, people defend their institutions with a zeal that has little to do with truth and everything to do with emotional comfort and survival.

Christ encountered this repeatedly. The Pharisees were not primarily defending doctrine; they were defending the system that provided them power, identity, and social dominance. They feared the truth because the truth would unravel the world they had built. It would undermine their popularity, power, and social standing. Likewise, in the Book of Mormon, the wicked priests of King Noah opposed Abinadi not because his message was unclear, but because accepting it would expose their corruption, destroy their standing, and force them to repent (Mosiah 12–13). Similarly, the followers of these wicked religious leaders often chose to maintain the comfortable status quo, with optimistic faith in their leaders, rather than confront the possibility that they were being deceived and led to death and destruction.

Modern institutions are no different. People often defend their church, political party, university, or social tribe out of fear and wishful thinking—not conviction. They instinctively sense that if the institution’s claims falter, they will face an internal reckoning that is far more painful than any external criticism. They would rather lie to themselves than face the chaos of reevaluating cherished convictions and assumptions.

But this is a form of spiritual bondage. To cling to an institution at the expense of truth is to surrender one’s agency to fear and external manipulation. It is to follow the crowd rather than the Light. It is to be governed by emotional cowardice rather than moral courage. Scripture warns of those who “walk in darkness, and know not whither they go” (John 12:35), precisely because they prefer the comfort of familiar shadows to the hard brilliance of truth.

The courage God requires is the courage to walk away from any institution, no matter how familiar and beloved, if truth demands it. The righteous do not fear the loss of social stability, reputation, or identity, for their allegiance is not to institutions but to God. They are willing to endure the temporary chaos of reevaluation in order to stand upon the eternal rock of truth. Such souls are rare, for the cost is high. But the cost of dishonesty is far higher.

The Danger of Non-Rational Evaluations

It is easy and natural to evaluate assertions of truth according to what is useful, agreeable, or personally beneficial. But these are not the standards of truth. The standards of truth are not reflective of what you think the truth ought to be. Truth is not flattery. In fact, very often, it is anything but that. Truth is that which is, was, and yet shall be.

But many are deceived because they deceive themselves. They do not love truth; they love flattery, convenience, and sin. They are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:4)

Deception is not merely believing in falsehoods; it is wanting certain things to be false and others to be true, and constructing a worldview that makes such denial and delusion feel reasonable and justified.

The path to spiritual ruin is rarely paved with intentional rebellion. More often, it is paved with a thousand small dishonesties in how we choose to perceive reality. This is caused by habitually flawed thinking. This is caused by emotional thinking that is fundamentally dishonest, selfish, fearful, and prideful. We need to confront these realities, identify these tendencies, and learn to track these deviancies in order to correct them. In short, we need to reprogram our thinking and feelings to become truly sanctified and good. This is a lifelong process. But don’t let that be an excuse to continue down this path of deviance.

The Emotional Incentives Behind Our Excuses

Why do we do bad things? Because sin creates emotional incentives for dishonesty, selfishness, cowardliness, and pride.

Pride hates correction.Correction implies imperfection, stupidity, fault, and sin.

Lust hates boundaries.Boundaries limit desire, and desire seeks justification and gratification, regardless of cost.

Fear hates responsibility, uncertainty, and the possibility of increased suffering.The cowardly desire less risk, increased stability, and the easy way out.

Idolatry hates truth that contradicts, disqualifies, or points it in a more difficult direction.Idolatry points us toward what feels good; whereas Christ points us to what actually is good, or that which brings the best long-term value, benefit, and outcome.

In each of these, the heart of the natural man becomes a lawyer for its own deviant inclinations. It seeks justification and normalization in sin. It seeks not truth, but rather, a clear conscience while continuing in a life of normalized deviance.

Thus, truth, having no regard for our feelings, becomes the enemy.

The Loneliness of Bearing Light in a Darkened World

One of the unintended consequences of rejecting truth is that it leaves those who do receive it to carry their burden alone. When individuals turn away from uncomfortable reality—preferring ease to honesty, or optimism to discernment—they also abandon those who are willing to face the cost of seeing clearly. Light does not merely illuminate; it divides. It exposes the difference between the courageous and the comfortable, between those who would know the truth and those who would rather avoid it.

This division is never abstract. It cuts through families, friendships, congregations, and communities. Christ Himself warned that His truth would “set a man at variance” even with his own household (Matthew 10:34–36). Not because truth is hostile, but because people respond to it differently. Some welcome its fire; others fear its heat. And so even those who love one another deeply can find themselves walking very different paths when the demands of truth become inconvenient.

I have felt this pain in my own life. None of my immediate family shares my willingness to confront the ugliness and darkness present in this world. They prefer to believe the best, to maintain a hopeful naivete, to shield their hearts from the weight of discernment. And so, the responsibility of facing unpleasant realities—political, spiritual, institutional, cultural—falls upon me alone. It is a sorrowful burden to recognize the unity, strength, and joy we could share together if we all possessed equal courage. I sometimes glimpse the harmony we might have had—the shared vigilance, the shared faith, the shared commitment to reality as it is rather than as we wish it to be. But in the absence of that shared resolve, I walk this road without their understanding, encouragement, or intimate fellowship.

This is one of the quiet tragedies of rejecting truth: those who flee from the discomfort of reality leave the weight of vigilance on the shoulders of the few willing to carry it. And those few must often do so with little understanding, and sometimes even with gentle misunderstanding, from the very people they wish they could most rely on.

Yet even in such loneliness, there is purpose. Those who choose truth may walk a narrower path, but they never walk it without God at their side. The Lord strengthens those who stand alone. He fortifies those who face darkness so that others may remain sheltered for a time. And in the end, He gathers all who will come unto Him—not as families divided by fear, but as souls united by courage, honesty, and the love of truth.

The Scriptural Call to Honest Judgment

King Benjamin taught that a person must be “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him” (Mosiah 3:19). This is the posture of the honest disciple: a willingness to be corrected, humbled, instructed, and even contradicted.

Jesus said: “Judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24) Righteous judgement is the active perception and discernment of truth. Righteous judgment requires removing the beam from our own eye. This is the beam of emotional bias, pride, and self-aggrandizing dishonesty. As we remove this beam, we begin to see far more clearly. For most of us, the first step in this process of learning righteous judgement is learning the humility to accept correction and chastening. Those who have the meekness to humbly receive correction and chastening are blessed beyond measure because they are able to discern, as it is shown to them, what repentance looks like in their own lives. This is the beginning of learning righteous judgement.

But too often, this is not what we do. Too often, we judge the correction and chastening of others as unwarranted, unfair, unkind, and mean spirited. In other words, we judge that which is good to be evil.

Mormon spoke of this when he said: “Take heed that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good… to be of the devil.” (Moroni 7:14)

When emotion governs discernment, we reinvent good and evil. We reinvent that which flatters us as good and that which somehow challenges us as evil. This is most unwise. By this standard, most of what God offers us in opportunities to grow and become better will be viewed as evil, scorned, and rejected.

Christ’s gospel is all about improvement. It is about becoming Christlike.

To be Christlike is to be aligned with truth, not with convenience, flattery, niceness, groupthink, or institutional norms. Truth is what God is. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Thus, honesty in facing and receiving truth is not just a moral principle; it is a gospel imperative.

To become Christlike, we must become emotionally insulated from the desires of the flesh. We must learn to love and trust God more than we desire or prefer the temptations and allurements of the flesh. Our discernment must be governed by our love of truth, meekness, humility, and courage in the face of suffering. We must learn to be humble and honest in discernment.

Truth Demands Courage

Ultimately, dishonesty in discernment is a form of moral cowardice. It is the refusal to face oneself. It is the failure to be courageous in facing the unknown, unappreciated, sometimes scary, often humiliating, awareness of greater truth.

It is the courage to stop hiding from the truth.

It is the courage to admit our sins, confront our weaknesses, and embrace the risks and pain of change.

It is the courage to say: “If this is true, then I must repent.”

And repentance—real repentance—begins not with behavior but with perception. With the decision to see clearly, feel honestly, and discern without self-protection or deflection of the obviously relevant facts. 

Christ cannot heal those who lie to themselves. But He will assist anyone who bravely faces into the light, no matter how painful that light first feels.

The Lord has promised: “Whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.” (3 Nephi 9:14)

And the first step in coming unto Christ is simply this:

Stop lying to yourself.
Stand honestly before the truth and face the truth with humility and courage.
And do whatever it is God tells you to do.

---