The truth seems clear to most people, and opinions are strong about what people believe. However, few people know how they determine something is true. A literature review reveals that most people will tell you they determine the truth based on three criteria: a feeling, using logic (e.g., what makes sense or a thing has been proven), or declaring something a mystery–the fact that some things aren’t possible to know. Even with the three criteria, determining the truth is seemingly difficult because when people are often provided clear evidence of truth, they reject it! Why do people reject the truth? People reject the truth because they are deceived. Deception is an effective weapon of warfare because it exploits the vulnerabilities in your perception process, ultimately influencing your decision-making. Deception is a method that manipulates your assumptions, beliefs, and values. The problem is that people rarely have a definitive, clear sense of what they value and believe. Your lack of clarity is an opportunity for you to be deceived.
When you say, “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” about the big questions in life, it’s not a good thing. When trying to solve a big question, people struggle because it’s difficult to make sense of things. People get bad advice or counsel, and nothing seems to work out well, so they give up. What ends up happening is that people care less about significant issues and more about insignificant ones. It’s a reversal of priorities that serves as an indicator of a lack of awareness regarding how one functions. In pursuing knowledge and understanding, layers of deception creep into your thinking, feeling, and behavior, making you oblivious, insensitive, incognizant, nescient, unconscious, senseless, insensate, ignorant, uninformed, or unknowing. You are highly susceptible to deception. Deception is a phenomenon.
A phenomenon is an observable event or occurrence that is related to human behavior, cognition, or emotion that is difficult to understand but can be studied and explained through scientific research. The author conducted phenomenological research, a qualitative method that focuses on deeply understanding the “lived experience” of a particular phenomenon–deception. The research question for this project asked, How are people deceived? The unfolding political events of 2020 and subsequent religious events caused the author to reflect on the phenomenon of deception. The author interviewed, reviewed transcripts, and observed individuals involved in being deceived via scams, cults, crimes, relationships, organizational disruptions, and religious awakenings to learn the meaning of how individuals perceived and interpreted their specific experience to uncover the essence of the experience by exploring the participant’s perspective using in-depth interviews, careful analysis of transcripts, and observations of behavior.
The research concludes that deception is intentional; no one is deceived by accident; it’s done with a purpose and a plan. A majority of people are honestly ignorant of these deceptive intentions; you don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s where the problem begins. For some people, it’s just a matter of laziness; they choose what’s easiest and go with the flow so they don’t have to think about issues or circumstances or deal with their situation. Some people are extremely leery of being deceived and demand hard facts and solid evidence, or the information is rejected. However, the evidence itself is complicated. There are a minimum of twenty-one different types of evidence: admissible, inadmissible, direct, circumstantial, statistical, real, prima facie, demonstrative, documentary, impression, testimonial, character, habit, hearsay, forensic, trace, expert witness, exculpatory, digital, corroborative, and insufficient (https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/different-types-of-evidence). And finally, some people just care more about a person than their intentions. They see a person and have compassion, and that makes them easier to deceive.
Starting with the problem of truth perception, moving into the nature and mechanisms of deception, exploring how ignorance contributes, detailing the research approach, and finally presenting the key conclusions about why people are deceived. Follow along with me as I highlight the interconnectedness of these ideas.
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