Hallucination + Cognitive Dissonance as an Alternative

Primary Datum

Datum: Social psychology shows that tightly bonded groups sometimes grow more convinced after disconfirming events.

Scoring / Hypothesis Pressure

Dependency / Cap Metadata

dependency_cluster_id

resurrection_alternative_explanations

dependency_cluster_role

primary_anchor

dependency_cluster

hallucination_visionary_experience

dependency_role

anchor

cap_profile

rival_pressure

evidence_function

rival_positive

directness

supporting

Counter-Pressure

title

Psychology can explain experiences; it has trouble explaining the whole Resurrection claim.

text

Hallucination and cognitive-dissonance models deserve a fair hearing. People can have powerful experiences, and groups can reinterpret failure. But the model must do more than explain inner states. It must explain why the earliest message became bodily Resurrection, why the tomb question did not disappear, why Paul and James were persuaded, why the disciples did not merely say Jesus was spiritually alive, and why the movement preached a public act of God rather than a private consolation.

path

Let the psychological model be as strong as possible. Then walk through the evidence one piece at a time: private visions, group claims, empty tomb, hostile conversion, skeptical family conversion, Jewish resurrection categories, public preaching, and worship of Jesus. If the model explains only the first two or three items, say so. A good alternative must preserve the whole field, not only the easiest slice.

Apologetic Note

label

Rival-pressure use

title

The hallucination/dissonance model is the strongest psychological rival lane.

key point

This row has real force because grief, expectation, social reinforcement, and failed-expectation repair are known features of human communities. The Christian case should not pretend the psychological lane is empty.

conversation move

Present it as a serious rival: it can explain some experiences and some group persistence. Then ask whether it also explains empty-tomb claims, bodily Resurrection categories, Paul, James, public proclamation, and the early devotional shift around Jesus.

caveat

Do not make the row a global anti-Resurrection penalty. It is capped because several sub-rows share the same explanatory family.

Caveats / Notes

Cap notes

This row is the main visionary/psychological rival anchor. Future cap diagnostics may govern overlap with grief-vision and cognitive-dissonance rows, but should not hide the objection or turn it into a global anti-Resurrection penalty.

Cap profile note

Rival and defeater pressure is capped within its own family and kept visible.

Cluster note

Hallucination/cognitive-dissonance alternative anchor. Effects are capped against creed, empty-tomb, martyrdom, and worship-practice rows; do not stack as a global anti-resurrection penalty.

Scoring note

Hallucination/cognitive-dissonance alternative anchor. Effects are capped against creed, empty-tomb, martyrdom, and worship-practice rows; do not stack as a global anti-resurrection penalty.

Notes

Normalized to Anthropology / Cognitive Science → Hallucination & Cognitive Dissonance; steelman of hallucination model with clear banding and midpoint log10BF.

Citations

• Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (1956)
• Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957)
• Henri Tajfel, John C. Turner, An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict (1979)
• Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus (1994)
• Gary R. Collins, Hallucinations, in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling (1999)

Recommended Citation

The Signal Evidence Dataset, "Hallucination + Cognitive Dissonance as an Alternative," Evidence ID: E-ALT-HALL-2, Version 0.7. Accessed [access date]. https://logos-signal.org/evidence/E-ALT-HALL-2/

Machine-Readable Source

This page is generated from the public evidence mirror without recalculating or changing scores.