Confirmation bias is powerful

If I were approached with an investment opportunity that would require a significant sacrifice on my part, I would have an interest in fully vetting and investigating the organization.

Lets say I go to the Internet and am quickly deluged with thousands of sites exposing this company as a complete fraud. And there are tens of thousands of former investors telling their personal stories of being harmed and swindled by the company. They all tell basically the same story of being hurt and damaged when they learned the company was not honest about itself and had kept critical information from the investors.

Further investigation provides hard factual evidence of dishonesty and immoral behavior by the founders of the company. So you look closer at the slick and attractive website of the company. It doesn't discuss any of the negative aspects of the company. In fact, the company doesn't acknowledge any of the evidence against it. All of the information from the company paints a beautiful picture of happy people who are living fulfilled lives of joy and contentment.

You question the representatives of the company about the negative aspects of the company. They quickly become defensive and suggest that former investors are a terrible resource for understanding the truth about the company. They advocate only speaking to current investors. Also, anything negative about the company is to be avoided.

After all this, would you feel comfortable investing in this company?

This is essentially what happens when potential converts to Mormonism begin looking into the religion. For the objective investigator, a large population of former members speaking out about their negative experiences with the church, along with a mountain of verifiable evidence refuting the fundamental claims of the church are both huge red flags.

So how do current believing members explain away all of these detractors and the mountain of information disproving their religion? The answer is quite simple really. Satan is working overtime to tear down the church. The church is being attacked not because it is built on a foundation of lies and deception, but rather because the devil just wants to make people miserable.

It's simple, really.