For those who wonder why M2C continues to be taught, consider these two sentences:
We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.
There are few more obvious examples than M2C. Employees at Book of Mormon Central, for example, are unusually concerned with what their bosses and mentors think.
The two lines in that quotation come from a wonderful essay that explains a fascinating aspect of human nature: People like to think their opinions are based on facts, but that is not the case.
The essay is found here:
Here are two fun quotations from the essay:
The economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, “Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.”
Leo Tolstoy was even bolder: “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
Source: Book of Mormon Concensus