Are your emotions liars?  Do your feelings lie to you a lot?

We are thinking and feeling creatures. When you listen to a feeling it is because you think it is right or worth following.  But a feeling cannot do the thinking for us and that is where there is a problem.  How reliable are our feelings when we seek guidance about what to do?  Feelings come from how we see reality. In an ideal world, the feelings would give you accurate information but that does not happen.  You can feel danger that is not there.  So we should never put what we feel above the truth. Feelings matter not for themselves but for what they tell us about reality. They should be about preparing us to deal with reality and helping us to deal with it.  The more you strive for learning and the more you discipline yourself the more your intelligence and emotions will align.

Christianity and Islam's big selling point is that they supposedly give your life meaning. If you tell them that you feel your life has meaning without being religious they will tell you that you have no sense that your life has ultimate meaning. They are trying to get you to feel that though your life can be meaningful without thinking of the ultimate this does not matter in comparison to the ultimate. Some say that you are only deluding yourself that your life has meaning when you don't care about ultimate meaning. Whatever they say, they are degrading the sense of meaning you have. Also they are deceiving you for they will talk you into their version of what the ultimate meaning is. Every religion has its own version and one contradicts the other. Talk about meaning is really about you feeling you have meaning not about you really having meaning. Half time you don't know if you feel the best you can. You could believe you feel great when you could feel better. Feeling good is not the same as feeling the best.
 
We do not have complete control over our feelings. Suppose I know that sitting on the shore makes me happy. If I go to the shore on a sunny day and the feeling comes to me it does not follow that I caused the feeling. If I know the sun will shine on the beach and go to enjoy it it does not follow that I caused the sun to come out. Same with my feelings. I could be wrong to think that the beach will make me feel happy - maybe I will feel nothing or maybe I will even feel sad. If I feel happy, I cannot make myself feel even better simply by willing it.
 
We do not have complete control over our thoughts. Try visualising a teabag for a minute. Soon other images will take over.

Suppose you are responsible for your actions. Then you cannot be fully responsible for anything you do.

Feelings do not know anything. They are just feelings. You can even feel that you are dead or invisible.
 
Some thinkers claim that our feelings always mislead us and try to mislead us even more than they manage.
 
The reasons are as follows:
 
You reason that your feeling serves a useful purpose. But it is how you respond to it that allows the purpose to take place.
 
You reason that you are justified - in the right - for having the feeling. Feelings are often wrong and lead you into danger particularly if you think they are psychic promptings.
 
You reason that you are justified in letting the feeling control or influence you. That is just putting feelings above reason and thinking.
 
Feelings tell you that bad things will happen should you let go of them. But they mask the fact that the bad things have already happened because you have held on to them. It is bad to hold on to your feelings just because you feel threatened if you let them go.
 
For example, you think guilt is good for it protects you from doing bad things that ultimately hurt yourself. But guilt itself hurts you. And when guilt tells you that, its presence can stop you doing harm it is lying.
 
For example, you think your anger and hate hurt the other person. The feelings tell you that. But they hurt you. They make you fear another over what you are doing to yourself. They make you blame the other person. But you have the feelings and you nurse them.
 
For example, the real reason you believe in free will is because you feel free. But you feel even more free when you have altered your alleged freedom and virtually lost it when you take drink and drugs. You would expect to feel free for the alternative, feeling programmed, is terrifying. The free will lie is the most basic one your feelings tell you. A feeling can come and go and it has no authority telling you that you have free will. The free will lie is a whopper. Upon that rock reposes the other big lies of God - for if we do evil and are not free then God is to blame not us - and how we deserve (deserve means earned and implies we should get what we deserve and shouldn't get anything else) great suffering in return for the harm we do.
 
For example, lust makes you think you will have good sex. Not necessarily. The object of your lust could put you off in bed.
 
For example, fear helps me to stay safe. It does not for it harms. You may do yourself more harm worrying if somebody is going to steal from your purse than you would experience if somebody did steal. It amounts up.
 
For example, if you get a crave to feed the beggar over the road you think you are unselfish if you help him just because of the crave. You are not. You did it for your satisfaction and not for him.
 
For example, feelings are the reason we may take a pill and think it has cured our flu when we begin to feel better. That may happen even if the pill is totally fake and is nothing more than chalk or sugar. We feel it worked and therefore we trick ourselves into agreeing that because we feel it then it is true. We certainly have not used our heads properly. So it is the feelings that swayed us. We like feeling that it worked. We are so biased. When we say a prayer for something and we get it we will feel the prayer worked. It is not about us caring to ask it really worked or not. It is about what we want to feel. We want to feel something bigger than us is taking control to protect us from the big bad universe. The person who says they got an answer to prayer needs to be translated. Here is the translation: "I like to feel it worked." It is not as religious or spiritual as it looks at first glance!
 
If our feelings lie so much then we should not be so certain that God exists and that Muhammad or Jesus is his messenger! Faith is idolatry or it risks it.
 
We know that very religious people show all the signs of being in love. They are irrational and cannot see the faults of the beloved or the danger of their blind love. Romantic love causes a lot of trouble on earth. It has to be tolerated for it also has a good side. But is it right to have people irrationally pining for a God who may not exist? Or a God who has few or no personal characteristics? The Christian God doesn't have a memory - he simply sees all things and is beyond past and present and future. How could you love that and not be sick?
 
People want their feelings to make sense. They can never do that. They are not about thinking. Sometimes you feel something is true and it is. But that means the feeling did not perceive the truth - it only coincided with it. Feelings always lie. They are like somebody to tries to mislead you and accidentally leads you to the truth instead.
 
When you feel something is true, and it turns out that it is true, this creates the illusion that feelings are often or sometimes reliable. They are not. It is just luck. It happens for the same reason as you think the Tarot cards predict some things accurately. It is chance and the cards have to guess right some times but that does not mean they have any power to discern what is right.
 
Religion thrives on feelings. This in itself opens the door to fanaticism. If you think God is telling you something through your feelings what if you feel like bombing people who form religions different from your own?

A lie repeated often when it is not believed to be the truth just because people are led to think because they hear it often it must be true, can be FELT to be the truth and end up treated as good as the truth though it is not.

People can learn to feel the right or best emotions at the right time for such emotions. Few of us are masters at this. But that does not mean we cannot or should not be faulted if we feel inappropriate emotions or don't feel appropriate ones.

Aristotle said that if you can't help but feel your emotions you are responsible because you made yourself the kind of person who feels that sort of emotion. Aristotle sees the wrong emotions as a sickness and feels we can train our responses by forcing ourselves to act in the right and moral way. If the emotions rebel at first we will develop the ability to enjoy the right actions. Educating ourselves about the bad effects our actions have on others can help us have the right feelings.

We conclude that feelings always risk deceiving us. They always fool us. We must think and be a step ahead.