171. Falsity. There are many kinds of falsity-as many as there are kinds of evil, in fact-and evils and falsities retain the nature of their sources, which are many: 1188, 1212, 4729, 4822, 7574. Falsity that comes from evil, or evil-based falsity, is one thing; evil that comes from falsity, or falsity-based evil, which leads in turn to further falsity, is another: 1679, 2243. From any false idea that is taken as a first principle further false ideas flow in an unbroken series: 1510, 1511, 4717, 4721. There are falsities that are the result of cravings arising from our love for ourselves and for the world, and there are falsities that are the result of misleading sensory impressions: 1295, 4729. There are falsities that arise from what our religion has taught us and there are falsities that arise from our ignorance: 4729, 8318, 9258. There is falsity that contains some good and there is falsity that contains no good: 2863, 9304, 10109, 10302. There are also things that have been falsified: 7318, 7319, 10648.
The nature of falsity that comes from evil: 6359, 9304, 10302. The nature of evil that comes from falsity: 2408, 4818, 7272, 8265, 8279. The hells are surrounded by falsities that come from evil, which look like storm clouds and unclean waters: 8137, 8146, 8210. Waters like these symbolize falsities: 739, 790, 7307. The things that are said by the people who are in hell are falsities that come from evil: 1695, 7351, 7352, 7357, 7392, 7699. Left to their own devices, people intent on evil cannot think anything but falsity: 7437.
Some false religious beliefs harmonize with what is good and some do not: 9258. False religious beliefs that do not clash with what is good do not lead to evil except in people who are intent on leading an evil life: 8318. False religious beliefs are not held against people who are intent on doing good, but they are held against people who are intent on doing evil: 8051, 8149. Every falsity is something we can convince ourselves of, and when we have done so it seems to us to be the truth: 5033, 6865, 8521, 8780. We should be careful not to convince ourselves of falsity in matters of religion because in this arena we are particularly susceptible to false convictions: 845, 8780. How damaging false convictions are: 794, 806, 5096, 7686. False convictions continually generate arguments to support their own falsity: 1510, 1511, 2477. People who are convinced of falsities are inwardly imprisoned: 5096. In the other life, when those who have powerful false convictions encounter other people they shut down the rationality of those others and virtually suffocate them: 3895, 5128.
Truths that are not genuine and even falsities can be associated with genuine truths, but only falsities within which there is goodness, not falsities within which there is evil: 3470, 3471, 4551, 4552, 7344, 8149, 9298. If falsities have goodness within them, they are accepted by the Lord as if they were truths: 4736, 8149. Any act of goodness whose quality has been shaped by falsity is accepted by the Lord if it was done in ignorance and innocence, and if the aim behind it was good: 7887.
Evil falsifies truth because it bends it toward something evil and applies it to that evil: 8094, 8149. A truth that has been applied to some evil and used to support it is called a falsification: 8062. Falsified truth is opposed to what is true and what is good: 8062. More on falsifications of truth: 7318, 7319, 10648.
