Whose Side Are You On?
 The abandon of confirmation bias
Occasionally updated and edited. Copyright © 2011
It came in the form of a message on FaceBook.

A casual acquaintance thought it necessary to rail at me for "switching sides."

His cavalier approach to reality is important. It's a revelation that he does not hold Christianity to be true. Rather, his 'faith' is little more than a tribal identifier. That's typical.

It is reminiscent of the famous Niko riots in ancient Constantinople.

The Romans had organized themselves into four factions. Each was identified by a color. They were red, green, blue and white. Originally the factions were athletic associations, competing in various events. In time they evolved into social orders, or 'demes'. The factions held specific political and religious views and were also known to function as street gangs.

In AD 532 riots erupted between the two dominant demes, the Green and Blue. The mayhem was so severe that the effort to restore order resulted in the destruction of much of the city and the deaths of tens of thousands.

Members of the demes adopted opinions, views and positions based on association; not on logic or reason. I suppose it may have been possible for a member of the Green deme to defect to the Blue. To do so would have been considered a serious affront to the jilted faction.

Today we hold factional loyalties to athletic teams. When a foul is called on the basketball court, the fans wearing gold and black boo while those in red and white cheer. Their approval or disdain for the call is not based on logic or reason. It is based on fraternal bias. The Purdue fans can recite in convincing detail the events that argue against the referee's decision. The Indiana University fans are equally obstinate in their praise of the referee's objectivity. It's also called 'confirmation bias'.

I've often observed feuds between families where reality hinged on one's genetic association rather than reason. Rifts between labor and management also skirt reality and are driven by the quest for financial gain. Those engaged in ethnic disputes generally assume the opinion that benefits their race; reason is secondary. The examples seems endless.

Perhaps one of the most humorous examples of tribal identification was a church member who frequently darkened the door of my pastoral office. He was a constant complainer with a penchant for finding and denouncing some deviation from doctrinal purity. My best efforts to respond with biblical proof were of no avail. It occurred to me, however, that this pious person was a devout follower of noted seminarist Bill Gothard. The next visit I set my Bible aside. Rather than reason from biblical authority, I challenged his gripe with the words, "Well, Bill Gothard says . . . "

How peculiar. The man who wouldn't be persuaded by quotations from the 'Word of God' melted upon hearing the mere suggestion that his thinking may not be in line with that of Mr. Gothard. His perspective was not reason based. It was the outcrop of his tribal allegiance to Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principles. I doubt Mr. Gothard would approve.

And so I find myself in the cross hairs of religious folk who are riled over my audacity to "switch sides." Again, it is revealing that Christians view themselves as loyal team members rather than adherents to reason and reality. Few evangelicals consider that those who break ranks are pursuing a quest for understanding reality. Rather, they are viewed as switching sides from Green to Blue or from Purdue to IU.

Whose side am I on?

I often challenge my libertarian friends with this question: Do you believe 'that' because you are a Libertarian? Or are you a Libertarian because you believe 'that'?

The question could be posed of any person who adheres to any school of thought. It can be condensed to "Why do you believe what you believe?"

Most Christians will answer that their beliefs are the outcome of reason, logic, good science and experience. Purdue fans say the same. Both are lying to themselves.

The objective is to be neither a theists nor a non-theists. It is not to be Blue or Green. It is not to be a Purdue fan or an IU fan. The objective is to be objective. It is to be a referee; not a team member and not a fan.

When Christians accuse me of switching sides, their accusation is an admission that they have abandoned objectivity for tribal allegiance. They don't view Christianity as the end product of rational investigation. They view Christianity as sports team. The don't believe what they see, they see what they believe. It's not a matter of believing. It's a matter of belonging.

What if someone were to abandon tribal perspectives and follow a quest for the truth, wherever it may lead? Several noted Christian apologists have claimed to have done just that. Their pitch follows this pattern: "I set out to prove Christianity was not true. However, in my quest I discovered that it was true after all."

That spiel can be very convincing. And, in some cases, it may be sincere. Apart from a gift of ESP or a fully functional crystal ball, it is impossible to confidently judge such apologists as a charlatans. But when these claims are posited by authors whose professions involve selling books, traveling seminars and stiff honorariums, one has reason to question the integrity of the claims.

An overriding problem with religion is that it always comes with ulterior motives. There is something 'more to it' than merely unraveling the mysteries of God to discover truth. To the Christian apologist who has established a lucrative career as colporter with seminars and 'creation science' museums, the motive may be money. To most evangelicals the ulterior motive is the promise of a happy hereafter. Many find religion essential for framing their lives — and the world — with purpose.

Another oft-stated ulterior motive for clinging to Christianity is the legitimization of moral codes. The argument follows this logic: If there is no God, how can we know right from wrong? That question can be inverted to read, "We must manufacture a Supreme Being to legitimatize our moral code."

Explicitly stated, I have not switched sides. Rather, I have determined not to take sides. Those Christians who scold me or shun me (they can't do both simultaneously) fail to grasp that simple premise.

Is it possible for an evangelical Christian to be an objective referee rather than a team member? The answer is, "Yes. But not for long."

Jurist vs witness

A former prosecutor once noted that if jurists could decide a case with absolute certainty, they wouldn't be jurists. They would be witnesses.

The point being: Nothing can be absolutely determined.

Had I been born and raised on a deserted island with no knowledge beyond my immediate environment, I would be confident in my beliefs that the universe consisted of the visible heavens, the stuff on my turf and lots of water. Had I been born 1,000 years ago in Europe I would be confident in my belief that the sun was the center of the universe. Had I been born 1,000 years ago in the Americas, I would be confident in my belief that earth was flat.

Using the above analogies, I must admit that my deeply held convictions that dissuade me from believing in Bigfoot, UFOs and angels could be wrong by a fractional margin. To that end I could surrender to the possibility that I am a Bigfoot 'agnostic.' There is a sliver of a chance that the bulbous white blimps on grainy videos may turn out to be alien space craft containing advanced life forms. The possibility that angels exist could also be possible, as could be the existence of any other mythical entity.

Lloyd: What do you think
the chances are of a guy
like you and a girl like me...
ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that's
difficult to say. I mean,
we don't really...
Lloyd: Hit me with it!
Just give it to me straight!
I came a long way just
to see you, Mary. The least
you can do is level with me.
What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like
one out of a hundred?
Mary: I'd say more like
one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you're telling me
there's a chance... *YEAH!*
When taken to that extreme, however, we could suppose that everything imaginable is subject to possibility and everything tangible is subject to illusion. Could it be that I am a non-existent character is someone's dream? That my keyboard and computer are figments of their nocturnal synoptic firings? That I am Bigfoot in disguise? And you are the space alien?

It is to those extremes one must go to justify the acceptance of the supernatural. I may be like the castaway on the deserted island when I assert the notion that people don't raise from the dead. I may be the Middle Ages European when I reject the concept of life after death. And I may be the aboriginal American when I declare that kissed princes don't become frogs, or visa versa.

But there comes a point when we need to close the door to the myriad of nonsensical notions that human minds contrive and secure an intellectual mindset of unbiased, honest jurists. Miguel de Molinos spoke to this dilemma when he distinguished between possibility and probability. Immanuel Kant coined the term 'noumenon' to contrast with 'phenomenon.'

That's not to say we should be close minded. It is to demand empirical evidence when distinguishing between reality and nonsense. And empirical evidence, to the chagrin of Christian apologists, was anathema to the writers of the Bible. The Apostle Paul observed that we "walk by faith, not by sight." The Psalmist contended that we should not even lean to our own understanding, but that we should commit our entire mental faculties ("all thine heart") to a belief in a transcendent God.

Miss Winters is an angel
expert and she gets kind of...
...literal. What she
probably wants to know is...
-...can you fly?
-I don't...
...want to know if he can fly.
He can't. Only little angels--
Says who?
I just thought....
Halos? Inner light?
I'm not that kind of angel.
If I were removed from seclusion on a private island, I would have no choice but to accept reality. If I were challenged by Galileo's evidence, I would be forced to question the nonsense of a heliocentric universe. If I were handed a moonscape photo with the earth on the horizon, I would be compelled to abandon the flat earth belief.

What's more if I were transported to the wild to live in a cave with a Bigfoot family, I would eagerly change my perspectives. If aliens were to land on my roof and give me lift to Jupiter and back, I would revise my convictions regarding white blimps on grainy videos. And if a winged person were to bang on my door, I would calibrate my thoughts accordingly.

There are, therefore, two fields of thought that can be rejected by the human mind. The first includes those notions that have been rejected but later proven to be true. The second includes those currently rejected and awaiting verification. I find it convincing that the first field contains only natural phenomena. All supernatural phenomena is in the second field. Christian apologists go to great lengths to convince us that their supernatural inklings belong in the first field. But in the end we must admit that both God and the Tooth Fairy are transcendent. There is a reason.

July 23, 2011
Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!