The Problem with Religion | Confirmation Bias

we don't always have access to all the information so we take the information we do have and try to make a story out of it and if it's a good story we believe it here's an example Sally was crying at work today then I saw her boyfriend John at dinner with another girl I take this information and maybe the story I make is John broke up with Sally for this other girl or maybe even John was cheating on Sally with this other girl and today she found out about it it makes sense with what I

know so I believe it let's say the next day I talked to John and he says he had a great dinner with his sister yesterday he hadn't seen her in years now I have new information so I need to adjust my story now I must believe John went to dinner with his sister yesterday and Sally was crying about something unrelated maybe she was just having a bad day and I must also change my opinion of John before I might have thought he was a douchebag and it would be unfair of me to continue to think

that so we take the information available to us and make a story out of it the less information we have the easier it is to make a cohesive story try it yourself take three random ideas and try to piece them into a story now take 10 random ideas and try to piece them into a story in our example the first set of information explained everyone's behavior but with the new information I'm left wondering why Sally was crying the first might be a more cohesive story but it would be wrong of me to continue believing it

now that I know John had dinner with his sister so if I wish to find out why Sally was crying I have to seek out more information maybe I could ask her this is where we run into the problem with religion or one of them anyway let's turn that story we tell ourselves into a puzzle I want to build a complete puzzle where I use all the pieces I have and they fit together properly like before it's easy to do with only three pieces this is religion a very simple puzzle I feel good about completing

my puzzle so now I can wait there's another puzzle piece but it doesn't fit into my puzzle it must be a fake this is the mindset of religion everything I believe already has an answer God did it it's a very convenient catch-all answer and everything I don't believe isn't true perhaps it's fake perhaps it's a trap laid by Satan or perhaps after a few hundred years a religion will be forced to accept it and then say God did that too and actually somehow it does fit into what we believe every new piece of information you

find fits into the narrative you've always believed or you ignore it religion is keeping your puzzle as simple as possible assuming it's complete while neglecting the fact that our puzzle pieces that don't fit science however is just the opposite science suspects from the outset that the puzzle is incomplete and constantly seeks out new puzzle pieces to add sometimes you find a whole bunch of them and it takes decades to figure out where they go sometimes you put the pieces together incorrectly but then you realize this admit your mistake and redo them sometimes there's a piece

missing and you know right where it goes but it takes you years to find it this confirmation bias and closed mindedness that I've been describing isn't religions only problem nor is it only attributable to religion but it is a necessary feature for a religious mind what they call faith I would call willful ignorance which is derived from confirmation bias people have a very strong resistance to critically analyzing the things they believe because if you do and you find you've built your life upon a lie then how many other lives will you find people would rather

have lies and stability than truth and instability even if that instability is only temporary back to John and Sally this unwillingness to re-examine what you believe when you find something that contradicts it is like knowing that John went out to dinner with his sister but still believing he's a douchebag because that's the story you've committed to John must be a douchebag because I know he is or believing that God has a master plan for the universe but free will also exists or that you should love all of God's creations but not Muslims gay people or

animals many religious ideas are logically inconsistent with one another but due to the nature of those very rigid and very simple puzzles you cannot change what you already believe there is no room for doubt once you let in doubt you begin to destroy the framework of confirmation bias hopefully you can see that this isn't the right mindset to have a better alternative is open-mindedness willingness to doubt what you believe willingness to accept answers that contradict your worldview provided of course that there is evidence for those answers you