Hi
@Orontes and
@Watchmen
Orontes asked
: "What is the bias? The comment that was agreed with involves hostility and mental states. It's not a religious topic: "(The) description of the mental dynamics of hostility and its attempt to justify itself despite a frustrating inability to do so with data. The lack of data explains the quick devolution to accusations and misrepresentations."
My agreement with Orontes observation regards how individuals act when they cannot support a position and become frustrated, yet are desperate to justify that position. If they cannot do so with data or logic, the common result is frustration which, if it cannot be resolved, it most often turns to anger and this often manifests itself as personal attacks and venom and further compromise of the ability to think logically and objectively. It can be a snowball effect.
My "bias" is not religious regarding this point, but it is common, basic medical psychology.
For example, a few years ago, my medical group was contracted to give medical care at a prison for five years. So, in addition to treating medical conditions for prisoners, I also was the crisis director. Treating prisoners allowed one to observe of a lot of repeating patterns of thinking which often underlie prisoner interactions.
For example, the pattern of attempting to justify how a prisoner (and others) felt or what they did follows this same pattern Orontes discussed. It was the fact that Orontes nailed the description of how angry and frustrated individuals act inside the attempt to justify as a response to cognitive dissonance that was very impressive. It is amazing what we as people can justify if we want. It was very easy to justify rape and murder for some of these inmates. If you want examples, I will provide how one can justify these things inside the minds of people who want to justify them.
The pattern is not just among inmates of prisons, but it is common among all of us. When we feel guilty for something, it is often that one tries to figure out a way to justify having done something. For example, if a man has a wife and family who is wonderful, but he wants to leave them. Perhaps the stress is too much for him to handle with bills and responsibilities, etc. Maybe he finds a girlfriend, etc. If he leaves, he may feel terribly guilty for leaving. This guilt is a type of cognitive dissonance. The guilt is uncomfortable and so, the natural inclination is to either return to the wife and kids that he abandoned, or to attempt to justify having abandoned his responsibilities. In order to do so, he must generate reasons why his wife was not so good after all, he must tell himself that the kids will actually be fine without him; He was right to "set his wife free" so as to find someone better and a hundred other things, most of which are more false than true.
The problem is that, unless the reasons he leaves are indeed true, and unless the man feels perfectly confident and justified in having left his wife and in breaking his promises to his family, he cannot then let the issue go. He must constantly think of ways to justify what he did. He may even project onto his wife, bad characteristics that she never had. He may even provoke her in order to make her respond in anger so as to give him evidence that it was good for him to leave.
We see this in religionists and even in athiests all the time. If a religionist leaves their religion, they must then attempt to find justification for having broken promises to God. The guilt (cognitive dissonance) is so intense that they cannot let go of this attempt to justify what they have done. The religionist who is completely confident of his / her decision has no such guilt or cognitive dissonance. They simply leave and don't have another thought about what they did. They do not feel a need to continually criticise the religion they left or to justify a decision they harbor doubts about.
Similarly, "confident" athiests often don't give religion a second thought. They are confident in their belief and don't have any motive to even investigate or to debate religion. An athiest with cognitive dissonance may doubt his belief and want to continually debate and find criticisms with religion as a way to justify his / her own doubts about their own belief / or lack of belief.
Its can be complicated.
At any rate, the description Orontes gave of this sort of behavior was something you would hear in a medical lecture. It was spot-on and profound in it's implications. That's what I liked about it. It was wise and profound and applicable.
In any case, I hope your own spiritual journeys are wonderful.
Clear
ειτωσιτζω