5.4 Why we cover our ears to the facts (July 2016)

Last week the 'Chilcot Report' into the British nation's role in the Iraq war was published. I was interested to read an analysis on the BBC magazine website titled ‘Why we cover our ears to the facts’. It starts by discussing human cognitive bias, in this case as an introduction to some thoughts about the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), but that could equally well be an introduction to a discussion about religion.

I would encourage you to read the BBC article before continuing, and mentally substitute 'evidence for WMD'/'WMD' for 'evidence for God'/'God', and remember that we are thinking about a time when we didn’t know if WMD existed in Iraq or not. If you can’t access the BBC article then the key points are:
  • Cognitive dissonance causes people to become entrenched in their prior beliefs when presented with conflicting strands of evidence that both support and undermine those beliefs (we selectively listen to congruent evidence). Rationally one would expect a softening of views would result with recognition that the belief is perhaps less well attested than they had initially imagined.
  • This can be seen in the WMD debate around the time of the 2003 Iraq war where the belief in the existence of WMDs became entrenched and as new evidence came to light the argument for WMDs was reframed and shifted (confirmation bias), but never dropped. Initially it was believed that the WMDs were ready to be deployed in 45 minutes. Later, when they couldn’t be found, this was softened to account for the fact that there were thousands of places to look – we just haven’t looked hard enough yet. Not wanting to give up on their existence, when they still couldn’t be found it was thought to be because the Iraqi army had removed and destroyed them.
Never at any point did any new evidence change the underlying belief that Iraq had WMDs. The goal posts for finding WMDs kept moving to make it possible for them to exist, but they were still never found. In hindsight we know that the reason there was no evidence for WMDs is because there weren’t any. All along the evidence was growing stronger in that direction, but the evidence was unable to change the belief.

While I was reading the BBC article, it emphasised to me that the very same biases are at play in human thought on religion and theology. Theology is a complicated subject with arguments from people in authority and academics on all sides (there are a lot more than two). It is not clear or obvious, even after extensive research, which side has the stronger arguments or who is right (which may or may not be the same), and we are unlikely to be in a position to verify all the claims and evidence that has been cited.
  
We didn't know the truth about Saddam's WMDs (although we did know that it was possible for him to have some sort of WMDs). We don't know the truth about the existence or otherwise of God (although we do know it is a possibility that a Deity of some sort exists).
  
Many people feel pressured to arrive at a firm conclusion with limited evidence; they have a psychological need for cognitive closure. This, I would suggest, is not prudent: it stops us from seeking new evidence, it allows our human biases to take hold, it colours our judgement and it prevents us from being open-minded and rational.
  
In the end I think we have to recognise that when thinking about Deity we are dealing with something that is simply, but definitely, unknown. We, with our human limitations, are better off not holding beliefs in either direction but rather recognising the unknown and seeking for more and better evidence. We don't have to believe things and we don't have to produce answers where there are none. Where we do have beliefs or faith we are blinkered and unable to easily change our attitude or make the most rational judgement.
  
For these reasons, from my limited and biased perspective, it appears that a history of God is a history of gods being re-framed, re-thought and updated; in a similar way to the history of WMDs in Iraq being a history of their existence being re-framed, re-thought and updated.

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