How to recognize confirmation bias within one’s self

[Lance Payette]

I don't think my absolute conviction that Oswald was the assassin is in anyway a character flaw. It is the only reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. There are some things worth being open minded about. The existence of a Supreme Being. The existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos. But not the possibility of Oswald's innocence. That does not exist. I am proud to be closed minded about that.

I will confess to having a lack of humility. If it weren't for that character flaw, I'd be perfect.

I will pick on John one more time just for fun.

I've previously stated on other threads that John's posts often remind me of my extensive interactions with internet atheists who haunt religion forums.

The ploy of internet atheists is that religious believers are victims of their confirmation biases - indeed, that religious belief is just one big delusion driven by confirmation biases - but that atheists are entirely rational, evidence-driven, critical thinkers, free of any and all confirmation biases.

"My only confirmation bias is toward the truth" could be right out of the mouth of an internet atheist. It is impossible to have a rational discussion with these folks - and all other species of debunkers across all the areas of weirdness in which I have been involved - because evidence simply isn't evidence at all (or at least isn't "credible" or "extraordinary") unless these folks decide it is (and they never do). They get to determine the standard, you see, because they are entirely rational, evidence-driven, critical thinkers while you are hopelessly in the grip of your confirmation biases and wishful thinking.

This is, of course, absurd. Atheists typically are drowning in confirmation biases, at least to the extent of the typical believer. It's their refusal to acknowledge this that stifles discussion. A believer who says "damn right I'd like there to be a benevolent deity and a blissful afterlife" - i.e., who is aware of his own confirmation biases - is far ahead of an atheist or other species of debunker who deludes himself that he doesn't have any such biases.

Thomas Nagel is both a very serious philosopher and an atheist (author of the groundbreaking epistemological paper "What is it like to be a bat?"). He famously admitted his confirmation biases:

"I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time."

One of my pet subjects, as you can tell. I am reminded of my debates with internet atheists - which I enjoyed, up to a point - every time I read John's cocksure posts.

(You folks need a break. Here is "What is it like to be a bat?" - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf)