The Enemy Within: Breaking Strongholds Hiding in Our Lives

Reality: The State of Things as they Really or Truly Are. No Biases

This is an extension of the topic on Cognitive theories covered in Chapter 7, “Personality's Role in Influencing our Spiritual Health.” Cognition is basically the act of using the mind. Various mental processes in the course of using the mind include thinking, perception, attention, learning, remembering, concept formation, problem solving, verbal behaviour, and so on.

The chapter will focus on mental flaws or mental errors known as cognitive biases that obstruct our thinking processes from seeing things as clearly as they are. The mental flaws limit us from seeing things as clearly as they truly are in reality.

Reality is the state of matters in life as they really or truly are, rather than as we might assume them to be. The chapter will explore the nature of reality, our potential flaws to perceiving it, how the flaws affect our lives, including our Christian lives, and will explain how to avoid or minimize distorted views of reality.

The reality being focused on is the qualitative or philosophical reality which cannot be concretely measured or determined in absolute terms. This type of reality is in the category of academics known as social sciences.

This is in contrast to quantitative reality which can be concretely measured or determined in absolute terms. 1+1=2 is quantitative reality. It's in the category of academics known as pure or natural sciences.

However quantitative reality has qualitative aspects in many areas. For example, some researchers claim the world is millions of years while others say it's in thousands. Each endeavors to use quantitative methods of analysis. However because the methods of analysis and measurement have a human element in them they end up being partly qualitative. Qualitative reality is vulnerable to our own biases.

It's important to note that many fields in qualitative reality category endeavor to use quantitative methods of analysis to minimize bias. For example, economists have numerous statistical measurements for economies and the world of commerce. The challenge therefore is in minimizing biases so that reality is seen in its truest sense.

Even where it's not practical to devise quantitative methods of analysis it's worth endeavoring to be as objective as possible in making an inquiry and drawing a conclusion. Our area of faith as Christians is one such area that can use such injury. It helps us to minimize or avoid adding our own biases to biblical inquiry.

Our mental biases, mental errors, or mental flaws, as will be covered shortly, are among the major reasons we have numerous denominations today. False teachings too, have an element of descending from mental flaws among believers in the body of Christ. It's also our mental biases that can contribute to unnecessary spiritual wounds, strongholds, and other unpleasant matters in this life.

Cognitive Biases: How we Think Inside our Boxes

Instead of seeing reality in its best possible true sense our mental flaws process reality through a filtered method that ends up seeing reality from a biased view. A biased view is a perspective that sees something from our own preference, opinion, or favored outlook with little or no consideration to analyze the facts.

Our biased view on matters in life constitute our man-made boxes that limit us from seeing reality in its best possible true sense. Our thinking is limited within these boxes that we put ourselves in. They can be either self-made boxes or can be boxes made by others who have successfully put us in a box of their biased views.

Biases are therefore the opposite of objectivity. Objectivity is an independent or neutral analysis that is free from influence of bias. Objectivity considers all available information without taking any sides. It is a search for the actual truth rather a search to prove one's side of understanding, biases, cultural influences, expectations, or preferences.

To further elaborate on what biases are it is worth giving some examples. Wikipedia, an online Encyclopedia, has a good compilation on biases. For further information please read Appendix 1 “Cognitive Biases: How we Think Inside our Boxes.” The appendix has lots of supplemental information for this chapter. Below is a short list of social biases. Social biases are among other forms of cognitive biases.

Class bias: bias favoring one social class and bias ignoring social or class divisions;
Commercial bias: advertising, coverage of political campaigns favoring corporate interests, or reporting favoring media owner interests;
Ethnic or racial bias: racism, nationalism, regionalism and tribalism;
Geographical bias: describing a dispute as it is conducted in one country, when the dispute is framed differently elsewhere;
Nationalistic bias: favoring or opposing the interests or views of a particular nation;
Gender bias: including sexism and heteronormativity;
Linguistic bias, favoring certain languages;
Political bias: bias in favor of or against a particular political party, philosophy, policy or candidate;
Religious bias: bias for or against religion, faith or beliefs;
Sensationalist bias: favoring the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes emphasizing, distorting, or fabricating exceptional news to boost commercial ratings;
Scientific bias (including anti-scientific and scientific skepticism): favoring (or disfavoring) a scientist, inventor, or theory for non-scientific reasons. This can also include excessive favoring (or disfavoring) prevalent scientific opinion, if in doing so, notable viewpoints are no longer being treated neutrally.

Next Part Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Wikipedia, “Bias”

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