(May 7, 2018 at 12:46 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: "Man by his nature desires to know" and the pursuit of pure knowledge does have value.
Well then... in the moments where you seek knowledge for its own sake then you're not engaging in confirmation bias... but in the moments in which you seek it for furthering Christianity (or for anything else), then that does involve confirmation bias.
If I went seeking knowledge to support atheism then moments in which I did that rather than seeking knowledge for its own sake I'd be falling into confirmation bias as well. But, of course, I don't go seeking knowledge to support atheism (or to support the truth of any other position)... what would be the point?
If you want to really bolster your belief then surely you must recognize that the best way to bolster a position is by trying as hard as you can and failing to refute or falsify it, not to bolster it. If you really want to strengthen your faith, you should be challenging it... not looking for knowledge that helps you grow God's Kingdom when that already assumes that you're right. But that's just it.... you think you know you're right... without any evidence whatsoever and you're not even seeking knowledge to the contrary. That's the whole problem by not seeking knowledge for its own sake. There should NOT be a reason for knowledge as then knowledge about anything else gets completely ignored, at least WHEN you're NOT seeking knowledge for its own sake.