Abdurraheem Green – Confirmation Bias E-Reminders

Abdurraheem Green
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The speakers discuss the importance of confirmation bias in finding God's help in times of need and how it can lead to problems. They stress the importance of listening to information to avoid confusion and mistakes, and emphasize the need to challenge existing beliefs and present them through existing beliefs. The speakers also stress the importance of acceptance in Islam, as it is a way to overcome obstacles and allow people to live with others. They emphasize the need for acceptance in Islam, as it is a way to overcome obstacles and allow people to live with others.

AI: Summary ©

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			Salam Alaikum brothers and sisters today I think I'm going to talk about I have something which I
think is going to be a really fascinating topic for everybody. And as as you know, those of you have
been following my shows up until now. Since not last Ramadan Ramadan before I've been going through
a long journey, and we've been talking about, I guess it's the journey of the self, it's a journey
inside ourselves, and Subhanallah how beautiful it is to travel through the earth and see Allah's
beautiful signs to see the amazing sunsets, the mountains, the rivers, the streams, the deserts, the
forests, the seas.
		
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			But you know, what is just as fascinating and beautiful and or inspiring and,
		
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			and confusing as well and puzzling, and so many things is inside you, the inner being.
		
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			And, you know, Allah says that he will show us his signs on the furthest horizons and within
ourselves until we know the truth. So this inner journey, this journey inside ourselves, this
journey inside our mind is also truly something that is both or inspiring, fascinating, the great
complexity of the human being
		
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			it's just something that is, we can see we've been talking about it for over a year now. And, and we
just we're just warming up. And as I say, sort of every single week almost I talk about this every
week or every single week. Why is this so important? Why is this whole general subject, something
that is worth spending time on? Why is it worth us? Content, plating, reading, studying, thinking
about? And if there was no other reason, except that one of the most important things that we need
to do isn't, is to try and purify our intentions to try and make things sure that we do things
purely insincerely for Allah subhanaw taala? And that you how will you ever really purify your
		
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			intention? If you do not understand what it is that motivates you? Why do you do what you do? Why do
you think the way that you think so when we can begin to uncover certain things about human beings,
and there are certain tendencies that we have as human beings that can actually lead us to wrong
conclusions. And this whole field, or this whole, you know, this whole aspect of the inner
dimension, the inner being,
		
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			that I'm talking about how we think in certain ways that can lead us to make wrong conclusions. They
call it in psychology, cognitive biases. And of all the cognitive biases
		
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			that we have, perhaps the most well known is, and you'll often find it if you type in Google, and
you type in cognitive bias, what you end you'll get articles and so on and so forth, you might come
across some articles that I've used to,
		
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			you know, based on my talk on today, very often, either at the top or in the list of the top 10
cognitive biases that we human beings have, you will find confirmation bias is something that comes
up
		
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			again and again. And it's also a very topical, the whole, the whole subject of confirmation bias is
also very, very topical. And the reason is, is because of the increasing polarization of people's
opinions, in politics in the West, and particularly this has taken place in America, where people
are beginning to see a type of polarization type of people going to sort of extremes on the
political spectrum, to the extent that people are not even talking to each other people not even
listening to each other, and the type of sort of lies and distortions and that are coming from one
camp to the other camp.
		
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			It's become really something quite scary for many people.
		
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			Now some of us may say, Well, whatever, right? That's just America, who cares. But it's actually
something that is happening really all over the world. And one of the reasons that it is becoming
more pronounced is due to the algorithms
		
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			of social media.
		
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			And we know this, that social media tends to push towards you
		
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			information, stories, videos,
		
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			and so on and so forth. Even advertisements that
		
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			suit your particular way of thinking. The problem with this is that this actually only compounds an
existing
		
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			problem that we have.
		
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			And that is this confirmation bias. So we have this cognitive dissonance, we have this wrong way of
thinking, it's not a wrong way of thinking, because actually, we have to understand that all of
these biases, they have their roots in something that is very useful, and in a sense, obvious for us
as human beings, because they're shortcuts basically, cognitive biases are shortcuts. Because our
brain uses a lot of energy, it takes up a huge amount of energy. And so our brain has, Allah has
designed within our brains, our brains have been formed, with systems with, you know, particular
shortcuts in thinking that allow us to make decisions quickly, without having to think too much
		
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			about them. Right. So and the problem is, if we think too much about something, it causes, in a
sense paralysis in our decision making, and because of that, we could lose many opportunities that
are going to help keep us alive. So our brain comes up with these shortcuts. And when you think
about them, it's very easy to understand why we would have these shortcuts, however,
		
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			they can sometimes be dangerous.
		
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			And if we rely upon them too much, and we're not aware of them, actually, it can cause a lot of
problems. So I'm going to start now with the story. The story is about any man who lives you know,
who's who's the Imam of the masjid, on the edge of the desert. And, and he's sitting one day, you
know, in outside the masjid. And this man comes down and sits next to him and they start drinking
tea, some mint tea together. And this man is basically he's an atheist, he doesn't he doesn't
believe in online doesn't believe in God. So Imam is a little bit shocked.
		
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			And you know, in the process of the conversation is trying to understand why why don't why don't you
believe in God? And the man says this, and I've given God a chance I've you know, I've it's not that
I haven't tried and excuse the amount of seeing if you do you make dua to a lot, you call upon a
lot, do you do not seek His help in times of distress and in times of need?
		
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			And the men said, Yeah, I've given that a try. In fact, you know what, I've just, it only happened
to me recently, I was in the desert, and I was lost, I was lost in the desert, I was thirsty.
		
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			My cod broken down. I didn't really know where I was, I was very, very thirsty. In fact, I realized
that soon I was going to die. And there I then I started to call upon God, I started CPR a lot, you
know, helped me save me, save me from this situation. I was on the verge of collapse. And I thought
that was it.
		
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			But nothing happened.
		
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			And the man was saying, but you're sitting here talking to me. What do you mean, nothing happened?
You're sitting here talking to me right now. You Something must have happened?
		
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			He said, No, no, it wasn't like that. He said, a group of Bedouins found me. And they gave me
something to drink. And they looked after me and they brought me back to their car. And they found
me back to the town and that's how I got here. And of course, the man is perplexed is like because
the map is
		
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			okay, what's the point of this story?
		
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			The point of this story is that you see the world through your lenses, right? You have a particular
lens, and those lenses and the color of that lens, which is your belief system
		
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			is what causes you to interpret events in a certain way. So we you can see the two lenses quite
clearly. You see the guy who is an atheist. What really and what does he think? What is he thinking?
		
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			He's thinking that God, when he's praying to God, he's thinking that God is supposed to literally
pick him up himself and take him himself to the car. So he's got this idea of God has maybe some
sort of big hand that is going to come down and scoop him up and, you know, give him water or
water's going to pour from the sky onto his face, right? He doesn't think that God is sending him
the Bedouins or that the Bedouins you know, have the Allah has guided them to him. He doesn't think
like that, that he thinks that when he prays to God, he's expecting some incredible intervention and
some sort of indisputable miracle and fame, some Bedouins that just happen to find him is about to
		
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			die. He doesn't look at that. He just think that he imagines that human intervention. But for the
AMM, he understands that Mo. That is how God saved you. And of course, it's not very likely that a
guy in the desert by himself is just going to be stumbled across by a couple of Bedouins. But the
point being here is not the point is not about whether this
		
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			is some proof of the existence of God or not. The point is about confirmation bias. That's the
point. The point is, is that if you have a set of beliefs, you will tend to interpret information
that comes to you, which is really objective, objective information, objective events, objective
facts, but you will interpret those facts according to your beliefs. And what confirmation bias
tells us is that the more emotive the issue is,
		
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			and the more we desire a particular outcome, right. So if there's something we really want to
happen, maybe you want to get some money, maybe you want to marry someone, maybe we you know, we
want to discover something or whatever, you know that there's some particular outcome that we won't
want to pass an exam, whatever it may be, right? So what will happen is that in these particularly
emotive times, or we have a particular outcome that we desire, then it's even more the case that our
beliefs will
		
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			be the lens through which we interpret what happens now those beliefs could be positive beliefs, or
they could be negative beliefs. If you have a real, strong negative self image, if you think really
badly about the world, and people around you, well, guess what, when things happen to you, you will
tend to interpret everything negatively, you know, to the extent that people may be genuinely trying
to do things for you, out of the bottom of their heart to be nice to you to be good to you. But
because of your belief system, because of your cognitive bias because of your experiences, you
interpret those things in a negative way, maybe you think that that person is being manipulative.
		
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			Maybe you think that person, you know, is just lying, so on and so forth. So this is because these
are part of a person's belief system, it's part of the way that they see the world. And so what do
they do is that they interpret everything in a way that just seems to confirm and they just say, Oh,
you see, you see, I knew it.
		
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			And so yeah, this is it. So for example, right one of the some of the things that we have to be
careful for of as Muslims, for example, if you are already a person who is inclined to some
superstitious beliefs, like maybe you believe in astrology, or maybe you have some belief in you
know, palm readings or some type of fortune telling, that is all considered a type of disbelief in
Islam, what you will tend to do is you will tend to interpret information that you receive in that
regard, in a way that confirms your belief. So you will forget the 100 times that particular fortune
teller or that you know, the star, you know, the star signs were completely wrong.
		
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			Or you will forget the things that happened in your day that had absolutely nothing like maybe 90%
of your day did not match anything to do with the start, you will just remember the bits that did
you will just
		
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			how can you say exaggerate the bits that confirm your existing beliefs? Now, of course, this is just
you interpreting reality in a wrong way. And I'm sure you can understand.
		
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			You know why? That can be really really, you know, really, really deep
		
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			jurors. Now on top of that, it gets worse because then we tend to listen to information. So this is
the other thing, we tend to listen to information, we tend to sort of seek out the information that
confirms our pre existing beliefs. Right now,
		
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			when this comes to issues,
		
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			within
		
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			our collective, within the collective onma,
		
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			within the realm of maybe it is due art, or scholarship, or your community, and so on and so forth.
We know it's not something hidden, that amongst the Muslims, there are many different beliefs, many
different practices, many different ideas, many different many different activators, many different
interpretations, different herbs, different schools of thought, even within the different mobile
hub, there are different opinions, and so on and so forth. So
		
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			this is something that is not hidden.
		
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			And even between you we have different sects within Islam, and then we have various other sects that
are considered not to be within Islam. But anyway, my point is not to go into that in depth. My
point is, that when it comes to this whole realm of again, we are supposed to be truth seekers. That
is something we've discussed that in a previous talk. In fact, the very first talk that I gave in
this new series was about what if you remember, it wasn't last week, it was the week before. It was
about lying. It was about being truthful. It was about the quality of truthfulness, and the
importance of being truthful, and the importance of being truthful and honest to yourself.
		
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			And that's what we are, we are people who are truthful, we try to be truthful, we try not to lie.
And above all, we must be honest and truthful with ourselves, we are always seeking the truth. But
the problem is, if you don't have
		
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			a good discipline, if you're if you don't understand how to think, if you don't understand how to
process information effectively, if you don't know the correct way of sorting out what is good
information from what is bad information. What is a good way to find the truth of a matter? And what
is the bad way to find the truth of the matter?
		
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			You're not really ever going to be able to reach the right conclusion. I mean, you might just by
coincidence, but you're not going to do it by the force of thinking in the correct way.
		
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			Right. And this is the problem that this is the problem is that very often, there are people who,
you know, they're very quick to offer their opinions, but it's very obvious very quickly that they
don't understand how to filter information effectively. So it's very interesting. I'm, you know, I'm
on a number of particular groups. And so one of the discussions recently has been a lot was about
various aspects of, you know, like, the ongoing pandemic and various treatments, vaccinate or not to
vaccinate to take this particular drug or not to take this particular drug. And you know, there's a
very, again, interestingly, as we're talking about confirmation bias, it's so interesting to see
		
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			exactly this play out, and I see it playing out with within myself, I mean, I have biases. And I'll
be honest, I find it sometimes really hard and challenging to read and sift through information that
contradicts the sort of inclinations and ideas that I have at the time.
		
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			And I begin to feel that those opposing ideas, and the people who are espousing them, you know,
they're only doing that because they're, you know, they're from this or that or this way of
thinking. I'm saying all of this, by the way without giving you a clue where my thoughts are, in
this whole situation at the moment because it's not important. It's not important. You need to sift
through the information yourself. But one of the things you need to do when you are sifting through
information is you have to be aware of this. Whether it is you studying your deen whether it is you
studying your religion, whether you are reading the Quran or trying to come to the bottom of a
		
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			particular issue within Islam, or whether it's a political issue, whether it's a scientific issue,
right, whatever issue it is, whether it's issue amongst your family, you
		
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			You must be very, very aware of this issue of confirmation bias. Am I reaching these conclusions? Am
I only listening to things that confirm my prejudices already? If you think your family is the best,
or your tribe is the best, or your nation is the best? Well guess what? Guess what, you are only
going to be listening to information that confirms that you are not going to be listening to stuff
that is telling you no, wait a minute, your country's a mess, your family is full of, you know,
liars and cheats, and whatever, right? You're not going to look at it, you're not going to allow
yourself to accept that information. Oh, and guess what, it's the same about yourself, if you have a
		
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			big ego, if you're so full of yourself, if you think you're so good. The by the way, this is
another. This is it's very, it's actually very interesting that many of these different types of
cognitive dissonance, or these different types of these different ways in which we process
information and come to wrong conclusions, they are very interconnected. They're very
interconnected. And it's really fascinating, I'd almost sort of thought it would be really
interesting to make a sort of
		
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			a sort of root system to see how this one is connected to that, because as I've been studying them,
I realized that wait a minute, confirmation bias, is seems to be very, very strongly connected to
other types of biases as well. And they certainly have the potential to reinforce each other, you
know, so for example, what do we talk about last week, we talk we last week, we talked about how,
you know, we tend to follow the crowd, and how we tend to follow and look at what everybody else is
doing and seeing what everybody else is doing? And then think, yeah, that's what we should do. And
we talked about that from different levels. But I think you can understand quickly as well, how you
		
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			could link that easily to confirmation bias as well. The two things, they do have a connection, they
certainly have a Punnett potential connection, and they have a potential of, you know, reinforcing
one another. So let's let me go back to what I was saying. Right? So we were talking about you don't
tend to,
		
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			when it comes to looking at yourself, if you have a big ego, if you think a lot of yourself,
		
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			then guess what, you know, you're going to just process information that keeps building your ego,
and keeps building this false self image that you have of yourself, right. There's another thing
I've talked about this previous I talked about this years ago in the willpower courses that I did,
and you can see it on my YouTube channel. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can see a talk I did
about the Dunning Kruger effect. This is another type of cognitive bias. You know, that's when
you're so ignorant, you don't even know you're ignorant.
		
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			And you know, you're so ignorant, you actually you find a little piece of information, and it gives
you an enormous amount of confidence. Right? There's another type of cognitive bias combined.
Combine that with confirmation bias, right? There's another type. There are other types of biases as
well. And so all of these things when it comes to your ego, when it comes to yourself, when it comes
to you, making a self assessment of yourself is quite difficult. It's really challenging. No wonder,
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam called it this jihad or this struggle against your knifes or
your ego is the greatest, it's the most difficult struggle is the struggle against yourself for the
		
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			sake of Allah. Right for the sake of Allah, it is really, really difficult.
		
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			Because we come across these type of things, right, we just like to build upon our existing beliefs.
Okay.
		
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			So that's the first thing we pay attention, you know, only to things that confirm our beliefs and
issues that we, you know, and you can see so many issues, climate change, right. There's another
thing, right? I mean, when it comes to these things, there's another type of bias the other type of
bias is that guess what, if your livelihood depends upon something, how easy is it going to be for
you to be able to process information that contradicts
		
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			the thing that is your livelihood is based upon because that's another thing you know, we human
beings, we're always trying to find self justification. We lie
		
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			Like to be consistent with ourselves, right? We like to, we like we want our action to be consistent
with our budget. We all hate hypocrisy, we all hate Norfolk. We hate it. Generally human beings
really, really. And I mentioned this previously, in another talk, human beings hate hypocrisy, they
hate it when someone says something and does something else. Right. And that's true of ourselves as
well, generally, we want to be consistent with our beliefs, if we hold certain beliefs, we want to
feel that, you know, we don't just hold those beliefs that we are consistent with them, that we
actually do the things that we believe in as well. Very important for us. Okay. But of course, if
		
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			you're if your livelihood for example, let's just say you work in the oil industry,
		
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			how easy is it going to be for you to accept
		
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			the possibility of climate change? How open are you going to be to looking at the facts? How open
are you going to be to looking at the data? Certainly, we know, we know, it's not even hidden
anymore, that the big major oil companies, they actually had scientists doing research on, on
manmade climate change on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, and back in the 1970s, they
actually concluded and they predicted pretty much what is happening right now, he knew it all those
years ago, they knew it, what did they do?
		
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			The information was there.
		
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			They just kept on In fact, they didn't just keep on they push their agenda of selling oil more and
more and more despite knowing exactly what it was going to do. The information was there. But that's
the thing. And obviously from you know, a basic primitive survival point of view, the drive to
survive the drive for a livelihood, the drive to enrich yourself, the drive to increase your wealth
is very, very strong. Allah mentioned in the Quran, you know, that in the hula have been Havilah
should eat certainly in the love of good, the love of wealth, we are violent.
		
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			beautified Allah has made us that, you know, the well tilled land and the crops and the cattle and
the homes and the businesses and our families. And these have been beautified in our hearts in our
minds. This is the reality. So when something comes along, that tells us, oh, no, this is not good.
It's not good for you. It's not good for the planet, it's not good for whatever, it's very hard for
us to process that information. Because what does it mean? It means we have to change, it means we
have to change radically. And that, by the way, is also something very, very difficult to do. So
this is another type of bias that we have in our thinking you can see how easy it is for us to get
		
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			stuff wrong.
		
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			Right? Imagine you're a humbly Yeah. Hardcore humbly. Yeah. Or you're a hardcore Salafi or you're
hardcore,
		
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			you know, Hanafy, or Shafi or whatever, it doesn't matter. You know, I'm just making the point. And
you know, you have this firm attachment to your mother had, you become absolutely convinced that a
particular position or particular thing that you're Madhab is upon is not right, you just begin to
realize you can't see how this can be reconciled with what Allah says, or with what the Prophet
said, or, you know, and I'm not I'm not trying to oversimplify it, I'm just using it as an example.
Right? That you can't reconcile, how easy is it going to be for you? Or how hard is it going to be
for you to go against your teachers, your colleagues, your friends, everybody around you to stand up
		
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			and
		
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			follow what you think is the truth?
		
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			Very hard.
		
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			Even if you can allow yourself to get to that position. And, you know, we can see in our history
that this rivalry between the different schools of thought has sometimes, you know,
		
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			of course it I'm not, I'm saying sometimes it's not like the norm, but sometimes it's reached.
Really, you know, extremes where, you know, one, one Madhavi saying you can't marry
		
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			people from another map. Or if you do, it's like you're marrying a hurry Kitab stuff.
		
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			This type of stuff. Allahu Akbar is like Sunni Muslims.
		
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			saying this about each other. Right? So when you have those type of extremes, guess what? Right? You
that's what you have confirmation bias, you're only looking for the stuff that is going to confirm
you're already you know, your preconceived prejudices. And this is just not conducive to finding
truth. It's not conducive to finding truth, right? And then so obviously, what do you do you find
sources that support your beliefs, you find sources that support your views, you only look for those
opinions that support the opinions that you have. So sure enough, if you're a shear our guess what
you're gonna do, you're gonna keep on looking and listening to those videos and those talks and
		
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			those things that support your way of thinking, right? If you're a hot, edgy, takfiri jihadi, you
know, guess what? Guess what you'll do almost without doubt, you will just limit yourself more and
more to listening to, you know, those things that support your your point of view. All right, this
is just generally what people do.
		
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			It's dangerous, is not a way to help you find the truth.
		
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			And, you know, obviously, it goes to the extreme of even refusing to listen to what other people
have to say,
		
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			refusing to even listen to what other people have to say.
		
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			But you know, subhanAllah, brothers and sisters, honestly,
		
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			the truth can be found in the most strange places. Truth can be found in the most strange places.
		
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			And I guess the main problem is, you don't anymore look at facts in a logical and rational manner.
Your whole way of looking at the world of looking at objective realities becomes distorted by your
beliefs. And I mean, as you know, in a negative way, of course, this is I don't mean this from the
point of view of Imam or having faith in Allah. I don't mean this at all, quite quite the opposite,
in fact, because I've thought about this quite deeply. And you know, the more I think about it,
although that could be my cognitive bias, right. But I tried to think about it a bit objectively.
One of the things that I found Subhanallah really amazing is that you see, within Islam within the
		
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			process of a person who is struggling towards Allah, it's almost the opposite. It's almost that
Allah subhanaw taala is constantly testing you and breaking down your biases in order for you to be
able to see truth and the path to truth, more and more clearly.
		
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			Subhanallah Alhamdulillah.
		
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			So let's see, right, why why why does this happen? Why do we do that? Right.
		
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			Okay, so like I said, right at the beginning, one of the things that all of these
		
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			type of cognitive biases, these ways of thinking, yeah, these shortcuts that we have is they save
energy, right, that's what they do, they save energy. And obviously, listening to every single
detail going into every single, I mean, to be honest, I don't have the energy for a lot of it
anymore, I used to have a lot more energy I don't, I've got other things to get on with, I just
don't have the energy to read every opinion to look into every variable to look into. I mean, my way
of dealing is, you know, I just try to have a good opinion of everybody, and, and hope that everyone
is doing the best and make dua for everyone. And you know, like, so, I deal with that from the
		
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			perspective of not allowing it to be super negative in terms of my relationship with other people.
And that even is in respect to non Muslims. One of the things I came to realize is that it's a guy
who wants to guide you can give someone every argument you can try and persuade them with every
single argument that you have every single fact that you think you can present to them. But you know
what each person has their own way. They you realize they have their own way of thinking, and
there's nothing that you can do to change it. The only one who can change it is themselves or in
reality, the only one that can really change it is Allah subhanaw taala. Right. Okay. So I mean, the
		
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			best that you can do is you can just try and present the information in the best way that you can,
and you don't allow yourself to get too frustrated about, you know, the way people are because
that's the way they are
		
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			so
		
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			It helps you psychologically, it helps your interaction with others, it helps you to be more
understanding with others. I mean, I think that's another thing, once you realize that human beings
in general, including you, all of us, we have confirmation bias, that's just, it's just the way we
are. But it also then allows you to chill a little bit when it comes to understanding why people are
the way they are. Right? It's not necessarily even that people are willfully and purposefully
obstinate, it may not be that it may just be that that's just the way they see the world. And it
also is interesting that
		
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			in order to get people to
		
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			understand things differently,
		
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			it's not always about presenting facts to them. Right? Because what happens, you present the fact
and guess what happens is go back to the story, right? That I told you about the Imam and the guy
and the atheist, right? So whatever facts you present to somebody, what what do you think's going to
happen, they're just going to keep interpreting it through their belief system. And that is why you
have to go back to those fundamental ideas that they have, if you want to challenge someone, maybe
the way to do it is not just by throwing all these facts, right? All Muslims are not terrorists,
because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? You know, we don't eat pork because of this, and that,
		
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			and this and that. And, you know, we must as we're not as bad as you think, because of, you know,
whatever it may be, I don't know, whatever subject topic, I'm just thinking from a dour perspective.
But
		
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			that's not really effective, because people are gonna keep interpreting that through their pre
existing beliefs, what you need to do is go back and challenge those very, very foundational
beliefs, that's what you need to do. Of course, that's very, very painful. Right? And maybe this is
why another reason why we have confirmation bias, it's actually a protection mechanism. Because
often we invest a huge amount of energy either
		
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			willingly, we do it on purpose, right? Or it's been maybe imposed upon us. And that's another
possibility is that we have these beliefs, not because we've thought about them and come to those
conclusions ourselves, maybe we've literally been forced to have those beliefs.
		
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			Or at least we've been encouraged to have those beliefs. But sometimes, you know, and that, that
also takes a lot of energy from us, by the way, that that also is taken a huge amount of energy. So
the problem is that when you are confronted with something that is going to make you
		
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			face that the possibility of you having to change your belief about something that is really scary,
don't, it's really don't underestimate how flippin terrifying that is to somebody.
		
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			Because it's like, like, wait a minute, all of that. Everything I've invested all that time and
energy I put into that. And I'm just going to have to accept that it was, like mostly rubbish.
		
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			And for what, you know, that's it.
		
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			You can see how that is really, really difficult.
		
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			From another perspective, you can see why we have confirmation bias, right? Because whether you're a
family or a society, or you know, you build these belief systems, because societies and families
tend to be built around certain belief systems and those belief systems, hopefully, they are there
in order to help regulate people's lives in some sort of positive way. Right? So they generally have
some type of use, one would hope, maybe not, but you know, generally they, they may do or they
that's the idea of them. So again, you know, like having to think about every single detail is
difficult is challenging. It takes a lot of energy.
		
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			And this is a shortcut that our mind takes we just accept these things. We take them on board, it
just helps us to live with other human beings and get on with them. Because we share similar beliefs
and we share similar practices. And when we share similar beliefs and practices, we are able to
cooperate with each other and work together better generally. Right? So we can understand why our
brains would do that. It's just something normal, right in the same way that we discuss.
		
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			Just last week, about why it makes sense to just look at what other people are doing and follow
them. It does sort of make sense a lot of the time, but not always. The same with confirmation bias,
you can see why it sort of makes sense. But not always. I think confirmation bias perhaps in this
day and age is one of the things that we have to be super, super, super aware of. And as Muslims, we
have to be super, super aware of both for us, because we are truth seekers.
		
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			And also in terms of our, you know, understanding other human beings because part of being a Muslim,
a huge part of our deen is giving dower is inviting people to Islam. Right. So just to include
brothers and sisters. Yep, people can take two sides on an issue, they can listen to the same story
and walk away with different interpretations that they feel validates their existing point of view,
this is often indicative that the confirmation bias is working to bias their opinions. The problem
with this is that it can lead to poor choices, and an inability to listen to opposing views, or even
contribute to othering.
		
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			People who have different opinions. It's exactly what we see. Really brothers and sisters, if you
see it, you can see read the Quran. And you see this exactly what is happening to the prophets, the
messages, the messengers and prophets, they're coming to their people with real facts, objective
facts objective, the Quran is full of these objective facts, look at this, look at that, think about
this, think about that. But the consistent response of the the messengers, the the consistent
response to the messengers from their people, is one of rejection
		
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			is one of rejection. And often what you will see in the Quran is that they are really just,
		
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			you know, they're just really making plain their confirmation bias. Oh, this is the way of our
ancestors. Are you saying our ancestors are wrong?
		
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			This is the way that we are upon this is what we do. Are you saying we are wrong? Are you saying our
answers are wrong? And you're saying something different? I mean, that's it. That's just almost
enough. How dare you challenge what we are doing? How dare you challenge our beliefs? How dare you
challenge our practices? Why? What's wrong with that? Well, it's just because they are our beliefs
and our practices. There is no other reason that's the only justification given
		
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			is not a way to find truth brothers and sisters. Not for you, not for me, not for anybody. Okay.
		
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			So brothers and sisters Alhamdulillah.
		
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			We, as Muslims, we believe and I go back to I mentioned this, that Allah says he will show them His
signs within themselves and on the furthest horizons until they know that this is the truth. And so
that's what we believe. You know, the world is a book of science. The Quran is a book of science,
but also the world in which we live is full of science. These objective facts, these objective
realities that are there in front of us in front of our eyes, they are all signs that should lead a
clear thinking person to know that there is nothing truly of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad
may God's peace and blessings be upon him, his messenger and your brothers and sisters, I hope you
		
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			found this interesting. I hope that there are some lessons for myself and for yourself in today's
reminder, and until next week, may Allah's peace and blessings and
		
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			be upon you may he protects you may he guide you maybe may he put you and all of us upon the path of
truth Allahumma Salli ala Muhammad in well earlier Saburo Salam don't forget to share this if you
enjoyed it and you found it beneficial don't forget to subscribe on my YouTube channel. Yes
Abderrahim greens YouTube channel, my actual one myself. Don't forget also to subscribe to stream
Islam mashallah so many good speakers on this platform Alhamdulillah and growing more and more. And
until next time, brothers and sisters if Allah gives us life, may Allah keep you safe as Salaam
Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh