Before we begin our studies in The Way, if we are following the Calvarian curriculum we must begin with a study in how to properly study.

There are four basic requirements to study properly —

Step 1: identify biases
Step 2: isolate biases
Step 3: investigate objectively
Step 4: investigate subjectively

(In Christianity there is basically only one step - Investigate Subjectively. The Church teaches its members to blindly believe, but if for some reason they do actually try to study, they are taught to seek out only for those who already agree with the present position, to search for things that seem to “prove” preexisting belief, and filter all information through established doctrine. Contrariwise, Calvarians never do this.)

Identify Biases

Why is this Step One?

Before all things we must identify our biases because integrity can not exist otherwise.

If we commence an inquiry into any matter before identifying those pesky points of dogma we don’t want to do without, we will succeed only in creating the logical fallacy of “confirmation bias”. In other words, we will set out on the road to discovery only to find ourselves stuck on a cul-de-sac instead. We will go around and around on a closed loop, ever moving but never really getting anywhere new. We will be trapped with only the info that we already “know” to be so and remain eternally self-affirming our own beliefs. We can not find out using this method, why we believe what we believe as opposed to a contrarian position. We can not find out why we believe what we believe for its own sake. We can not find out if our belief is slightly misguided, if it is wildly misguided or simply incomplete…or if it is entirely erroneous.

Skipping this first step will set us in an echo chamber, ever hearing only ourselves agreeing with ourselves.

From the outset we have to ask, “What am I prejudiced against?”

There will be many thoughts we are inclined to resist because they fly in the face of our feelings, are far too unfamiliar and don’t conform to our preexisting beliefs. If we can’t face them, then they create a blind spot in our vision…and that is most often where the truth will reside.

After that we have to ask, “What am I predisposed toward?”

This question is similar but not synonymous with the aforementioned. Similar in that it creates a blind spot aswell, but different in its manner and scope. Things we are biased against are aspects we avoid looking at because we oppose them by tradition and condition. They are the few places we don’t focus on because we predetermine them to be “off limits”. Contrariwise, the things we are biased toward make us over focus upon the predetermined importance o those matters to the neglect of everything else around us that might otherwise destroy our reason for belief. The first bias blocks out a few important areas where much truth may possibly be found. The second blocks out all areas where any little truth could reside that which would ruin our blind faith.

All people, no matter how simpleminded or sagacious, possess biases. And no two people possess the same ones. Biases are the direct result of the influence and impact of family, region, country, culture, era, interest, religion, education, entertainment, assumption, etc. Every moment of our personal life experience shapes our private bias. Some of those will be accurate measures of objective truth, but many will not. And we will never be able to know the difference if we do not investigate thoroughly. Therefore it becomes imperative that we identify each of these, label them, categorize them, and compare them.

Only then can we possess biases rather than being ourselves possessed by them.


Isolate Biases

Once we have sufficiently determined which biases our ours, called attention to them, and branded them so they can not hide from us any more, then it is time to set them aside. Not in a metaphorical box. Not hidden away in a container somewhere in the dark. These things act like living creatures and can climb back out, creep up on us unawares, and sneak back into our minds and hearts if we don’t watch them constantly.

Our biases must be set aside on a shelf in a place of prominence. Set up on full display so that we can keep an eye on them while we study. A watchful eye will keep them in place far away from influencing our investigation. And even with our best, most careful efforts to keep them apart from affecting our thinking, we still will often fail.

Isolating our biases is a continuous effort and requires extreme vigilance on our part.

When we study a matter, at every point of conclusion, we need check to make sure our biases are still set aside from us sitting on their proverbial shelf. And if we discover one or more has jumped back out of its isolated place and reinserted itself into our thought process, we need grab it by the scruff of its neck, drag it back to its shelf and set it in place again. Then start from scratch to analyze once more in its absence.

Investigate Objectively

Our preconceptions identified and isolated, now we can begin to study properly. Objectivism can only be maintained in this way, by constance, vigilance, and endurance, to check and recheck our own work. Keeping an unbiased mind all the while so that the facts and their surrounding details are all that is considered for our conclusion.

We can never try to prove a preexisting belief.

We can never argue against the opposite in this step either as this is the part of our study that is fact-finding and figuring out the relevant details. And every step is taken while checking back again and again to make sure beyond all doubt that our biases are still set aside from influencing our thought process.

Many who do attempt proper study will conclude here, but Calvarians do not believe this to be thorough enough as it overlooks an all-important part or our psychology.

Resolution.

If we can successfully, reason sans any and all subjectivism up to this point we will arrive at a grand view of the truth. Not a thing labeled as truth but truth itself. Real, raw, and actual.
360 degree view of it. No hidden aspects or elements, whether we want it to be so or not…

But what to do about those pesky “wants”?

The biases have to come off the shelf eventually and go back where they came from, so what do we do with them when we do take them back again?

That’s where the last step comes in.

Investigate Subjectively

As mentioned, for most folk this will be the only step they ever take to studying anything at all for their entire lives. This is the method taught predominantly by nominal modern Christianity and has been for the majority of all centuries since Calvary. Don’t check for prejudice. Don’t look for preconceptions. Don’t question the “accepted” narrative. Just agree and look for others who also agree…echo…echo…echoooooo….

And around and around the lies do roll, and over all the ages and over all the people of those ages, crushing all in their way. But undermining the lies is this method of identification, isolation and investigation. The truth will be found for real rather than it being a name blindly applied to all our bland beliefs. It will be total and it will be trustworthy. It will be unquestionable and complete….but inspite of all that, it can still be rejected for a lack wanting. If we go through all the overwhelming effort to uncover the truth only to discover we do not like what we found, what is to prevent us from discarding it all and returning again to the familiar, once we have welcomed back our biases from the beginning?…

Only by changing our biases will we be able to embrace the truth in all its fullness with a guarantee never to let it go. Most likely one who has spent all the effort to uncover the truth in its fullness will not in the end embrace the lie by choice, but there is no guarantee as biases are beyond our human ability to banish entirely and by their very nature infect us in very short order.

(Not to mention that every passing moment we are making more and more of them by our interactions.)

To prevent being conquered at the last by our biases, the result of which would be worse than having never followed the process to find the truth in the first place, we must investigate subjectively as the last act of our integrity.

Yes, when one investigates subjectively without first following the other steps of this method, they are performing a logical fallacy and setting themselves up for failure… However if they attach a subjective study to the end of their proper investigation they will succeed in destroying their biases entirely.

Having identified our biases, isolating our biases, and investigating everything ensuring the absence of their influence in all aspects, we must then, and only then, re-insert our biases and study one more time based upon them rather than in their absence.

However, unlike the erroneous method of simply studying subjectively without looking for objective truth, we do not try in this step to prove our biases, but instead we investigate based upon them and set against them.

Initially we had to study without them to make sure that we were acquiring only the pure unaltered and unabridged details, but now that we have all the details we still have no choice but to put our biases back into our minds and hearts. And our minds and hearts want to return to comfort, familiarity, normality, business as usual. Inspite of all our long and arduous efforts to uncover the truth, what we want based off of our own human nature is to embrace what we are used to even if it is untrue. We want to go back to our biases, and our “wants” so often win.

We must by all means destroy the “wants” and desires of our hearts when they threaten to destroy the truth we have found, and we can only do that by intentionally attacking them with the truth that we have found.

If we find that one of our biases is inclined toward something that we have found to be untrue, it is our obligation to intellectual integrity to try to disprove the thing that we want to be true. And if we find that one of our biases is against something we know to be true, it is our obligation to intellectual integrity to try to prove that the thing that we wanted to be false is in fact true.

We attack our “wants” with the weapon of the truth that we have forged by our objective study. And whatever is true, will withstand the assault.

If we can destroy our biases by the truth we have found through our objective study, then the bias needs to die. Yes, if we can cause something to stand that are biases taught us is weak and feeble, then it must stand and our biases must fall. And this last method is the only means by which we can destroy our bias for untruth and against truth. But only when we have built up a foundation of proper study through the other steps first.

So as we begin in our Calvarian curriculum we will attempt to follow this method and call others to do so that they may topple the false towers of their traditions and build up the truth as it is rather than as we want it to be.


Question Everything
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