Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. -Wikipedia
Disconfirmation bias refers to the tendency for people to extend critical scrutiny to information which contradicts their prior beliefs and accept uncritically information that is congruent with their prior beliefs. -psychology.wikia.com
Basically, it is very difficult for us to think a thought which does not agree with what we already believe. What's worse, even when we see evidence that we are wrong we tend to forget it or think it is unimportant. Our desperate need to be right has turned on us and imprisoned us in foolishness and lies. The things we think we know the best, it often turns out we don't know at all...
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should, shall rule over it.”
8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
10 And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”
13 And Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”
15 And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. Genesis 4
We all know this story. Righteous Abel is killed by jealous Cain because God prefers Abel and his offering to Cain and his offering. God then rains down wrath on Cain making the rest of his life a living hell, before presumably going to a literal hell. I first began to suspect that we might have this story wrong looking at verse 15.
It seems a strange part of Cain's punishment to protect his life, but more than the mere protection of his life, consider the comfort that is here given to Cain. God tells Cain that He values His life; He tells him that his fears are unfounded, and He gives him a sign by which he may be sure of the promise. Now, we read this and say that God only acts thus because Cain complained, He showed a fragment of mercy in the midst of overwhelming punishment. But look more carefully at Cain's prayer-Cain's answered prayer. Although the Lord had only mentioned a punishment in this world, Cain shows what he is really afraid of when he adds, "I shall be hidden from your face.", before giving any consideration to the earthly punishment. Also, God said nothing about anyone killing Cain. Only Cain's own sense of justice could have supplied this idea. I also find it curious that Cain, the farmer, seems unmoved by the loss of his occupation. Cain takes no thought for how he will survive in an earthly sense, but is primarily troubled by the thought of falling from grace-losing God's presence and favor-represented by His face, and being overtaken by justice.
Consider this. If God's punishment of Cain was just, and Cain was correct in saying, "My punishment is more than I can bear.", which we may fairly consider the just punishment of sin to be more than any man can bear; then a just God could not omit or lessen Cain's punishment without the presence of a Substitute. God doesn't require anything from Cain to save his life, he doesn't tell him to do better, straighten up his act, or even say the Sinner's Prayer. Cain could go kill fifty more people and still enjoy God's protection. There are no conditions on this gift. But somebody always pays for grace. In fact, many of the older Jewish commentaries(Targums), understand verse 7 to be talking not of sin stalking Cain as our translations suggest, but a SIN OFFERING which would soon be made for Cain's sin. As much as I would like to drive the point home, I have already overindulged my argumentative tendencies.
So many people talk highly of "soul-searching", of looking deep in your heart to find those secret sins. Cain had no need to cast a penetrating gaze on his secret motivations to see himself as a sinner. When Cain felt guilty before God it wasn't because he missed church or forgot to read his bible everyday, the chief sins that we find in ourselves. And however we understand verse 7, Cain knew for sure that he could not conquer his sin, could not overcome it. He knew what I know now. That sin is who we are. There is no part of me that is not saturated with sin. There is nothing good in me. If you are having to look long and deep to find your sin, try this. Ask anybody who knows you. If they are honest they will tell you that you are a self-righteous jackass, the kind of person who makes an offering to God with hatred for his brother in his heart-like me, like Cain.
The idea that Cain represents the unchristian world and Abel represents the Christians is self-serving bull. If you want to see yourself in this story, you are Cain. And Christ is Abel. He is the righteous one that was hated without a cause, and me? I am the bastard that killed Him, and for reasons that make the human brain explode, I am being offered God's comfort and protection. He has marked me with His mark-the mark of a man who is unmistakably a sinner but divinely protected from his just punishment-the mark of Cain.
"Christianity is not about moving away from vice to virtue. It's moving away from virtue to Christ."-Rod Rosenbladt
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