Believing What You See, Seeing What You Believe

The impetus for this article came from seeing the following optical illusion on Facebook last month: 

What do you think? Are the blue bars all parallel, or are they zig-zag? Can you believe what you see?

Victoria Skye’s Illusions

The above image was created in 2017 by Victoria Skye, who introduces herself on one website as “a children’s and family magician and balloon twister in Atlanta, Georgia.”

Another website says she is a “magical entertainer” and “illusion artist,” and it gives a link to the image above, which is called the “Skye Blue Café Wall Illusion.” That website also links to a YouTube video, which explains that the blue bars in the image are really parallel.

So, what about it? Can we really believe what we see (or what we think we see)?

Believing What You See

As you know, Missouri has long been called the Show-me State. The origin of that unofficial motto goes back at least to Willard Vandiver, who served from 1897 to 1905 as a Missouri member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

According to this 2021 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Vandiver declared in a 1899 speech about a questionable issue, “I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me.”

As one born and reared in Missouri, I have always taken some pride in our state’s motto: it is a caution against gullibility and a call for verifiability.

One troubling problem, though, is that we humans don’t always see things correctly. Even what we think we see clearly can sometimes be an illusion—as the above image of Victoria Skye clearly shows. And we can be mistaken about important, real-life matters also.

Thus, a large majority of the voters in the Show-me State were under the illusion that their preferred candidate for POTUS in 2016 was an admirable man who would lead the U.S. in a positive way. But after four years they were still unable to believe what they saw and voted for him again.

Seeing What you Believe

Some things have to be believed in order to be seen. That was the title of#20, the seven-page chapter in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018). (I wish you all had my book and would (re)read that chapter, but you can read it online here.)

In that chapter, as in my July 10 blog post, I quote the fox in The Little Prince: “Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” What we know intuitively or, yes, by faith is necessary for “seeing” things that are of the greatest importance to us. We “see” those things because of what we believe.

But here, too, is a knotty problem: our beliefs are not always correct. Just as we can be misled by what we see with our physical eyes (come on, the blue bars in Virginia Skye’s image are clearly zigzag!), we can also be misled by what we incorrectly believe.

To avoid duplicating what I wrote for #20 in my book, here is an important matter not discussed there—and something I need to know more about. There is often, we are told, a skewing or misunderstanding of “reality” by something psychologists call cognitive bias.

I found this 2020 article about that matter instructive, although it did not say enough about the central importance of beliefs/presuppositions. But it did refer to “confirmation bias,” which is “favoring information that conforms to . . . existing beliefs and discounting evidence that does not conform.”

Because we all tend to see what we believe, we have to examine our beliefs regularly just as we have to be sure what we see with our physical eyes is correct. (The blue bars still look zigzag to me!).

To use the previous example, we “libtards” who strongly disagree with the “Trumpists” must discuss or debate not just what we see/hear but most of all what we each believe and why.

To acknowledge that we all see what we do and evaluate what we see on the basis of our basic beliefs/presuppositions is of the greatest importance.

Why Do We Believe What We Believe?

All of us have a lot of beliefs about a lot of different things. In this article I am writing particularly about the most basic beliefs which we hold. These might be called our presuppositions, those basic beliefs we hold before we start thinking.

Those basic beliefs are rooted in our worldview or faith commitment. But why do we believe what we believe? Where does our faith come from?

Faith/beliefs are the result of what we have learned—from other people or from our own experiences. Our basic beliefs (faith) begin to be formed first at home and then in the primary community of our formative years.

Our early community nexus creates what sociologist Peter Berger calls our “plausibility structure.” That is the framework by which, or the lens through which, we understand the world around us.

Our plausibility structure determines what seems to us to be “common sense.” It is the basis for how we interpret all we see and hear.

Like for many of you readers, my plausibility structure was shaped by regular church attendance. From the time I was about seven years old I attended church activities nearly every Sunday morning as well as on Sunday and Wednesday evenings In addition, during most of those formative years, I read some from the Bible almost every day.

My theological understanding (and please note that theology is basically “faith seeking understanding”) has changed quite a bit through the years. But my basic faith has not changed.

It is important to distinguish between faith, which is closely related to one’s basic presuppositions or worldview, and beliefs. It is possible, and usual, for beliefs to change more than faith.

There are many who have a faith journey similar to mine. But for many of us perhaps, our faith is not as strong as it used to be. That is because our plausibility structure has been gradually re-shaped by things other than a community of faith and the Bible.

For many people today, it may not be erroneous to say that their plausibility structure is now shaped far more by the media—CNN, Comedy Central (Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart), or, Heaven forbid, Fox News—than by the Bible or a faith community.

And, unfortunately, for many who are active church members, that “faith community” may be more like a religious club, or a service club, than a real community of faith.

In reflecting on my own experience, now nearly ten years after leaving my full-time work as an educational missionary and as a pastor, I sense that my faith has weakened somewhat.

I don’t spend as much time studying the Bible, preparing sermons, reading theology books. On the other hand, I spend more time reading and thinking about politics and social issues.

True, I attempt to read and think about politics and social issues from a faith-based or theological viewpoint. I claim, I think validly, that my political views are shaped by my worldview (faith) rather than my worldview being shaped by politics.

Many others, with all the emphasis in contemporary society on entertainment, seem to have fallen into a worldview, or lifestyle, that is predominantly hedonistic.

We believe what we believe because of what we think about the most and/or consider the most important. If our lives are centered on the Bible, worship, devotional and theological books, and on Christian fellowship, our religious faith will be and likely remain strong.

But if politics or entertainment becomes our main focus, our faith will weaken and gradually become inconsequential.

May it not be so.