Can you judge without bias and prejudice like Themis, the Greek goddess of justice and truth? Is this standard impossible? Perhaps her standard of perfection is out of reach, but it gives us a goal. We can learn to be more like her. Let’s find out how.
Themis wears a blindfold, symbolizing unbiased, impartial justice. She holds the scales of justice and the sword of truth in the other. The goal is decision-making based on justice and truth.
How to Avoid Bias and Prejudice
Our programming differs greatly from that of Themis. The opportunity to choose and judge is a privilege. But using it to hide your bias and prejudice is not a positive trait. It happens so much we overlook it. Those in critical places of power can influence the content of the cultural narrative.
Some social entities have a history of promoting acts of violence, and if not corrected, this kind of violence can become a part of the fabric of a culture. Can you say gun rights? It shows up as distorted values and judgments which are neither logical, just, or fair. The question is, can you judge correctly? Or do you judge with bias and prejudice?
To judge is to form an opinion about something. We are evaluating things all the time. The values of our judgments come from the thought scripts and values of our worldview (1), and our worldview (or paradigm) acts as a filter. It’s the lens through which we view reality, and it helps us determine what is safe or harmful, what is good, and what is evil. These scripts operate at both the conscious and unconscious levels of the mind.
When we make a decision, we judge. So, it’s not so much that we make decisions, but we learn how to do it without harming anyone or anything. This seems straightforward, but… It becomes a moral dilemma. Even eating plants is harmful to the plant. All we can do is do the best we can from our level of awareness. It isn’t easy to avoid bias and prejudice when the culture supports it, but you can do it.
Can You Judge Correctly Like Themis?
Is it possible to make value decisions that are just and fair? The answer is yes; it is possible. Is it easy? No.
The goddess of justice and truth provides clues on how to avoid bias and prejudice. The mythology of Themis states she was one of the Titans, and she personified natural law and order, which superseded all man-made religions. So, she was the first atheist.
The first thing we need to do to be more like Themis is review the values on which we make decisions. These values come from our worldview or paradigm, which we program with data.
Our worldview has two levels of programming: the hard-wired scripts of our personality and instinct, or the ego, and the scripts our culture installs.
When healthy, we mirror positive behaviors like compassion, friendliness, and fairness. Our internal programming can become corrupted. Trauma, mental illness, or external can distort our thinking and values. Psychological techniques are also used to erode our natural values. It can make us buy things we do not need.
The second level of programming comes from our cultural folklore. This level includes our family, trusted authority figures, and institutions. They help create our worldview. It is the source of what we judge as right and wrong. This external programming can override our natural instincts of moral behavior. If you want to know how to avoid bias and prejudice, you must learn how to identify and eliminate your exposure to the source of harmful propaganda. Can you do it?
Negative Bias and Prejudice
The primary source of harmful programming comes from the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. (2) They are proud to be purveyors of sectarianism. They defend their right to religious freedom. As long as their religion gets preferential treatment, they are happy.
These religions are adept at programming people to promote their prejudiced views, using group hypnosis techniques to install thinking and value judgments on conscious and subconscious levels. This programming becomes the boundaries of thought and values. In this way, our minds can make automatic judgments. It is so powerful that it overrides our instincts and personality.
So, what we think is normal is simply an arbitrary judgment and illusion created by the dominant cultural narrative. This programming isn’t constant; it differs from culture to culture and over time.
Reprogramming our Survival Instinct
How does religion reprogram our basic social instincts? How does it override our compassion? It’s easy: It programs who we should value and who we should not.
Our basic survival instinct operates on the subconscious level. This ability helps us to assess danger on a subconscious level. It’s that gut sense that tells us something is wrong. So, religion subverts this by telling us other people are a danger to us.
Can you judge correctly, like Themis, goddess of justice and truth, while immersing yourself in negative values? The answer is no; you cannot. You need to remove and avoid those things that promote these value judgments.
If we grow up in the jungle, we will learn to program our cultural narrative to identify the environment’s dangers. However, we would not recognize these danger signs if we grew up in the city. We would need someone to help reprogram our senses to pick up these dangers. The ability to reprogram this instinctual function is instrumental in our ability to adapt to change, migrate, and live in new environments or cultures.
Our survival instinct can be hijacked. Propaganda can be used to trigger our emotions and influence our thinking, beliefs, and values. It takes advantage of social and religious issues to elicit emotional responses. Propaganda wants to trigger our basic fears and insecurities. We are much easier to manipulate when it can trigger our fight, flight, or freeze response.
It uses a wide range of media to convey messages, and new forms of media create more ways to program. You can see this in podcasts, paintings, cartoons, posters, pamphlets, films, radio, TV, and websites.
Learning to be More Like Themis
Looks can be deceiving. Our cultural programming comes from many sources that portray themselves as innocent or beneficial, but in reality, they want to dictate our thoughts, beliefs, and values. Their judgments differ from those of the Goddess Themis. To judge correctly, like Themis, we must go beyond harmful propaganda of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status to make unbiased decisions.
Many people can’t do this; they like their hate too much. It doesn’t take much investigation to see how some belief systems use these characteristics to promote prejudice and a range of discriminatory practices.
The only way to deal with this issue is to acknowledge it exists. Then, be brave enough to recognize the sources in our lives and use strategies to deal with them. It’s just three steps.
We live in cultures that saturate us with programming. This propaganda separates and segregates us. The more often we receive this programming to reinforce the unhealthy judgments they want to support, the less likely we are to change them. We become so familiar with the propaganda and programming that we don’t recognize it. We don’t see how this social manipulation is controlling our lives. Can you see it?
1. Step One, Acknowledging the Cultural Filter
The first step is to acknowledge that your religion programs people with harmful, biased, discriminatory beliefs and sectarian values, which promote discrimination. The first step can be the hardest because organized religion uses all the tactics available to keep its customer base. You must fight a formidable level of brainwashing. Systematic indoctrination is hard to overcome without help.
Brainwashing techniques can be overt or covert. It all depends on the time and level of emotional attachment to the programming. Propaganda, as mentioned earlier, is a form of subtle brainwashing.
Remember, Western organized religion is the largest and most influential source of racial and ethnic discrimination, gender bias, and sexual orientation prejudice. It’s equally important to remember that not all religions or spiritual paths are harmful. Only those that create boundaries and restrictions and install destructive values. Some religions have more limitations than others. Some do not program any dangerous values. Can you believe it? Can you judge correctly, like Themis, or are you controlled by narrow sectarian beliefs?
Not all religions are harmful. For example, Taoism and Paganism have the fewest boundaries and constraints over freethinking. These systems encourage you to explore and develop your path. In comparison, the Abrahamic (2) religions have the most significant boundaries and harmful prejudices.
Step one is admitting that this cultural filter exists and is inherently harmful. If you acknowledge the programming exists but think it’s okay, you are still under the influence of brainwashing.
If you are enmeshed in religious beliefs that support bias disguised as a choice, you likely have several relationships that are also part of this social system. When you are a part of the collective consciousness, avoiding bias and prejudice is impossible because you take on the group’s identity. You’ll have some hard work here deciding to break or repair the friendships of those who are still a part of the problem.
2. Step Two, Identify the Sources of Programming
Step two identifies the specific sources in our lives. As we said before, most negative social programming comes from organized religion. We accept or reject negative and biased values when we can SEE the judgments. See how we are programmed to judge and why it is a real Eureka moment, to you’ll realize we are programmed to react just like a trout.
Here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
- Does the culture you live in have a hierarchy dominated by a religious theme, promoting prejudice against a group or gender?
- Are ideas from outside your worldview automatically considered false or evil?
- Do you support “preferential treatment” based on race, ethnicity, or gender?
- Is the official “law of the land” directly or indirectly derived from, dominated, or dictated by a religion?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you live in a culture influenced by negative bias and prejudice. These harmful elements are not accidental, designed to protect those profiting from controlling you. Removing and avoiding bigotry and discrimination is only possible by eliminating the sources.
Take an honest assessment of your exposure to cultural programming and the depth of its integration into your life. Realize that social programming is propaganda. Propaganda only works if reinforced continually—otherwise, the inconsistencies surface.
The effects are easy to see if you look at your values. In some cultures, you have no choice but to “follow” their dictates. Otherwise, you suffer severe consequences. If this is the case, all you can do is learn to protect your mind while projecting obedience. Above all, if you continue to deny that this programming exists, you remain entirely under its control.
Recognizing the Tools of Western Religion
Western Organized Religions are the three religions of Semitic origin: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There is nothing new here; these are just copies. These religions are the rebranding of earlier Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian mystery religions. Together, they represent 4 billion members or followers, which is nearly one-half of the world’s population of 8 billion people. That’s real social mass. Pun intended.
Many historians point out that the Romans’ original purpose in developing Christianity was to create a cost-effective cash flow system. They simply rebranded all the outlets of the mystery religions in the Mediterranean region. It was cheaper than keeping an army in place.
These ancient religions used continuous indoctrination and programming to mold values and thinking. They effectively establish boundaries, restrictions, and limitations on independent thought. They “tell” you what is wrong and what is right. Today, social scientists call these tools propaganda, group hypnosis and self-hypnosis, and the suite of groupthink manipulation tactics.
The effect self-hypnosis has on your thinking and values depends upon how emotionally invested you are in their superstitions and mythologies. These systems sell hate and spawn genocide, wars, and discrimination of races, ethnicities, and genders. All the while proclaiming they are agents of love. Those invested in these paradigms can cherry-pick the doctrines to fit their needs. Most people who ascribe to a religion accept its negative bias and prejudice. That’s because they are a part of the “whole.”
Even if you don’t ascribe to one of these religions, you probably still feel its effects because of the laws and regulations they enact to support their agenda. We must learn to question why we value things, people, actions, and situations. Everyone has been subjected to some level of cultural programming. This programming filters determining the boundaries and values of things, people, places, and behaviors. This filter programs us to judge everything.
3. Step Three, Remove and Reprogram
You can transform your thinking by learning to question what you believe. Challenging the cultural narrative can be challenging and scary. But examining our cultural folklore is worthwhile.
Every great teacher of the world’s major taught this principle. All the sages taught spiritual revolution outside of organized religion. Instead of being a message of enlightenment became a message of enslavement, which religions use to create superstitions. So, the only way to minimize the effect is to eliminate or reduce your exposure to the source, identify the harmful values, and change them. To do this, you need to upgrade your critical thinking abilities.
Enhancing your critical thinking skills is the antidote. It can reverse the effect of religious programming. Study and use all essential thinking tools. We recommend logical reasoning, the Truth-Seekers Axioms, and tools for spotting 10 Common Fallacies. These tools will probably direct you to conduct your research outside the religious paradigm you hold.
Learn to think more clearly, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a freethinker who can determine fact from fiction. Then, resist the prejudice and bias in any way you can within your circle of influence. Questioning the cultural narrative takes courage. Be careful and be safe in your resistance. Be “pro facts” in your approach, not merely anti-religious.
Is it possible to eliminate all bias from your thoughts and values? It is theoretically possible but perhaps improbable. It is almost impossible to live anywhere on our planet where you are free of all cultural programming. Our task is to reduce as many of these boundaries as possible. Avoiding bias and prejudice is a good strategy. Plus, we have our hard-wired programming from our Ego. It’s the harmful programming of the cultural narrative, and we are each responsible for fixing it.
Some people have deeply ingrained biases and prejudices. It’s harder to overcome brainwashing when beliefs are part of one’s identity. When religious beliefs become a part of one’s identity, one defends them regardless of the facts that show them as harmful or false. If you continue to deny that you are programmed to judge, one can never see beyond them. The only way out is to acknowledge one’s programming. If you do this, then you have the choice to change it.
Also, if you’ve lived in a society dominated by one religious worldview, it is not easy to be a freethinker. You may want the world to see you aren’t a robot, but being socially outspoken may also be dangerous. Don’t let this deter you. Be the best person you can be. Do what you can, where you are, within your circle of influence. Always remember to be safe. Some cultures still take a hard line of retaliation against anyone who questions the cultural narrative.
Make The Goddess of Justice and Truth Your Standard
The goal is to judge without prejudice and uphold the ideals of truth and justice for all. This is a constant process of elimination and reprogramming because, for example, if we only hate racists, that is still hating. So, we must remove all hate from our scales to be like Themis.
Everyone has some exposure to harmful social programming. We must learn how to recognize and minimize it. We change it if it has harmful effects if we do the inner work. So, do you want a better world? It starts with you. All it takes is a little courage. You can learn how to confront your own beliefs and values. If your programming contains these negative judgments, you alone are responsible for changing it.
References
(1) Worldview. Wikipedia.
(2) Abrahamic Religions. Wikipedia.