Bacon's Four idols

Francis Bacon came up with the Four Idols, which he used to argue against the church. He uses the argument of the church against it by claiming that the Christian philosophy had engaged in four forms of idolatry. The Four Idols:

1. Idols of the Tribe- The bias of human beings is to jump to conclusions based on what is new or strange rather than investing time to understand what is true. 

This idol means that humans tend to assume things when they are introduced to something out of the ordinary, and they don't take the time to understand what it is actually about. For example, if we saw a spaceship, we'd think there are evil aliens on it. And we would kill them before we get to know them. They could be friendly, but since we don't know anything about it, we assume things.

2. Idols of the Cave- Creating individual biases through the educational system.

This idol means that through school or any type of educational system, we tend to make biases based on what we've been taught. For example, Core students have been taught to be open minded about things, and to look at different perspectives. However, us Core students have been seen as hypocritical because we believe that conservatives are bad and liberals are the way to go. In this people create biases that we are hypocritical when it's not our fault because it is what we were taught. 

3. Idols of the Marketplace-The language created to share knowledge (philosophy is more concerned with winning arguments than revealing truth) locks us into specific ways of knowing.

This idol means that the way that we say things may influence us or others to create biases on the topic we talk about. For example, sarcasm. When we are sarcastic about something it can sometimes imply that that something is bad, or not as we say it is. If I say, "oh yea that movie is REAL good...." and I'm sarcastic, it implies that the movie was actually bad! Not good!

4. Idols of the Theatre-The Christian West has given reference to four or five Greek scholars and has ignored any other understanding of the world. 

This idol means that the church has paid attention to a couple of Greek scholars to get a little bit of information about the world. But when new ideas are introduced, they ignore it because it contradicts with their beliefs.