How important is "Confirmation Bias", in maintaining YOUR religious belief?

It appears that you do not yet know what you do not yet know.

Confirmation bias is THE governing factor in most religious belief - second only to early childhood indoctrination.  If you believe in 'god', then you will see evidence of him everywhere you look (thus the infinite variations on the 'look at the trees' argument for the existence of 'god').

If someone questions a religious person's belief, they will automatically go to their 'scriptures', their religious leaders, and to websites that fit their confirmation bias in order to craft responses, or to convince themselves that the person questioning is wrong.

Non-religious people can fall prey to confirmation bias as well - as everybody wants to be 'right', but very few people are actually interested in learning what is 'true'.  Religious people like to think they have the corner market on 'truth', but cannot prove even the most basic of their claims.

Science, on the other hand, does not actually make 'truth' claims - it actually works backwards from the way most laypeople think it does.  Instead of coming up with an idea, and then seeking to prove it is correct (which would pretty much be the dictionary definition of 'confirmation bias') a scientist will form a hypothesis, and then go about attempting to *disprove* it.

If they fail to do so, they will hand over their findings (along with *repeatable* testable analysis, etc.) to their peers, and allow them to attempt to disprove it.  If they fail, then it will tentatively be held as 'factual', but at no time does it become 'untouchable' since as new evidence, new ways of testing, etc. become available, it may have to be revisited to see how accurate it is.  It is always a struggle to follow the evidence where it leads.

As opposed to trying to make the evidence fit a preexisting narrative, as religion does.

It's 100 percent vital to any religion that thinks their god intervenes on Earth.

Like when there's a car crash and one person survives, God is great for saving that person, but what about the other people who died?

I can neither confirm or deny that confirmation bias influences my beliefs.

See I told you the Israelites would have to defend themselves over them settling in east Jerusalem because the new administration in America would be against them doing that.

https://money.yahoo.com/un-envoy-criticizes-israel...

Then "to you" there is no reason, purpose, design or creator for any of this.  You are a mistake, a giant cosmic brainfart of a galactic force that will erase your ***  in due course

dude, that sucks

Apparently evidence is more of a driving force in my faith. Confirmation bias seems to be a lot more important to support atheism. But then, how else can you pose the argument that there is no evidence that Jesus even existed, unless you have declared that any evidence of his existence must be fake because it contradicts your preconceived belief. 

You see, real science answers the question "yes or no". You can force it to give you the answer you want, but it won't necessarily be the truth. If you want the truth, it's time you stop forcing the evidence to point in the direction you want, and listen to what it really says. 

Confirmation bias has no part in my relationship with the Lord.