Bacon's Four Idols

In attempt to take the power of education the Church had its only grasp on, Francis Bacon came up with four examples of idolatry that the Church had been guilty of committing.

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

This is the idea that since humans are so used to the 'norm' whenever something new or out of the ordinary is represented to them, they jump to conclusions and criticize or try and eliminate it even before they get to know it. Anything that is remotely out of the traditional view of the Church is straight out, immediately, labeled something bad and the Church doesn't even give a second thought about. Any new piece of knowledge, any new piece of philosophy like Galileo's theories that the sun was the center of the solar system would be condemned as wrongful and the Church would not "investigate time to understand what is true". It basically really is jumping to conclusions without knowing better.

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

This is when human beings have created biases based on what we've learned through school. When education gives us a close-minded view of the world, we create biases of the rest of the world and end up living those lies. In books we always learn about past wars from the ones who've won and instead of getting the viewpoints from the one's who lost. Because of this there is an immediate inferiority to the loser and we get the idea that the losing side either deserved what is got, was more brutal to the "good side", or is weaker compared to the winners. Of course, the winners would also write these entries with bias in mind, so we do not get the whole picture and we continue to spread these bias ideas because we don't know better. But the thing is, there is no "good side". Any side in a war would be considered the "good side" depending on which side you're on. In the Church we would get bias from their victories in wars as well. The Church is supposed to be this good place to help better yourself to get to Heaven, but the Church itself is the one being hypocritical and indulging in sinful ideas or torture or inquisition. What right the Church ever have to determine someone's death or life? When did it ever have the right to declare someone of heresy? Or when did the Church get the justification for the mass slaughter they committed in "the name of God" to the Jews? Everyone at that time was on the Church's side, so they was a bias already created in their minds that the Church WAS doing what is "right" so they would think badly of anything other than the Church. Poor idiots.

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

The Church used this "double meaning" method to win the favor of the people rather than revealing the truth and inner workings of the sinful Church. They used philosophy and certain quotes of the Bible (i'm guessing) in order to lock people into thinking what is right or what is wrong. They used their fancy words and gestures and ended up taking over Europe for over 1,000 years by twisting their words instead of revealing their true evil plots. Because most people didn't know better, they'd except these philosophies given from the Church and live their lives without truly knowing. "Oh, well since it sounds smart, it must be right."

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."

The Church would take some Greek philosophies that would appeal to them and their ideas and ignore the rest, giving the wrong idea to the rest of the world that lived under the Church. This is incredibly wrong because than the already illiterate people under the rule of the Church would not know better and most of them wouldn't try and look for more opinions about a certain topic or belief. Because the Church was extremely narrow minded in their beliefs they ignored the other great philosophies of the Greeks and failed to get the opinions of everyone to find the Truth, and only took bits of what appealed to them.