Believers are reassured that it is okay to ignore all evidence supposedly against religion, because someone else can explain it all
This sounds like trusting domain experts to me, and that’s often a decent heuristic. Especially if the cost of finding and vetting evidence is high—or if you know you’re just not very good at correctly extracting evidence from arguments—taking a knowledgeable and trustworthy person’s word for it is a good idea.
Under that model, the apologists are just exploiting an imperfect heuristic. Intentionally or otherwise.
The heuristic becomes a bias though, when it skews in a predicable direction relative to accurate guidance. In this case, we have a significant bias towards seeking and trusting expert advice which supports what we already want to believe, rather than expert advice which challenges our current beliefs.
This sounds like trusting domain experts to me, and that’s often a decent heuristic. Especially if the cost of finding and vetting evidence is high—or if you know you’re just not very good at correctly extracting evidence from arguments—taking a knowledgeable and trustworthy person’s word for it is a good idea.
Under that model, the apologists are just exploiting an imperfect heuristic. Intentionally or otherwise.
The heuristic becomes a bias though, when it skews in a predicable direction relative to accurate guidance. In this case, we have a significant bias towards seeking and trusting expert advice which supports what we already want to believe, rather than expert advice which challenges our current beliefs.