Barney Gumbel

There's a theory in psychology called Confirmation Bias.  This is a tendency for humans to seek out people and sources that confirm what they already believe.  This is most apparent in politics, of course, where many of us look for "news" sources that say what we want to hear.  It's an efficient way to justify the stupidest, most ridiculous viewpoints.  Consider a group of drunks sitting at a bar at two in the morning, complaining about their spouses and their jobs and the courts and the general disorder in the world.  Show this to a impartial third party and they laugh and shake their heads at the insanity.  We drunks would shake our heads right back at the doubters.  We're with people who think that sitting in a bar at two in the morning is a great, great idea and they confirm our insanity.

There's a great scene in a Simpson's episode where Barney comes to in Moe's Bar after a long bender, complaining about the state of affairs, and then he looks down at his arm which has a handcuff that is attached to the door of a police car.  "And where the hell did this come from?" he asks.

His two fellow barflies respond: "Haven't you always had that?" the first one says.  "Yeah, I can't really picture you without it," says the other.

That's confirmation bias.  Listening to people saying what you want to hear.

"We are sure that God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.  We cannot believe that this life is meant to be full of sadness and tears, although it used to feel that way for many of us.  Now we know that we made our  own misery.  God didn't do it.  So we take care not to go on creating more misery.  If trouble comes to us, we use it as a reason to think about the wisdom of our Higher Power."

Plain Language Big Book PP 118-119.