Thought creates an image of the world. Then thought worships the image it just created.
This means that we will make up a story about how we believe the world works. Then we will use facts to reinforce the story we just created.
It is not the other way around. Ever. But we will corrupt our souls to escape from that.
The illusion is that because the primary activity is to worship the image - the story, we no longer recognise that is what we're doing and can only now see the facts we're using to reinforce the story.
And we reject all facts which do not harmonise with the story. In mental health terms this is known as 'escaping'.
This is a matter for the 'soul', or my psychological health - do I realise this is how I allow thought to run my life? If I freely choose to remain unaware of it, there are likely to be problems for me, for which I am fully complicit. I might be lucky and by luck avoid the adverse effects.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this way of seeing the world. Living by stories is neither good nor bad in itself. It is what we make of our story.
That is, does my story elevate me onto higher ground where my personal development will improve. Or does it regress me as a person?
As an individual I can self-experiment with this. As can everyone who takes the time and care to do so.
For example, my current story is that there's a genocide going on in Palestine. And I use any facts I read in the media which reinforce there's a genocide going on. Then I discount all other facts which do not reinforce my story, which thought created and now worships. And I do not realise my bias is being driven by the image which thought created and that is all.
Or, my current story might be that humans are mostly responsible for changes in the weather. And I uses any facts I get from funded science and funded media, which reinforce this is true. Then I discount all other facts which do not match my story which thought created and now worships. And because my story is everything to me, I can no longer see my bias is being fully driven by the image thought created.
So there's nothing wrong with living by stories, per se. What matters is that my story is good for my soul. Or in modern terms, my mental health, my psyche.
And my story might be good for me. But this does not mean it will be good for anyone else. My story belongs to me. We can all find a story to tell which is good for me. And others stories which are not good for me. And a million iterations of stories in between which might be a little better for me or a little worse, it's all relative. The trick is to aim toward the story which is better than the rest - for me though.
What matters is that I attend to my own 'book' with constant reminders that I live by stories, so that I don't forget that facts are secondary and selectively only get used by thought to reinforce my story. Religious people might call this constant reminder, prayer or meditation and so on and so on. Non religious people will call it something else, it doesn't matter - what's in a name?
There is no reason to worry about living by stories as a risky business any more than by living by pure fact, which by the way no one has yet managed to do in all of history.
And it would be a huge boon to the world if more of us could develop a continuing dialogue which placed this observation on the table in front of us, and without judgement, simply observed it for what it is.
Until that time, or, while too few of us are doing it, we will proceed with the systemic pathology we call society and civilisation, having lacked any fundamental progress for a thousand years, except for a booming economy, great in itself.
The thing is, do we want to properly evolve as the only conscious living things we currently know about in the whole of the multiverse?