Do legends and traditions of storybook giants have some basis in fact? Fossils of Gigantopithecus suggest the species reached almost ten feet tall and lived up to 300,000 years ago. Fortean Times looks at the possibility that the primate wasn't an ape, but something a bit closer to human, and might not even be extinct.
Of course, you'll want to read this while taking a few large grains of salt. Link
There is plenty of American Indian lore concerning True Giants; they have left their mark in the names given to places in North America. And there are modern reports for them as well, from all over the world. To survive at all, they remain shy of human beings. It is no accident that the detailed observations of these giants are so often made from a distance and that the best records generally come from mountainous areas, just as they do in North America. There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, these surviving giants no longer confront human beings if it can be avoided. In rare instances of prolonged visual contact, they have kept their distance from observers. Secondly, in the New World’s Pacific Northwest there has been an unparalleled effort to collect accounts of hairy beings of all kinds. If comparable efforts were made elsewhere, we would be likely to hear of similar matter-of-fact and detailed sightings of True Giants.
Of course, you'll want to read this while taking a few large grains of salt. Link
All that means is that you don't value truth above everything else. It means if you have to choose between truth and your ego, you will choose your ego. All a philosopher is, is one who loves truth more than anything and so conforms him/herself to what is true at the expense of their own sense of self-hood.
In the colloquial sense, that philosophy is thinking about the world and formulating beliefs; everyone is a philosopher. No one can escape making judgments, in particular no one can escape making metaphysical, ethical and theory of mind judgments. It is best that we do so in a way that is truthful, instead of egotistical. Which is the impetus that should make us all strive to be genuine lovers of wisdom.
Well, see that kind of intellectualizing is markedly different from falling into a state of complete uncertainty and despair, struggling vehemently to break out of your biases and delusions with the same determination a victim of strangulation tries to get out of their attackers grip.
If you are content to believe "I could never free myself" and are complacent to your prison, then even if you check that with some more intellectualizing about cognitive biases, you are still in a prison. Intellect is a compartment of the mind, one can arrive at all kinds of conclusions in the intellect and then act from a more base emotion that runs completely contrary to the deliberations of the intellect. The task of the philosopher is to assimilate his convictions into the fabric of self, such that the desires and the distortions cease to arise.
Obviously I can't address all the points you made (well I could, but it's probably unnecessary - at least I didn't find it "TL to R"). At various points in my life I have been a theist, a deist, an agnostic, and an atheist, and I would just like to point out that as an (agnostic) atheist, I do not think that all the stories of theists are intended to be literal (although a select few theists do), and I am not one of those atheists who understands their beliefs to be merely in that of a man or a “sky god”. I don’t like to oversimplify such things, in fact I have a great interest in the beliefs of various religions, the purposes they serve/d, and origins of mythology that I developed long before my atheism, or agnosticism for that matter. Perhaps your precognitive insight into my point-of-view on everything was slightly off the mark.
I do not feel shame in applying labels to my “beliefs”. It helps me to express to others in broad terms where my opinions lie if they ask without having to go into some great spiel that will quickly cause them to lose interest. I am not ashamed of holding various beliefs, but I acknowledge that they may not necessarily be true (which is more than can be said for many). Nor am I ashamed of having biases, cognitive or otherwise, as I am human and could never free myself of them if I tried – although I do like to be aware of these biases to gain better insight into how they are affecting my judgement, and perhaps minimise them if I can.