Lent as a Celebration of Ignorance

The one certain truth we can believe is that much of what we believe is false. It keeps us humble. We can be certain about this because of overwhelming evidence.

• 200 BC, Eratosthenes showed the earth was not flat.
• 1500 AD, Copernicus showed the earth wasn't the center of the universe.
• 1600, Dynamic Motion of Aristotle disproved by Galileo and his concept of inertia.
• 1668, Spontaneous Generation disproved by Francesco Redi.
• 1780, Lavoisier showed oxidation increased the overall weight of items disproving Phlogiston.
• 1859, Charles Darwin showed natural selection responsible for evolution rather than transmutation or inheritance of acquired characteristics.
• 1887, Ether disproved as the carrier of light by Michelson-Morley.
• 1940, Newton's Laws of Motion, though still useful, were disproved by Einstein.
• 1981, Newtonian principle of locality disproved by Alain Aspect (which, in 1988, I called the most significant event of the 20th century:)

It's almost as if the purpose of creation is to see how adroit we are in changing our beliefs from what appears obvious to what is obviously wrong. Myk has been pushing a variation of this theme with James Carse's The Religious Case Against Belief.

Lent is the time set apart to reflect on the fact that what we think we know about life and the universe is most likely wrong. It is the time when learn how to deal with change—so we can better adapt the next time our beliefs are pulled out from under us.

"Lord knows you've got to change…baby" — Carlos Santana Clarence "Sonny" Henry
                                                                                 (I was, unsurprisingly, wrong)