No one is above correction. I think everyone here agrees with this. Yet when it comes to our own deep-seated religious views, the acceptance of correction and the ability to step back and question our beliefs seems to be lacking. We approach Scripture, theology and even worship with implicit biases in favor of our own mindset. Sometimes the clues to changing our views are staring us in the face, yet we can't process them because of that mindset.
When folks still believed the Earth was flat, no doubt some of them took their spyglasses and stood on the shore watching ships sail toward the horizon. Through their spyglasses they would have noticed that as a ship sailed farther away, there came a time when they could still see its sails but not its stern, which disappeared first over the horizon. They did not infer a curved Earth from this perception because of a preconceived false notion: they all experienced gravity as the force that (on their necessarily small local frame of reference) appeared to impel objects “straight down” rather than “toward the center of an orb.” Their notion of the direction “down” was not relative to one’s position on the Earth; it was an absolute. They were accordingly certain that the sailors who were sailing out of sight would point to “down” exactly parallel to the direction they themselves would point while standing on the shore. And, of course, they were wrong.
How can we overcome implicit bias, and shake the "certainty" we cling to so tenaciously, in order to welcome correction where it is justified? Who has some thoughts on this?
When folks still believed the Earth was flat, no doubt some of them took their spyglasses and stood on the shore watching ships sail toward the horizon. Through their spyglasses they would have noticed that as a ship sailed farther away, there came a time when they could still see its sails but not its stern, which disappeared first over the horizon. They did not infer a curved Earth from this perception because of a preconceived false notion: they all experienced gravity as the force that (on their necessarily small local frame of reference) appeared to impel objects “straight down” rather than “toward the center of an orb.” Their notion of the direction “down” was not relative to one’s position on the Earth; it was an absolute. They were accordingly certain that the sailors who were sailing out of sight would point to “down” exactly parallel to the direction they themselves would point while standing on the shore. And, of course, they were wrong.
How can we overcome implicit bias, and shake the "certainty" we cling to so tenaciously, in order to welcome correction where it is justified? Who has some thoughts on this?
