Chapter 2. Wise Christians are Open-Minded
Can wise Christians possess absolute understanding about the teachings of Jesus? This is the Christian wisdom controversy. Only God has complete knowledge about this. Christians, who are mortal humans, should remain open-minded and grow in their faith, even if it means replacement of previous beliefs. Otherwise, faith will be nothing more than blind credulity, retrospective backwardness, and idle superstition. Becoming wise requires us to understand the wisdom hierarchy: data, information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Without this wisdom, Christians risk making numerous defective decisions resulting from misleading experience, misleading prejudgments, inappropriate self-interest, and inappropriate attachments.
Wisdom is a controversy too and is mentioned first because we need wisdom to fully understand the other controversies. My general hypothesis of this controversy, though, is that most Christians tend to welcome advances in science and technology but fear similar advances in religion. This close-minded faith prevents Christians from becoming wise, making it difficult for them to develop a closer relationship with God. To illustrate my point, I have witnessed many Christians taking full advantage of current technologies while still believing that the world is only five thousand years old, its first human inhabitants were Adam and Eve, the stories contained in the Bible are a completely accurate account of human history, along with the future destination of the condemnation of billions of people today. This same Christian mindset is based upon creeds which represented people living more than 1,500 years ago, even though common sense, reason, technology, and average intelligence have advanced significantly since then8. It’s no wonder that for more than forty years that some modern theologians argue that God is dead and that we should get along without Him9. I totally disagree with this argument of a dead God and challenge all Christians to pursue wisdom in their faith, and not totally abandon it.
Wisdom – what is it? Do we picture a wise person as a white-haired elderly person sitting atop a mountain dishing out advice? Although that’s the typical picture of a wise person, I advocate that anyone can be wise, providing that they possess the analytical experience to understand knowledge with an open mind. To be a wise Christian, we must understand our religion. It’s more than just a recitation of mere facts or Scripture verses. To illustrate what I mean by wisdom, I offer the analogy of the wisdom hierarchy, which Russell Ackoff presented to the International Society for General Systems Research10. According to Ackoff, an organizational systems theorist, the human mind can process data in five progressive categories: data, information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. I have added an additional category of open-mindedness in that without it, the human mind can’t process data in the other five categories.
Open-Mindedness.
Uncompromising close-minded attitudes have resulted in extreme cruel behavior11. Ancient Hebrews stoned their prophets12. Religious members demanded the death of Socrates for being an evildoer and not believing in the Athenian gods13. Religious leaders murdered one of its own with cries of “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” including “Away with this Man, and release to us Barabbas”14. Middle Age Christian leaders frequently tortured and killed both heretics and reformers. It was so bad that these Christian leaders’ close-mindedness stood in the way of human progress by forcing Bruno, Galileo, Darwin, Haeckel and other scientists to deny what they knew to be the truth15. Religious beliefs became so strict that groups of Christians, many led by Martin Luther and John Wesley, broke away and revised their beliefs without the strict rigid adherence of their time16.
Today, many historians and scientists identify the faith of many Christians as that of blind credulity, retrospective backwardness, and idle superstition17. These same intelligent people also consider much of the Christian beliefs to be emotional in nature with little tolerance for rational analyses and criticisms18. As a scientist, I fully understand why scientists have a skeptical opinion of the Christian religion. But, on the other hand, I fully understand that science and its scientific analyses are based upon faith too in that science is fundamentally based upon assumptions. For example, Table 1 lists several scientific theories that were accepted as undisputed facts when developed are no longer valid based upon recently acquired knowledge.
That's the beauty of science – it’s willing to correct itself when it finds itself in error. This is because scientists know that we’re extremely limited in our ability to understand the true nature of the universe. As a former chemist and a college chemistry instructor, I completely understand the evolution of the atomic theory, an example of science changing its beliefs based upon additional information. The following is a brief chronological development of this theory in which previous beliefs were allowed to change when new knowledge and understanding of atoms were observed.
In 1803, John Dalton published his concept of atomic weights for various substances. In 1897 through his work using cathode rays, J.J. Thomson discovered electrons and developed his “plum pudding model” for the distribution of this electron field19. In
Table 1. Discredited Scientific Theories.
Table 1. Discredited Scientific Theories (continued).
Table 1. Discredited Scientific Theories (continued).
1909, Thomson’s former student, Ernest Rutherford, discovered that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated with a positive charge in a very small fraction of the atom in the center and the negative charges are much smaller particles surround the nuclear in a “planetary model”28. Unfortunately, this model couldn’t explain the problems involving electrons not losing energy from its orbital motion and the presence of different spectra absorption of the atoms. Using the quantum theory developed by Albert Einstein and Max Planck, in 1913, Niels Bohr developed a model describing the electrons orbiting the nucleus in fixed circular angular momentum and energy29. In 1916, Arnold Sommerfield added elliptical orbits to the “Bohr Model” to explain extra spectral emission lines for multi-electron atoms, which are atoms other than hydrogen30. In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger used the observation from Louis de Broglie that electrons exhibit wave-like behavior by developing an equation to describe the electron as a wave function31. There have been additional significant improvements and changes to atomic theory since 1926, which was very important to me personally in that I used this scientific knowledge and its resulting beliefs (or theories) in my doctoral research for developing a rocket thruster. Yes, I’m a rocket scientist; but, we don’t have to be one to become wise Christians and understand information and knowledge that challenges the current Christian beliefs.
In my doctoral dissertation describing particle flow through an electric rocket thruster, I used statistical mechanics to describe the thermodynamic properties and chemical reaction mechanisms of atoms at extremely high temperatures near 50,000 degrees Celsius32. Statistical mechanics applies probability theory to physics by expanding quantum mechanics down to the microscopic, or atomic, level. I fully believe that my calculated data in this rocket design will be replaced with better data when more advanced measurement instruments are developed to accurately measure these same properties at these extremely high temperatures. This is called evolution of technology. Using the same logic, I believe that evolution should occur with Christian beliefs when better data is discovered that affects those beliefs. Our religious beliefs should evolve continually with better data and not remain static. Faith in our beliefs must be rationally grounded since it’s impossible for a rational person to believe in something that he knows definitely isn’t true33. I firmly believe that a rational God can’t expect His followers to think irrationally.
So, what does having an open mind mean to us? In the basic purest sense of its meaning, the adult mind contains numerous facts of events, experiences, and beliefs such that it’s virtually impossible to have a “blank slate” or a completely open mind34. Instead of this extreme condition, an open mind for should mean that the mind is not “closed” to the introduction of new knowledge and understanding, even though it may contradict previous ideas35.
Data.
This consists of symbols, such as letters, characters, images, numbers and other outputs. It’s raw in that it simply exists and doesn’t have any meaning of itself. Data also refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. For example, the number “7” in the Bible is just a number and doesn’t mean anything by itself. Thus, data on its own carries no meaning or value. For it to become information (the next level of wisdom), data must be interpreted and provide meaning. Finally, for data to have useful value to someone, it must be accurate, relevant, and practical36.
Accurate.
For the data to be accurate, they must be valid and reliable. Valid data refer to data that can be directly related to factors being measured. One aspect of valid data being collected is that of causality. We must take special care to ensure that the data being collected caused the effect to occur. Reliable data refer to data that would be consistent regardless of the data collection technique. An effort should be made to eliminate or minimize errors in data collection due to collector bias, data collection administration, and wording. Another thing to consider is that people’s memories should be considered flawed, and data obtained from them as also flawed. During the 24th Army Science Conference in Orlando, Florida, in December 2004, Harvard University psychology professor Daniel Schacter presented his theories of the “seven sins of memory” to the Army’s scientific community37. In addition to providing a brief description of these memory problems, he effectively demonstrated that I, along with the rest of his audience, exhibited memory problems. If a person’s memory isn’t accurate, decisions based upon these faulty memories can cause significant problems.
Transience
This is decreasing memory over time. In 1885, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus published his groundbreaking article “Über das Gedchtnis” (“On Memory”) in which he described experiments he conducted on himself to describe the process of forgetting. A popular schematic of this problem is the forgetting curve, which illustrated the decline of memory retention over time. The stronger the memory, the longer one retained it. A typical graph of the forgetting curve showed that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.
Absent-mindedness
This is forgetting to do things. This is memory loss resulting from failure to pay attention when carrying out an act—putting your keys or glasses down without registering where you’re putting them. Schacter’s example involved cellist Yo Yo Ma. In October 1999, he left his $2.5 million cello, made in 1733 by Antonio Stradivari, in a New York cab. Apparently, he was preoccupied with other things and forgot to remind himself to ask the cab driver to retrieve his cello from the trunk.
Blocking
This is the tip-of-the-tongue experience. This is characterized by being able to retrieve quite a lot of information about the target word without being able to retrieve the word itself. We may know the meaning of the word, how many syllables the word has, or its initial sound or letter, but you can’t retrieve it. The experience is coupled with a strong feeling that you know the word and that it is hovering on the edges of our thought.
Misattribution
This is attributing a memory to an incorrect source, such as hearing something from a friend and thinking that it was heard elsewhere, such as on the radio. An example of this involves Donald Thomson, a memory researcher, who in the 1970s appeared in a television show on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Not long after the show aired, the police picked him up because a rape victim had identified him as the rapist. He had an unshakable alibi: the assault had occurred when he was on TV describing how people could improve their ability to remember faces. The victim had been watching Thomson on TV before the attack and had confused her memory of him with her memory of the rapist. I recently conducted a couple of experiments with several senior military leaders. In the first experiment, I asked participants to read a four-line passage orally and count the number of times that a specific letter of the alphabet occurred. No matter how hard they tried, and retried, about half of them were unable to come up with the correct number. This was significant, since several of them were field-grade military officers who possessed graduate degrees and should have been fully capable of identifying their alphabet letters. In the second experiment, I read a list of fifteen words orally to these same leaders to determine their short-term memory retention. Over ninety percent of them claimed hearing a word that wasn’t given to them, thus creating a false memory.
Table 2. Questions Eliciting False Answers.
Suggestibility
This is implanted memory from others. We need to be careful about the way in which we solicit information from others since the way a question is asked may generate false information. Table 2 contains six different types of questions that can elicit a false answer or inaccurate memory.
Bias
This is distortion based upon knowledge, beliefs, and perspective. We need to understand the basis of the information that people provide. If four people observe the same object or event, they will describe it from four different perspectives. Table 3 lists how four people might describe the movie The Wizard of Oz.
Table 3. Different People Describing a Movie.
Persistence
This is unwanted memory. Within the military, the most prevalent example of this is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Audie Murphy, the most decorated American soldier in history at the time of World War II, suffered from PTSD as a result of his experiences. According to his first wife, he suffered terrible nightmares and always slept with a gun under his pillow. Table 4 lists the three symptoms that we must understand.
Table 4. Symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress.
Relevant.
For the data to be relevant, they must be credible and important. Credible data refer to data that will be believable by the people making the decisions. This is why I included hundreds of footnotes in this book, which provides you with the primary source of my data. As a wise decision maker, we should ensure there is a plan or baseline from which to compare, which should include the goals. Important data refer to data that address the important items associated with the factors being measured. For example, we shouldn’t collect data on trivial items just because they are easy to collect and measure, such as the number of Christian members in a church. In this case, a better measurement would be the amount of good work provided by this church to the needy.
Practical.
For the data to be practical, it must be timely, simple, economic, and unchangeable. Timely data refer to data that can be measured in enough time to be effectively used. Simple data refer to data that are easy to understand. Economic data refer to data that can be obtained within the budget constraints for data collection. Unchangeable data refer to data that cannot be easily distorted to provide different information.
Information.
This is a combination of accurate, relevant, and practical data that provides the answers to “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” questions. The answers to these questions come from a relational connection of data. For example, the number “7” preceding the words “churches today” provides the answers to “who” and “when”. Other than that, it doesn’t offer any additional meaning. It doesn’t provide meaning to how these “7 churches today” will do anything.
Once the information is developed, it should reflect reality. It should be as close to the truth as we can determine. Otherwise, this information could lead to erroneous knowledge, which could result in inappropriate actions. Historically, the Christian church and its members have used erroneous information and created more problems to God’s people, especially the needy. For example, the Church and its religious leaders supported evil actions such as supporting slavery and Inquisitions of Medieval Europe as God’s will38. For centuries, the Church condemned women as second-rate people or as objects owned by men39. Religious leaders even stated that diseases were a punishment from God40. And, they stated that poverty was another form of divine rejection, usually in an effort to convince a non-Christian to become a Christian and profess the same beliefs and other Christians41.
Information can also include hypotheses involving the Christian faith, which are really hypotheses of metaphysical speculation42. In essence, God isn’t an object of empirical data. Often times, many religious leaders insist that positive changes in a person’s life are verifiable proofs that God exists. Although these changes prove the person’s faith about God, these changes can’t prove the actual existence of God or anything about Him43. Belief in God is based upon faith, not verifiable data. Thus, information about the Christian faith not being the same as information about scientifically verifiable data doesn’t mean that this faith-based information is irrelevant. The simple quote from Schilpp expresses this sentiment quite eloquently. “The meaning and significance of religious faith lie in what it is, not in what it is not”44.
I caution you when you gather information to consider everything available, including information that we know contradicts our preconceived ideas. I almost didn’t see one of my favorite movies, the 1986 film, Heartbreak Ridge, starring Clint Eastwood in a war film about a Marine. When it first came out, several veterans’ groups were actively protesting this movie for its blatant misrepresentation of historical facts. The Battle of Heartbreak Ridge was fought by Army Soldiers in Korea in the fall of 195145. It wasn’t fought by Marines as implied by the Eastwood film. Had I refused to watch the movie because of their protests, I wouldn’t have seen a very good movie. I also realized that these protesters failed to watch the movie prior to their protests. Had they watched it, they would have discovered that Eastwood was an Army Soldier awarded the Medal of Honor for his duties during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge and later became a Marine. Instead, the movie wasn’t about the actual Battle of Heartbreak Ridge, but about the effects of that battle many years later. It was a good thing that I considered additional information, and wasn’t close-minded.
So, what does this have to do with Christianity? Have you considered obtaining information about other religions? How about subjects that dispute the existence of God? On a New York Times’ best seller list was the 2006 book, The God Delusion, written by Richard Dawkins, a self-proclaimed Atheist. Because this was a best seller, many Christians probably read this book. Why would they? Do they question the existence of God? Are they beginning to lose faith in their religion? Or, are they just searching for additional information. For me, I just wanted to read all information about the same subject from different perspectives.
A wise person would do that, knowing that not all information from one source represents reality or the truth. Failure to consider all sides of a topic could lead to faulty decisions, which I’ll describe in several examples later in this book.
When searching for the truth behind information, we should consider science along with faith. Popular evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould, once wrote, “science covers what the universe is made of and why it works this way”, and “religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value”46. Both of these positions should coexist without conflict. We too should be open-minded, accepting that religion and science could both be correct.
Knowledge.
This is the application of both data and information, which answers "how" questions. In essence, this is a collection of information that provides some use to the person. Memorizing Scriptures in the Bible provides a person with knowledge, but it doesn’t provide any additional knowledge. As an engineer, I offer the following analogy. In elementary school, I learned the math times table through memorization drills. I still remember my tables today in that I can easily tell you that “2 x 3 = 6”. But this doesn’t provide us with the skills to answer the question of “222 x 333”. And, the answer isn’t “666”, instead correctly being “73,926”. The times table in itself doesn’t provide the answer because these large numbers aren’t part of the times table. Unfortunately, today, most adults are fully incapable of answering this question without a calculator. They are limited to the knowledge of the times table if they can still remember it.
Knowledge may change with new information. For example, I was told as a young adult several decades ago that eating eggs significantly raises cholesterol, which could lead to coronary problems. Today I’m told by experts that eggs don’t significantly affect a person's cholesterol levels. Also, I hear many different ideas on weight loss, including the protein diet, no-carb diet, no exercise diet, and input versus output energy balance diet. In almost everything that we do, we can find someone to support one idea and another to support the opposite. What are we to believe? If doing something today is good and later told it’s wrong by someone else, why should I believe it’s good? How do we determine the correct information and get the correct knowledge? These are good questions. My only advice is for us to continue looking at all of the information available and to keep an open-mind to possible changes. For example, Table 5 contains seven facts that contradicts popular misinformation, and should change the knowledge we have regarding the areas of aviation, communications, science, and the military.
Facts are nothing more than data about the world in which we live. Theories and knowledge are developed that attempt to explain these facts. The facts don't disappear when researchers argue rival theories to explain them. Our interpretation of them changes. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity involving gravity replaced Newton’s gravity theory47. Gravity didn’t change – apples fell from the trees for both Newton and Einstein. From a biblical perspective, even Pontius Pilate understood the need to obtain knowledge when he asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Afterwards, he told the Jews that he didn’t find Him guilty48.
In his book, Dawkins discussed the confusion of the word “God”. God can be seen as a superstitious idol to be worshipped, while others represent God as the supreme mystery behind the existence of the natural scientific universe. In my opinion, why can’t he be both? Dawkins also described how close-minded religious believers react badly to criticism of their religion. Several times, Dawkins laid out logical arguments against religious theologians and tried to use scientific principles to further justify his theory that God doesn’t exist. For example, he attempted to prove evolution over creationism. This didn’t answer two questions that I had: why must there be only two possible options to human existence, and
Table 5. Facts Contradicting Popular Misinformation.
why can’t we have creationism through evolution? Also in his book, as a scientist himself, he implied that a real scientist wouldn’t value the opinion of someone whose entire system of knowledge is based upon a book of myths. As a scientist myself, Dawkins hasn’t proven that the myths weren’t real. Dawkins’ attempted to disprove God's existence using scientific logic was really nothing more than a word game. In my professional opinion, much of his evidence was based upon misinterpretations of nature or just plainly figments of his imagination. Furthermore, he claimed that almost all true intellectuals are Atheists, including the tendency that the higher a person’s education level, the less likely they are to be religious. This does have some element of truth to it since I personally know several intellectual Atheists. But, this still doesn’t convince me that God doesn’t exist.
In addition to my own self-assessment of his book, I also considered assessments from others, both those supporting Dawkins’ theory and those who didn’t. With a slight positive view, Jim Holt wrote that, “What Dawkins brings to this approach is a couple of fresh arguments -- no mean achievement, considering how thoroughly these issues have been debated over the centuries -- and a great deal of passion. … There is lots of good, hard-hitting stuff about the imbecilities of religious fanatics and frauds of all stripes”57. Thomas Nagel wrote a negative view with, “Dawkins is convinced that religion is the enemy of science. The book is a very uneven collection of scriptural ridicule, amateur philosophy, historical and contemporary horror stories, anthropological speculations, and cosmological scientific argument”58.
The Economist briefly described thoughts I had about his book and why all serious Christians should read it. Although he constructed a strong case against religion, “Atheists will love Mr Dawkins’ incisive logic and rapier wit and theists will find few better tests of the robustness of their faith. Even Agnostics, who claim to have no opinion on God, may be persuaded that their position is an untenable waffle”59.
Regrettably, Julius Caesar’s words, homines id quod volunt credunt, express my concerns about people’s search for the knowledge of truth. “Men believe what they want to”60.
Unfortunately, most Christians would rather argue with someone instead of discussing with them about something they don’t already know or believe. Instead, they’re more influenced by the simple sound-bites of political talk-show radio rather than in what Jesus really taught61.
Understanding.
Once we possess knowledge, the next step towards wisdom is to assess the “why” question. Understanding knowledge is a cognitive and analytical process that transforms into new knowledge. Let me provide you an example of this in a situation that happened to me. When I was in college, I had a difficult time learning organic chemistry. I didn’t understand the complex organic reaction mechanism because it was just a leap of faith for me. In essence, I had to memorize the reaction steps. This was similar to just memorizing the Scriptures in the Bible and not analyzing that information to generate understanding. Reading the Bible and understanding the Bible are completely different.
In a recent poll on religion, the Pew Research Foundation asked over three thousand people in 2010 several questions involving religion in general. According to this survey, they claimed that Atheists and Agnostics knew more about religion than Christians. Unfortunately, this survey was flawed in that it only asked questions requiring facts and some knowledge. It didn’t ask questions to assess one’s understanding of their own religion. This survey contained questions about the history of Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim religions. Yet, many theologians and other Christians have quickly used this survey results to validate their claims that Atheists know more than Christians. Maybe they do, but about all religions in general though. I agree that most Christians don’t really understand their own religion. I also don’t believe Atheists and Agnostics with the same educational level really understand Christianity either. This survey doesn’t prove anything to me either.
Let me illustrate another problem many people have in understanding knowledge they hear or read. I’ll do this by describing my simple controversy of percentages62. This controversy involves a bag containing two types of steel balls, both small and large, totaling one hundred balls. Three different peo