About

I’ll never forget one particular lecture I went to during my undergrad years at college. I was a math major—I know, dorky—and on this particular day, two guests from the pentagon were giving a couple of lectures about their work. One visitor was a scientist and the other worked as a scientific mediator at the pentagon. That simply means her job was to help scientists who disagreed be able to sort through their biases, personal beliefs, and the data to be able to come to a conclusion about what was really true and known. (Fascinating and ironic given what I’m about to tell you.) I heard the lecture from the scientific mediator, and something she said stood out to me. This woman explained that at the pentagon they try to work on projects that are relevant fifty to a hundred years into the future. She made the point that in many ways this seemed insignificant given that the age of the earth is billions of years old.

Hmm. What an interesting concept, I thought. So, I began to wonder how, if at all, their work at the pentagon would change if the age of the earth was younger than billions of years old. I decided to ask. What followed my question was two to three minutes of this woman lecturing me and somewhat berating me for my question and assumption that the age of the earth was young. Now, mind you, I never actually told this woman what I personally believed. I was just curious how much the age of the earth really impacted their work. I will never forget the most profound statement this woman said during those few minutes. She looked directly at me and told me, personally, I needed “to get a coherent view of reality.” Those were her exact words.

By this time, I felt pretty small. I shrunk back in my seat and did the best I could to make myself invisible after my apparent blunder. To my great surprise, the rest of the question-and-answer time was monopolized by students who had the courage to raise their hands and challenge this woman’s view. Unlike this woman from the pentagon, the students did not resort to berating. Instead, they shared with her scientific evidence that supported a young earth.

As we left that lecture, I could hear the excited chatter of students filling the hallways, still discussing the evidence for the age of the earth. I found out sometime afterward that the professor hosting this lecture seemed to believe the students won that debate. For me, it wasn’t about the debate and who won. I was more concerned with the freedom and ability we have as human beings to challenge ideas and pursue truth. When this professional mediator from the pentagon was challenged, she seemed to have lost all of her ability to mediate. She wasn’t open to hearing an alternative view. Our conversations with our family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors don’t have to be like this.

Sometime after undergrad, I went back to school and got my master’s in philosophical apologetics—that’s just using philosophy to defend your faith. But more than simply being able to defend my faith, I wanted to know if my beliefs were true. The journey has been exciting, painful, confusing, difficult, and rewarding. I started this philosophy and arts center because I want to help as many people as I can learn how to communicate with others, not be afraid of differing perspectives, and how to honestly challenge their own beliefs, perspectives, and values. Because, after all, what’s the point of having beliefs or values if they do not reflect a coherent view of reality?