Home wscoc articles illustrations evidences poetry humor
Published monthly by the West Side Church of Christ

The law of inertia states:

“A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion moves in a uniformly straight course, unless some force acts on it from outside.”

In other words, objects resist change.  People do too.  We all have an aversion to change, even when we are presented with proof that we are in error.  It is easier to cling to pre-conceived ideas that make us comfortable.

The brilliant Greek thinker, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), believed that if two different weights of the same material were dropped at the same time, the heavier would land first.  His idea was taught for centuries as fact. When Galileo (1564-1642 A.D.) put it to the test at the university of Pisa by dropping two such objects from the tower of Pisa, it was witnessed that both objects landed together.  The scientific community, however, refused Galileo’s proof and he was forced to resign from the university.  Later in about 1650 with the invention of the air pump, Galileo’s claims were proven correct.  Many still refused to accept the proof!

Another example was the thinking about blood in the body.  Early thinkers like Galen believed that there were two types of blood in the human body and that they ebbed and flowed then evaporated. It was the genius Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519 A.D.) who observed that the heart pumps blood throughout the human body.  He was quickly labeled a heretic.  Ironically, on the back of one of his paintings, he wrote the following: “Blood circulates through the human body.”  In 1628 William Harvey published a work describing exactly what Leonardo had proposed.  Many even then denied it! People did not want to change from what they had always accepted.

Leonardo DaVinci once wrote:

“There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, and those who do not see.”

He was exactly right.  Many of us see only what we want to see and hear only what we want to hear.  We refuse to change even when we are shown to be wrong.

In  matters of Bible understanding we must be careful as well. We may become too comfortable in our own beliefs.  Remember, the Bible challenges us to “prove all things” (I Thessalonians 5:21).  Again the apostle commands “prove your own selves” (II Corinthians 13: 5)  Like the noble Bereans, we must “search the Scriptures daily” whether things are so (Acts 17: 11).


Larry

Sources:  World Book Encyclopedia, Article by Tom Ballard Jr. On-line cites



Aversion To Change