I remember the exact moment I stopped
believing in God I was in a philosophy
class my freshman year of college
one minute the world made sense and the
next crash my evangelical Christian
upbringing shattered into shards of
glass when I’d left my parents cozy
house for college I was eager to
reaffirm my religious faith which was a
strong source of order and meaning for
my life
my belief in God gave me a sense of
purpose of right and wrong of guidance
about who I was and what I should do
my understanding of the world was like a
well-built house solid foundation
clearly aligned walls airtight windows
and a weatherproof roof that would
protect me from the unknown most of us
have been in a situation where
everything we thought we knew seems to
fall to pieces yours might have been a
divorce an election a death a trip or
simply a relationship with someone new
and different any time we lose faith in
those old structures of truth whether
they be from our parents our partners
our government or God we can feel as
though we are standing in the rubble of
our worldview often it doesn’t happen
all at once cracks started to appear
around the edges of my world a few
months into college I was taking an
ethics class and for the first time I
was challenged to think about where
ideas about right and wrong come from I
started to have conversations with
classmates who grew up with different
backgrounds and beliefs about ethical
issues capital punishment lying
sexuality
I started to wonder if I actually
believed what I thought I believed my
well built house started to feel a lot
less stable when we think deeply about
the fundamental questions of the human
experience Who am I
how do I know what is real what is good
what is the right thing to do what is
the meaning of life and when we
challenge ourselves to think about
privilege injustice Empire money and
power are seemingly unshakeable
structures of truth and value can start
to fall apart it can be devastating and
so many of us just avoid thinking too
much we shut down seal up the windows
lock the doors and scroll down a social
media feed echo chamber while the world
outside howls and sings we avoid ideas
that may challenge us and only engage
with those that won’t disrupt the safety
of our structures but eventually if we
spend too much time inside our safe
little houses the air becomes old and
stale and we can’t breathe in spite of
how scary it was for me to question my
beliefs it also felt like I was
breathing in fresh air for the first
time if we are to stay intellectually
alive we must let the outside world in
and sometimes that will mean losing our
old structures but whether we like it or
not loss is a necessary part of the
process of true learning Ken vane a
researcher who has spent decades
studying how people learn has said that
true learning not simply rote
memorization or acquiring concepts only
to forget them a short time later
usually immediately after the test but
learning in which you see the world in
different and lasting ways requires that
you face a situation in which your old
mental model of the world needs to be
demolished that day in class when my
belief in God was shattered my professor
said something that it’s too long to go
into now but on the face of it was
really quite benign but suddenly my old
beliefs my truth looked confusing and
foreign it didn’t work anymore I
wandered out of the classroom in a daze
and found myself at my professors office
door for the next hour i sat in her
office and sobbed as she listened to me
whimper and handed me tissues you’ve
eaten from the tree of knowledge she
said try as you might once you take a
bite you can’t spit out the Apple she
promised I would get through it though
you’ll go through a dusty upski phase
she joked you’ll start wearing all black
smoking cigarettes reading lots of
Nietzsche but you’ll get through that
too and I did in fact I was so
transformed by this journey that I went
on to get a PhD and become a professor
of philosophy because I had seen
firsthand how powerful and
transformative it was to learn to think
for myself I wanted to give that
experience to others revising refining
and even removing old beliefs altogether
is a necessary part of critical thinking
deep learning and intellectual growth if
you’re feeling this way
it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong so
many of my students have been through
this struggle a few months into a term a
student will come to me and say if what
I thought was true and
good isn’t then nothing is real nothing
is true nothing matters what now the
grief and devastation of intellectual
loss can be overwhelming we find
ourselves unprotected staring into a
dark hole where are safe and orderly
houses once were and at this moment
there is a critical choice we all must
make give up and fall in the cynicism or
rebuild now the first option is easy
cynicism doesn’t really ask anything of
you don’t believe in anything the world
is meaningless don’t work for it
anything it doesn’t matter anyway screw
it I’ll be over here eating cheese
doodles and watching Netflix cynicism
allows us to regain a sense of control
we know the answers and those answers
let us off the hook but in choosing
cynicism we also give up agency our own
ability to act to create change we deny
ourselves the human experience of faith
of wonder of believing in something and
working toward a goal because ultimately
we crave meaning and purpose and without
them we may feel comfortable but we
probably won’t feel very fulfilled
thinking deeply challenging our beliefs
and even watching them crumble to pieces
around us doesn’t have to result in
permanent meaninglessness and chaos even
when we feel like we don’t know where to
begin we can choose to create something
new this decision to rebuild is hope
hope is the antidote to cynicism and
despair hope recognizes that truth and
value may not be as clear as permanent
as reliable as you once thought
and yet chooses to believe to create to
act anyway so we find or make new
building blocks for our mental models we
take pieces from the old structure and
put them together in new ways with no
guarantees and no blueprint we must
synthesize take a leap experiment we
must build with the seriousness of a
child at play my daughter loves building
with Legos and she’s too but she does it
with the dedication and the focus of a
structural engineer and then of course
as soon as she’s done what happens our
beliefs and our values our understanding
of the world are critically important
the foundation for our actions and our
lives but we cannot take them too
seriously we must understand that even
though this new structure serves us now
we may have to renovate or demolish it
later
your new creation will look different it
may not be as straight and sensible as
before walls and rooms will twist and
turn and end up looking like something
you never could have anticipated
something messy and strange and
beautiful and completely your own in
rebuilding we take responsibility for
our beliefs we take ownership of them
another question I often get from
students is what do you believe what do
you believe which really is just another
way of asking what’s the answer I
respond that it’s not my job to tell
them what I believe it’s my job to help
them figure out what they believe
annoying
I know but I also tell them that you
won’t necessarily find the answers you
just become more comfortable with not
knowing them you learn to revel in the
pleasure of problem-solving the joy of
discovery and the wondrous mystery of
uncertainty my mental model now has an
open roof the work is never complete and
I imagine myself a student back in that
classroom but now I welcome new and
different ideas I breathed them in and
turn them over in my mind without
everything falling to pieces
sometimes I decide they’re not worth
holding on to and I let them blow out
and away and sometimes I decide I need
to knock down a wall and renovate again
and now and then I remind myself to take
a break from building and simply gaze up
with curiosity and wonder at the unknown
thank you [Applause]
believing in God I was in a philosophy
class my freshman year of college
one minute the world made sense and the
next crash my evangelical Christian
upbringing shattered into shards of
glass when I’d left my parents cozy
house for college I was eager to
reaffirm my religious faith which was a
strong source of order and meaning for
my life
my belief in God gave me a sense of
purpose of right and wrong of guidance
about who I was and what I should do
my understanding of the world was like a
well-built house solid foundation
clearly aligned walls airtight windows
and a weatherproof roof that would
protect me from the unknown most of us
have been in a situation where
everything we thought we knew seems to
fall to pieces yours might have been a
divorce an election a death a trip or
simply a relationship with someone new
and different any time we lose faith in
those old structures of truth whether
they be from our parents our partners
our government or God we can feel as
though we are standing in the rubble of
our worldview often it doesn’t happen
all at once cracks started to appear
around the edges of my world a few
months into college I was taking an
ethics class and for the first time I
was challenged to think about where
ideas about right and wrong come from I
started to have conversations with
classmates who grew up with different
backgrounds and beliefs about ethical
issues capital punishment lying
sexuality
I started to wonder if I actually
believed what I thought I believed my
well built house started to feel a lot
less stable when we think deeply about
the fundamental questions of the human
experience Who am I
how do I know what is real what is good
what is the right thing to do what is
the meaning of life and when we
challenge ourselves to think about
privilege injustice Empire money and
power are seemingly unshakeable
structures of truth and value can start
to fall apart it can be devastating and
so many of us just avoid thinking too
much we shut down seal up the windows
lock the doors and scroll down a social
media feed echo chamber while the world
outside howls and sings we avoid ideas
that may challenge us and only engage
with those that won’t disrupt the safety
of our structures but eventually if we
spend too much time inside our safe
little houses the air becomes old and
stale and we can’t breathe in spite of
how scary it was for me to question my
beliefs it also felt like I was
breathing in fresh air for the first
time if we are to stay intellectually
alive we must let the outside world in
and sometimes that will mean losing our
old structures but whether we like it or
not loss is a necessary part of the
process of true learning Ken vane a
researcher who has spent decades
studying how people learn has said that
true learning not simply rote
memorization or acquiring concepts only
to forget them a short time later
usually immediately after the test but
learning in which you see the world in
different and lasting ways requires that
you face a situation in which your old
mental model of the world needs to be
demolished that day in class when my
belief in God was shattered my professor
said something that it’s too long to go
into now but on the face of it was
really quite benign but suddenly my old
beliefs my truth looked confusing and
foreign it didn’t work anymore I
wandered out of the classroom in a daze
and found myself at my professors office
door for the next hour i sat in her
office and sobbed as she listened to me
whimper and handed me tissues you’ve
eaten from the tree of knowledge she
said try as you might once you take a
bite you can’t spit out the Apple she
promised I would get through it though
you’ll go through a dusty upski phase
she joked you’ll start wearing all black
smoking cigarettes reading lots of
Nietzsche but you’ll get through that
too and I did in fact I was so
transformed by this journey that I went
on to get a PhD and become a professor
of philosophy because I had seen
firsthand how powerful and
transformative it was to learn to think
for myself I wanted to give that
experience to others revising refining
and even removing old beliefs altogether
is a necessary part of critical thinking
deep learning and intellectual growth if
you’re feeling this way
it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong so
many of my students have been through
this struggle a few months into a term a
student will come to me and say if what
I thought was true and
good isn’t then nothing is real nothing
is true nothing matters what now the
grief and devastation of intellectual
loss can be overwhelming we find
ourselves unprotected staring into a
dark hole where are safe and orderly
houses once were and at this moment
there is a critical choice we all must
make give up and fall in the cynicism or
rebuild now the first option is easy
cynicism doesn’t really ask anything of
you don’t believe in anything the world
is meaningless don’t work for it
anything it doesn’t matter anyway screw
it I’ll be over here eating cheese
doodles and watching Netflix cynicism
allows us to regain a sense of control
we know the answers and those answers
let us off the hook but in choosing
cynicism we also give up agency our own
ability to act to create change we deny
ourselves the human experience of faith
of wonder of believing in something and
working toward a goal because ultimately
we crave meaning and purpose and without
them we may feel comfortable but we
probably won’t feel very fulfilled
thinking deeply challenging our beliefs
and even watching them crumble to pieces
around us doesn’t have to result in
permanent meaninglessness and chaos even
when we feel like we don’t know where to
begin we can choose to create something
new this decision to rebuild is hope
hope is the antidote to cynicism and
despair hope recognizes that truth and
value may not be as clear as permanent
as reliable as you once thought
and yet chooses to believe to create to
act anyway so we find or make new
building blocks for our mental models we
take pieces from the old structure and
put them together in new ways with no
guarantees and no blueprint we must
synthesize take a leap experiment we
must build with the seriousness of a
child at play my daughter loves building
with Legos and she’s too but she does it
with the dedication and the focus of a
structural engineer and then of course
as soon as she’s done what happens our
beliefs and our values our understanding
of the world are critically important
the foundation for our actions and our
lives but we cannot take them too
seriously we must understand that even
though this new structure serves us now
we may have to renovate or demolish it
later
your new creation will look different it
may not be as straight and sensible as
before walls and rooms will twist and
turn and end up looking like something
you never could have anticipated
something messy and strange and
beautiful and completely your own in
rebuilding we take responsibility for
our beliefs we take ownership of them
another question I often get from
students is what do you believe what do
you believe which really is just another
way of asking what’s the answer I
respond that it’s not my job to tell
them what I believe it’s my job to help
them figure out what they believe
annoying
I know but I also tell them that you
won’t necessarily find the answers you
just become more comfortable with not
knowing them you learn to revel in the
pleasure of problem-solving the joy of
discovery and the wondrous mystery of
uncertainty my mental model now has an
open roof the work is never complete and
I imagine myself a student back in that
classroom but now I welcome new and
different ideas I breathed them in and
turn them over in my mind without
everything falling to pieces
sometimes I decide they’re not worth
holding on to and I let them blow out
and away and sometimes I decide I need
to knock down a wall and renovate again
and now and then I remind myself to take
a break from building and simply gaze up
with curiosity and wonder at the unknown
thank you [Applause]
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