Binocular epistemology

I was an atheist as a teenager, and when I started believing in God, I still remembered why I had been an atheist.

And whenever I’d see an internet debate about God, I would often be frustrated by the same thing over and over:

Theists who hadn’t previously been atheists, had no idea why atheists were atheists.

They just couldn’t understand it — they seemed to think atheists were just dumb. They seemed to say:

“Surely if I keep quoting this scripture over and over, they’ll come around!”

But having been on both sides, I could see the validity in atheist objections to theism, and vice versa.

Changing your mind, especially about a major topic with a lot of emotional weight behind it, can illuminate a depth dimension you might not have known was there.

Having fully embraced two opposite beliefs is like having two eyes.

Before I’d changed my mind on atheism, I could see only a facade of atheism, and a facade of theism. It was like having one eye.

But having fully embraced two opposing beliefs, I gained a certain depth perception. I could see the substance behind the facade, of both positions.

Changing your mind can more than double your knowledge — it can add an infinitude of depth and subtlety to it.