When Truths Collide

“The conflict dates from the day when one man, flying in the face of appearance, perceived that the forces of nature are no more unalterably fixed in their orbits than the stars themselves, but that their serene arrangement around us depicts the flow of a tremendous tide—the day on which a first voice rang out, crying to Mankind peacefully slumbering on the raft of Earth, ‘We are moving! We are going forward!’ . . . It is a pleasant and dramatic spectacle, that of Mankind divided to its depths into two irrevocably opposed camps—one looking toward the horizon and proclaiming with all its newfound faith, ‘We are moving,’ and the other, without shifting its position, obstinately maintaining, ‘Nothing changes. We are not moving at all.’”—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin¹