UU Minute #50

New Meaning



Here’s something for you: Joseph Priestley believed in Phlogiston – his whole life, apparently.

Let me set the stage. Ashuman ideas and concepts change and evolve, we redefine what words mean. Take the case of “planet.” The word originally meant wandering star. When we learned that those objects we’d been calling planets weren’t stars at all, we might have said, so there’s no such thing as a wandering star, no such thing as a planet. Instead, we redefined the word to fit our new understanding of those objects in the sky to which we’d been referring.

Or take the case of “atom.” The word originally meant “indivisible.” When we learned that they were divisible after all, we might have said, “those things we’ve been calling atoms aren’t atoms.” Instead, we redefined “atom” to fit our new understanding of those objects to which we’d been referring.

This process fascinates me because many of us reach a point in our religious life where we make that sort of choice: either conclude that there’s no such thing as something – God, or freedom – or we redefine the word, and adjust our conception of it. Usually, in the history of evolving human beliefs, we take the route of redefining terms. It is rare that we opt to say something simply doesn’t exist. For instance, even though the humors theory of health and temperament is thoroughly discredited, we don’t say there’s no such thing as blood, phlegm, or bile. We just reconceptualized the role of these bodily fluids.

But for phlogiston, science collectively took the unusual step of declaring it just plain doesn’t exist.

And we’ll have to pick up from there in our next thrilling episode.

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