My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
...when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the dangers of rigid beliefs that stifle critical thinking.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote emphasizes that when one becomes entrenched in dogmatic beliefs, the ability to think critically or engage in intellectual discourse is severely diminished. It serves as a cautionary reminder to be open-minded and critical of oneβs beliefs, as dogma can inhibit exploration and understanding, leading to stagnation in thought and intellectual growth.
In practice
This quote can be used during a debate to highlight the importance of questioning beliefs.
My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
There is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
This whole religion revolves around knowing the truth and acting by it, and action must be accompanied by patience.
I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the year 1000: walking around smiling, trying to earn enough to eat, while neurotically doing these little self-proofs in our head about how much better we are than these other slobs, while simultaneously, in another part of our brain, secretly feeling woefully inadequate to these smarter, more beautiful people.
But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.
Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise.
All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.
The Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship, but to keep her on her course.
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