RE: The Biological Value of Religion
August 26, 2014 at 12:42 am
(This post was last modified: August 26, 2014 at 1:52 am by Whateverist.)
Didn't know that about Dostoevsky. My favorite quote from “Crime and Punishment".
This is why I don't think it is enough or at all preferable to coerce people out of their beliefs, in either direction. Being right isn't enough. You've got to own it or you wind up getting owned. Instead of fixing the rest of the world just get all those beams out of your own eye. Amarite? Amarite?
Quote:What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands.
This is why I don't think it is enough or at all preferable to coerce people out of their beliefs, in either direction. Being right isn't enough. You've got to own it or you wind up getting owned. Instead of fixing the rest of the world just get all those beams out of your own eye. Amarite? Amarite?
