- - - Richard Feynman
Here is how things go wrong: beliefs hold the believer. The believer acts, thinks and perceives the world through his beliefs and in order to support them, and is cognitively and morally blinded and enslaved; unable to inquire outside a narrow, nonthreatening sphere, and willing to use any means whatever to propagate the One Truth. Then belief exists for it's own sake, and it can escape all moral restraints, with terrible consequences that are only too well known.The problem is not so much the belief systems themselves, but with the banishment of the one great value: doubt.
Here is how things go wrong: beliefs hold the believer. The believer acts, thinks and perceives the world through his beliefs and in order to support them, and is cognitively and morally blinded and enslaved; unable to inquire outside a narrow, nonthreatening sphere, and willing to use any means whatever to propagate the One Truth. Then belief exists for it's own sake, and it can escape all moral restraints, with terrible consequences that are only too well known.The problem is not so much the belief systems themselves, but with the banishment of the one great value: doubt.