“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” – Albert Einstein.
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A Quote of Immense Relevancy
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SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Especially when somebody claims that the “authority” is God himself. (Or God’s representative on Earth.)
Amen
I agree Don Cox. Authority doesn’t only refer to a human figure. It can be anything, “God”, religion, or even a simple idea.
The quote of the Sudanese Muslim scholar Abdullahi An-Naim also ties in really well with the one by Einstein.
“If I don’t have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe”
Indeed.
“If I don’t have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe”
I think it takes a while to understand the brilliance of that statement.
It’s almost a definition of what belief is.
With this Abdullahi An-Naim reiterates and ultimately explains what is said in the Quran:
“Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth has been made clear from error. Whoever rejects false worship and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things.”
(“An” is “al” in front of a Sun letter, right?)
It’s supposed to be al-Naim but because Naim begins with N, you pronounce it quickly as An-Naim and hence the spelling in English changes (in Arabic it remains the same, only the pronunciation changes).
And yes, his statement is absolutely brilliant. It sums up my basic philosophy very nicely.
I’m gonna be a bit outrageous and reword a quote by a guy who holds the record for the highest IQ….;)
“unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of progress”
Actually… Einstein never took an IQ test in his life. What we have today is the result of some half-baked attempt at estimating the IQ of a person who wasn’t actually taking the test.
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