A Quote by Christopher Hitchens

The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.

Christopher Hitchens

Quote Topics

Been Believe Certain Dogmatic Error Faithful Free Inquiry Only Positions Revealed Sought Those Trial Trial And Error Truth Truth Is Truths

Quote Author

Christopher Hitchens
American - Author
April 13, 1949 - December 15, 2011

Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption of Christianity could not have been purged away.

Thomas Jefferson

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.

Thomas Jefferson

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

Thomas Paine

You have to be an original individual; you have to find your innermost core on your own, with no guide, no guiding scriptures. It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry you are bound to come to the sunrise. Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry has found the sunrise. Others only believe. Those who believe are not religious, they are simply avoiding the great adventure of religion by believing.

Rajneesh

The truth shall set you free. When you hear the truth, it sets you free. So mathematics is truth. It adds up. There's no error. Only time there's an error is when man miscalculates his own problems or his own equations.

Rza

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. I believe that they are all God- given and I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoints of the followers of these faiths, we should find that they were at bottom all one and were all helpful to one another.

Mahatma Gandhi

Kierkegaard also said that truth is `subjective`. By this he did not mean it doesn't matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are `true for me`.

Jostein Gaarder

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Thomas Jefferson

Free healthcare and free and equal education and peace are about the only things I passionately believe in, and I think if you don't believe in those but you go to church on Sunday then that's hypocris.

Robert Montgomery

After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.

J. R. R. Tolkien

I do not recall another period when ‘faith’ was as popular as it is today. ‘If only we believe hard enough we'll make it somehow.’ So goes the popular chant. What you believe is not important. Only believe... What is overlooked in all this is that faith is good only when it engages truth; when it is made to rest upon falsehood it can and often does lead to eternal tragedy. For it is not enough that we believe; we must believe the right thing about the right One.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

I sincerely believe that we not only have the right to know what is good and what is evil; we have the duty to acquire that knowledge if we hope to assume responsibility for our own lives and those of our children. Only by knowing the truth can we be set free.

Alice Miller

When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

Eric Hoffer

Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them.

Benjamin Rush

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.