Dogmatic Belief Quotes

How often has an inspired notion been misinterpreted and obscured by later scribes and interpreters … who then created stodgy traditions and rigid dogmas? This happens to religions, cultures and teachings and, as we will see, to individuals on their own interpretations of what is true or not. From the trivial to the profound, opinions have their say, and short sighted viewpoints have their sway. Fanatics have been shortened to fans. It is always good to know the origins of words, ideas and beliefs. ~ Stephen Poplin

A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. ~ C.S. Lewis

The lyrics are critical of dogmatic belief, too, as I see it in many lifestyles and philosophy religious or otherwise. ~ Mike Scheidt

If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatic belief is no less indispensable to him in order to live alone than it is to enable him to co-operate with his fellows. If man were
forced to demonstrate for himself all the truths of which he makes daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory demonstrations without ever advancing beyond them.
As, from the shortness of his life, he has not the time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to act in this way, he is reduced to take on trust a host of facts and opinions
which he has not had either the time or the power to verify for
himself, but which men of greater ability have found out, or which
the crowd adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; he is not led to proceed in this manner by choice, but is constrained by the inflexible law of
his condition. There is no philosopher in the world so great but that he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates. (Tocqueville 1945 2:9-10; Oeuvres Completes (M) 1(2):16-17, (B) 3:15-16). ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. ~ Bertrand Russell

Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

There are two things you need if you are to uncover and communicate what is really happening in the world. One is to free of any dogmatic belief system. The second is not to give a damn what people think and say about you, or, at least, not to let that influence your decisions. ~ David Icke

The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they are dogmas. It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate body, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they are dogmas. It may be thought 'dogmatic,' for instance, in some circles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvement of man in another world. But it is not thought "dogmatic" to assume the perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea of progress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, and from a rationalistic point of view quite as improbable. Progress happens to be one of our dogmas, and a dogma means a thing which is not thought dogmatic. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Having a good belief system in yourself is so important for success and can help you in many ways. First thing a belief system accomplishes is that it builds your self-esteem. Knowledge ~ Brent R

Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right. ~ Anne Lamott

I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

Century after century, the belief that an individual's physical health was independent of his or her emotional health has so dominated medical thought that there has even been open contempt for anyone who would dare to claim that a person's physical well-being is the sum of its internal and external influences. ~ Sandy Oshiro Rosen

Thank you God for helping me to overcome the bad to live the good. ~ Jonathan Anthony Burkett

People believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what was right in front of their eyes. ~ Jodi Picoult

In that moment of salvation, of belief, they are opening their lives to the person of Jesus. ~ Paul Washer

Beliefs are not some special category of idea sitting at a higher station of truth than our ordinary, everyday mortal thoughts. Beliefs are not neccesarily "the truth" at all. (Remember, there was a time everyone believed the earth was flat) ~ John Assaraf

Even towards yourself you have to be tremendously loving, because you too are god's form. One has to love oneself, one has to love all. Love is prayer. And the more you love, the more you will feel your consciousness expanding, becoming bigger - because whomsoever we love becomes part of our being, we include him. Mm? A bird on the wing, and we look at the bird with great love - suddenly we are not two: the bird is inside us and we are inside the bird. ~ Rajneesh

Virtuous behavior by a believer is no proof at all of - indeed is not even an argument for - the truth of his belief. ~ Christopher Hitchens

It is a well known fact that even among highly cultured peoples the belief in animism prevails generally. Even the scholar may kick the chair against which he accidentally stumbles, and derive great satisfaction from thus 'getting even' with the perverse chair. ~ Holly Estil Cunningham

Could it that the impossible is compelling because we have just enough God within us to know the impossible to be achievable, and just enough of ourselves within us to know that we have to rely on Him to do it? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

You must have been traumatized beyond fucking belief ~ David Foster Wallace

God is so much bigger than our 'what ifs' that he can turn them into 'why nots ~ Gary Rohrmayer

The greatest patient is to wait for God to act. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The core of all religions is a belief in a supreme personal god. ~ Frank Tipler

When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended. ~ Michel Houellebecq

No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions
even and especially in the ones who most reject it. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Developing a strong belief in yourself and your abilities will provide a firm foundation to achieve success. ~ Amey Hegde

The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured- disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui- in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. ~ Henry Miller

It follows, therefore, that the church's evangelism ought to be one in which all the counsel of God is made known to men. We need a recovery of belief in the converting and sanctifying power of the living Word of God in the teaching of the pulpit, and its ability to transform the lives of men and produce in them the lineaments and fruits of mature Christian character. ~ William Still

We were never created to settle for mere religion. Jesus did not die so that we could have a religious belief system - but rather a life-giving relationship with our Father. ~ Christine Caine

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something. ~ Aldous Huxley

My first mistake is to humanize God. My second mistake is to hold those wretched human characteristics up against all of the majestic things that I sense God should be. The blatant discrepancy which is certain to ensue then allows me to not only justify my rejection of Him, it grants me unbridled permission to discount His existence altogether. And that third and final mistake is without a doubt the most costly of all. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Belief can convert the mundane into the miraculous. ~ Charles F. Glassman

Responsibility and respect of others and their religious beliefs are also part of freedom. ~ Horst Koehler

My fear of standing alone often pressures me to stand with a rather unsavory group that embraces a rather unsettling belief system which leaves me wondering why I left the promises of God for the company of people. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

A broader danger of unverifiable beliefs is the temptation to defend them by violent means. People become wedded to their beliefs, because the validity of those beliefs reflects on their competence, commends them as authorities, and rationalizes their mandate to lead. Challenge a person's beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes. Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali was the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. ~ Steven Pinker

Those who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in believing that the world was made as it is; and the shepherd, untutored in history, sees no reason to regard the green mounds which indicate the site of a Roman camp, as aught but part and parcel of the primeval hill-side. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

I believe that it's not necessary to believe in the soul's existence. But turn that around and you come to the belief that there's no need to not believe in its existence. ~ Haruki Murakami

For the believer, participating in ritual activity is a 're-enactment of profound truth,' that which makes one belong to a belief system drawing the believer and the community of believers near to God. Yet despite its central role, the essence of a religious belief cannot be grasped by simply observing ritual practice. Ritual can mark, identify and separate a community of believers, it can point to what is held most sacred in terms of rites and worship, but it can never quite capture faith, for faith transcends form and imagery. This is particularly true of Islam, where faith is presented a a gradual process from Islam (surrender) to iman (faith) to the final state of ihsan (doing good). Belief in God is a deeper state of awareness, of conviction and of humility, all of which ultimately lie beyond ritual. ~ Mona Siddiqui

Liberalism should be found not striving to spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of all other blessings and benefits is vain. That belief is the foundation of all American progress, political as well as economic. ~ Herbert Hoover

For by either eliminating mention of God from the curriculum altogether (departments of religious studies concern themselves with various types of belief in God, not with God), or by restricting reference to God to departments of theology, such universities render their secular curriculum Godless. And this Godlessness is, as I already noted, not just a matter of the subtraction of God from the range of objects studied, but also and quite as much the absence of any integrated and overall view of things. ~ Alasdair MacIntyre

It is my belief that whereas the twentieth century has been a century of war and untold suffering, the twenty-first century should be one of peace and dialogue. As the continued advances in information technology make our world a truly global village, I believe there will come a time when war and armed conflict will be considered an outdated and obsolete method of settling differences among nations and communities. ~ Dalai Lama