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QUOTATION SOURCE: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/
Tag Archives: Stupidity
STATES OF SUPERSTITION
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The idea that human beings in biological bodies can travel throughout intergalactic space, raise families on board a space craft, and freely interact with alien life forms is an example of superstition, based in science fiction, conjecture and wishful thinking….
LET’S TRY TO FORGET ABOUT THE HISTORY OF HUMAN SUPERSTITION AND STUPIDITY
AND PRETEND THAT WE HAVE EVOLVED INTO HIGHER STATES OF SUPERSTITION.
BURNING BOOKS
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I recently re-read a book from my personal library about the destruction of the greatest library of antiquity in Alexandria, Egypt, The Vanished Library, by Luciano Canfora. Because I write books, I also read books. Books are a gateway to intellectual and spiritual freedom.
Although my personal library shelves contain only several hundred volumes, it is estimated by various sources that the Library at Alexandria housed tens of thousands of scrolls amassed by Ptolemy that were added to the sacred library of Ramses II, Pharaoh of Egypt! (c. 1300 BCE) At the time of it’s destruction there were reported to be more than 45,000 hand-written books, gathered from all of the civilized word — translated into Greek — and housed in a single building.
In 640 AD, this priceless library was burned at the order of Muslim Caliph Omar. When the general of his army asked the Caliph what to do with the books of the library, the Caliph responded:
“If their content is in accordance with the book of Allah, we may do without them. If they contain matter not in accordance with the book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed then, to destroy them.”
At that time the city of Alexandria had 4,000 public baths. The water for the baths was heated by underground stoves or furnaces. “The books were distributed to the public baths of Alexandria, where they were used to fuel the stove which kept the baths comfortably warm. ….It took six months to burn all that mass of material.” Only the writings of Aristotle were spared from the flames.
As has so often been the case in the history of Earth, religious fanaticism — the enemy of knowledge and freedom — was the cause of destruction of precious accumulated knowledge, technology and wisdom recorded by literate scientists, mathematicians, artists, philosophers and scholars. The modern destruction by the United States of the priceless Library of Baghdad, the burning of books and burying of scholars under China’s Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Aztec codices by Itzcoatl, the Nazi book burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, and many others psychotic episodes serve to keep humanity stupid, superstition and enslaved by ignorance.
However, in 2013 we live in an age of unprecedented information access. There are thousands of libraries all around the world. The internet is a vast library of information that contains nearly every book that has ever been written! (Of course there are huge numbers of “heretical” books that have been burned by Caliphs or Nazis or hidden in the Vatican library or the Smithsonian Institute.) However, in spite of intellectual terrorism, superstition, religious fanaticism, and government mind-control agendas, we are living in an unprecedented age when books are freely available in abundance! All we need to do is read them.
COMPUTER, END PROGRAMS
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The personal toys we call “computers” are not real computers. The “apps” we are allowed to use on our toy computers are social and mind control devices, designed for governmental surveillance and “dumbing down” members of “the masses”. If the real potential power of computing technology were applied to creating prosperity and intelligence instead of war, subservience and scarcity, the human race could travel to the stars and beyond at speeds exceeding light, and create a literal paradise on Earth . As it is, we’re going nowhere fast.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on STUPIDITY
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer — (4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident. Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler’s euthanasia program. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo. After being accused of being associated with the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was quickly tried and then executed by hanging on 9 April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing.
(Read more about Dietrich Bonhoeffer) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
The following statements about “STUPIDITY” are taken from a circular letter, addressing many topics, written to three friends and co-workers in the conspiracy against Hitler, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany.
“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
‘If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain; that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations.
The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who lives in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.
It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.
The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
‘Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly.
The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.
‘But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.”