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Robert Anton Wilson

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“The most important truths always appear first as blasphemies or obscenities. That's why every great innovator is persecuted. And the sacraments look obscene, too, to an outsider. The eucharist is just sublimated cannibalism, to the unawakened. When the Pope kisses the feet of the laity, he looks like an old toe-queen to some people. The rites of Pan look like a suburban orgy.”

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Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have my demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share the same crusading zeal and the same lack of humor, charity and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.”

ShouldHumansChristianDifferencesCommonBrainSupportGroupsShareActivityIntellectualEvidenceLettersShould HaveSlaveCharityCeaseSatanDemonLiarsFraudDogmaMinorsCultDecencyZealPresentingAgnosticismFundamentalistContentionScoundrelsCharlatansExorcism
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“I have read a great deal of economic theory for over 50 years now, but have found only one economic "law" to which I can find NO exceptions: Where the State prevents a free market, by banning any form of goods or services, consumer demand will create a black market for those goods or services, at vastly higher prices. Can YOU think of a single exception to this law?”

ThinkingYearsI CanStatesFormLawFoundBlackDealsEconomicTheoryHigherDemandConsumersExceptionGoodsFree MarketOver 50Economic Theory
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“Taking somebody's money without permission is stealing, unless you work for the IRS; then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania, unless you work for the Army; then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy, unless you work for the FBI; then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp and poisoning people makes you a murderer, unless you work for the CIA; then it's counter-intelligence.”

PeopleRunningLibertySecurityArmyKillingDefenseLibertarianNeighborStealingPrivacyLibertarianismPermissionNational SecurityMurdererTaxationInvasionCiaFbiPoisoningIrsManiaPimpNational DefenseHomicidalInvasion Of Privacy
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“To me, it doesn't matter if your scapegoats are the Jews, the homosexuals, the male sex, the Masons, the Jesuits, the Welfare Parasites, the Power Elite, the female sex, the vegetarians, or the Communist Party. To the extent that you need a scapegoat, you simply have not got your brain programmed to work as an efficient problem-solving machine.”

IfsNeedsMatterProblemSexPartyBrainLibertyFemaleMachinesMalesJewLibertarianWelfareVegetarianCommunistEfficientElitesLibertarianismProblem SolvingHomosexualParasitesScapegoatMasonsCommunist PartyJesuit
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“Belief Systems contradict both science and ordinary "common sense." B.S. contradicts science, because it claims certitude and science can never achieve certitude: it can only say, "This model"- or theory, or interpretation of the data- "fits more of the facts known at this date than any rival model." We can never know if the model will fit the facts that might come to light in the next millennium or even in the next week.”

IfsKnowsFactsLightMightFaithNextBeliefCommonKnownWeekAchieveTheoryFitModelsOrdinaryClaimsCommon SenseDataInterpretationRivalsBelief SystemsMillenniumNext WeekCertitude
Book:Tsog: The Thing That Ate the Constitution
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“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.”

KnowsWorldBookEnoughFormFaithBeliefRealizingSpaceCornersDenialComplexityConceitAgnosticismDogmaticSpace Time
Book:Tsog: The Thing That Ate the Constitution
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“People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians- meaningless propositions that look meaningful to the linguistically naive.”

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Book:Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World
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