“It was apparent to me that religion was an invented thing, a wish-fulfillment thing, a fantasy thing. It was much more real, dangerous, to accept that mortality was the end for you as an individual. As an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, so if you're thinking of murder, if your subject is murder, then that's a physical act of absolute destruction because you're ending something, a body, that is unique. That person never existed before, will never exist again, will not be karmically recycled, will not go to heaven, therefore I take it seriously.” IfsThinkingBelievePersonsRealEndsBodyIndividualHeavenWishAcceptingFantasySubjectsDangerousUniqueDestructionMurderAbsolutesDon't BelieveAtheistFulfillmentMortalityAfterlifeRecycled Author:David Cronenberg
“All confidence which is not absolute and entire, is dangerous. There are few occasions but where a man ought either to say all, or conceal all; for, how little so ever you have revealed of your secret to a friend, you have already said too much if you think it not safe to make him privy to all particulars.” IfsThinkingMenLittlesSaidSecretToo MuchDangerousOughtSafeAbsolutesOccasions Author:Francis Beaumont
“Believing in an idea is dangerous! Because belief is absolute, and absolute, is unconditional, it is supreme, its ultimate and therefore fixed, which by definition will never be acceptable to change.” BelieveIdeasBeliefDangerousUltimateAbsolutesDefinitionsSupremeFixedAcceptableUnconditional Author:Joshua Fernandez
“All rituals are paradoxical and dangerous enterprises, the traditional and improvised, the sacred and the secular. Paradoxical because rituals are conspicuously artificial and theatrical, yet designed to suggest the inevitability and absolute truth of their messages. Dangerous because when we are not convinced by a ritual we may become aware of ourselves as having made them up, thence on the paralyzing realization that we have made up all our truths; our ceremonies, our most precious conceptions and convictions - all are mere inventions.” MayMadeDangerousMessagesAbsolutesSacredMereConvictionConvincedInventionTraditionalRealizationEnterpriseConceptionRitualArtificialSecularCeremonyTheatricalInevitabilityParadoxicalAbsolute Truth Author:Barbara Myerhoff
“The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity", and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.” IfsThinkingMenEndsMightHumanityCan DoJusticeDangerousOughtCostSafeDevilEvidenceAbsolutesSakeGuidesTrialsImpulseAgreementFinding YourselfDangerous ThingsTreacherous Book:Mere Christianity Source: Mere Christianity