“Most beliefs about nature and man, which were not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or indirectly religious and social interests, and hence they have been protected by force against the criticisms of persons who have the inconvenient habit of using their reason.”

—  J. B. Bury, book A History of Freedom of Thought

p.17 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t71v5g25n;view=1up;seq=21 <br class="br">A History of Freedom of Thought (1913)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Most beliefs about nature and man, which were not founded on scientific observation, have served directly or indirectly…" by J. B. Bury?
J. B. Bury photo
J. B. Bury11
Irish historian and freethinker 1861–1927

Related quotes

Karl Pearson photo

“Hundreds of men have allowed their imagination to solve the universe, but the men who have contributed to our real understanding of natural phenomena have been those who were unstinting in their application of criticism to the product of their imaginations. It is such criticism which is the essence of the scientific use of the imagination, which is... the very life-blood of science.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Anders Behring Breivik photo

“One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests. ”

Anders Behring Breivik (1979) Norwegian mass murderer

John Stuart Mill photo

“One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Source: On Representative Government (1861), Ch. I: To What Extent Forms of Government Are a Matter of Choice (p. 155)
Context: To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

Jerry Coyne photo

“Accommodationists further accuse scientists of having “faith in reason.” Yet reason is not an a priori assumption, but a tool that’s been shown to work. We don’t have faith in reason; we use reason, and we use it because it produces results and progressive understanding…
Reason is simply the way we justify our beliefs, and if you’re not using it, whether you’re justifying religious or scientific beliefs, you deserve no one’s attention.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 210-211

Mark Hopkins (educator) photo

“Remove from the history of the past all those actions which have either sprung directly from the religious nature of man, or been modified by it, and you have the history of another world and of another race.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 498.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconvenience he causes us very much against him.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Calvin Coolidge photo

“All native-born Americans, directly or indirectly, have the advantage of our schools, our colleges, and our religious bodies. It is our belief that America could not otherwise exist. Faith in mankind is in no wise inconsistent with a requirement for trained citizenship, both for men and women. No civilization can exist without a background—an active community of interest, a common aspiration—spiritual, social, and economic. It is a duty our country owes itself to require of all those aliens who come here that they have a background not inconsistent with American institutions.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

Aron Ra photo

“The evidence of evolution, and even the event of evolution itself, –the proof of it- are both directly observed, and testable, and demonstrably factual. But religious beliefs are none of the above and never have been; they’re assumed on faith. Whether or not these beliefs turn out to be correct, they are asserted as true without justification in the form of evidence.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

&quot;14th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism&quot; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYsnVMjG4lk Youtube (January 3, 2009) <br class="br">Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Miroslav Krleža photo

“When a scientific principle puts on the toga of social dignity, it turns itself into a bell or a parrot; such phantoms have always been the most dangerous enemies of reason.”

Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981) Croatian writer

Aristocrats of Spirit, in: Eseji IV, p.76 (Zora, 1963)
Essays

George Orwell photo

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects.”

George Orwell Why I Write

"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
Context: The Spanish war and other events in 1936-7 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects.

Related topics