“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

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“My challenge is really to say, 'Can you name me a moral action or a statement that has been made by a believer that couldn't have been made by a non-believer?”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

The Rise of Atheism, ABC News, 30 September 2007, 1 September 2015 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3671172,
Alternate version: Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.
2007-11-01
Excerpt from The Portable Atheist
USA Today
0161-7389
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2007-11-01-portable-atheist_N.htm
Hitchens posed this challenge many times in debate or during lectures, variously phrased, claiming no one had ever been able to pass it, although everyone could easily answer the corollary question: "Could you name a wicked action or a vile statement made by someone, attributable only to their religious faith?"
Christopher Hitchens Moral Challenge to the god fearing religious folks, YouTube, 20 June 2009, 1 September 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqFwree7Kak,
2000s, 2007

“I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

A Soldier's Declaration (July 1917)
Context: I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

“The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, August
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-protests-idUSKCN1AV0WT Trump, again, casts blame on both sides for deadly violence in Virginia] at a press briefing in Trump Tower, New York (15 August 2017) Transcripts: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/15/read-the-transcript-of-donald-trumps-jaw-dropping-press-conference.html https://www.vox.com/2017/8/15/16154028/trump-press-conference-transcript-charlottesville note: 2010s, 2017, August

“Even our beliefs have become trend statements. We don't even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool things to believe.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“I do not think that a Judge would wish any statement which he may have made in the course of a case, merely obiter and casually, to be treated as necessarily being an authority on the subject in question; but when a Judge has thought it necessary for the purpose of a case to make a deliberate examination of the practice of his Court, and to state such practice, I do not think the authority of such statement can be got rid of merely by arguing that it was not really necessary for the actual decision of the case. I think that such a statement if cited as an authority is entitled to great weight, though of course not binding on us as a decision.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Ex parte Rev. James Bell Cox (1887), L. R. 20 Q. B. D. 19.

“The day I made that statement, I was tired because I had been up all night inventing the Camcorder.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Joking about reports that he had claimed to have invented the internet, as quoted in The Boston Globe (9 April 1999).

“To me a Tory is a person who believes that authority is vested in institutions—that's a carefully honed definition. We have made the law, not for extraneous reasons, not because it conforms with a priori specifications; it has been made by a particular institution in a particular way and can be changed by that institution in a particular way. A Tory therefore reposes the ultimate authority in institutions—he is an example of collective man.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Interviewed in Winter 1992, quoted in Naim Attallah, Asking Questions (Quartet Books, 1996), pp. 354-5
1990s

“Almost all people are hypnotics. The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and the people believed properly.”

Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer

“A man should live his life a certain way not because of some divine authority, but because of a personal moral obligation to himself and others.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

“...people shouldn’t have to make statements and their lives should be private if they want to be. But I think if someone’s feeling restricted by not making a statement, then they should be free to do so. I chose to speak to you because I don’t want to lie by omission and I want to be very straightforward about my life...”

Saffron Burrows (1972) English actress, model and writer

On whether people should feel the need to "come out" and be a role model in “Saffron Burrows: ‘I’m really proud of my family and who they are’” https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/dec/01/saffron-burrows-married-to-alison-balian-mozart-in-the-jungle in The Guardian (2014 Dec 01)

“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.”

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

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