
“To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.”
Source: Epigrams, p. 343
Strange Horizons interview (2008)
Context: The Inquisition, by defining and limiting knowledge, was evil. The Taliban, by defining truth and refusing girls an education, is evil. Any religion that says it knows the one and only truth is evil, because it limits knowledge. Any political body that says it owns the truth is evil. Same reason.
Any repressive regime that seeks to control exploration and experimentation is evil. Same reason. Any regime that defines truth as a set of beliefs and occurrences that cannot be questioned, that can neither be demonstrated nor proven is not only evil but ridiculous. This includes all mythologies, miracles, etc. because, if creation happened for a reason, if it was done by God, you'd better believe every part of it, including intelligence, was done for a reason ascertainable, eventually, by intelligence. We would not follow and adore a ruler who lied and tortured. Why would we worship a God who did either? God doesn't lie and he/she/it doesn't fool around!
Shutting down inquiry is evil. Causing pain purposefully for no reason is evil. Enjoying causing pain by shutting down inquiry is an absolute evil.
“To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.”
Source: Epigrams, p. 343
“Pain is no evil,
Unless it conquer us.”
St. Maura, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Attributed
As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca, Epistle LXXXVII (trans. R. M. Gummere)
“Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.”
“Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?”
Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 197
The runic inscription upon the scabbard of Dyrnwyn, correctly read by the bard Taliesin, in Chapter 19
The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968)
Mythopoeia (1931)