Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Seven

"By doubting we are led to enquiry, and by enquiry we discern the truth." -- Peter Abelard

I distrust people who have no doubt.  If you do not doubt, you do not think, and people who do not think proceed with absolute confidence in the rightness of their motives, and absolute blindness to the consequences of their acts.  I have met people of faith for whom doubt is a sin.  Just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined faith is not worth believing in.  If you have not doubted, you have not really thought about your faith.  If you have not thought about your faith, how do you really know if it is the truth?  Do you not trust yourself?

When someone says that they know that God exists because it says so in the inerrant Bible, I back away.  When someone says that they know that God does not exist because he cannot be dreamt of in their philosophy, I pity them.
When someone says that the political philosophy they subscribe to is so certainly good that society should be re-ordered as they prescribe, I reach for my culture.

When someone says that they don't know, I'm right with them.
When someone says that they believe that they are right, but that they accept the possibility that they might be wrong, I tend to trust them.

I sing the praises of doubt. Thomas doubted, enquired, discerned the truth, and strengthened his faith.  Doubt strengthens the mind, promotes tolerance, seeks diversity, and fights fanaticism.

Question everything.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Six

". . . a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government . . ." -- Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address

From the very beginning, Americans have had a healthy distrust of power.  If that power is concentrated in the hands of the few, and if those few are insulated from the people, that distrust turns to outright hostility.  In 1801 the biggest, scariest power in the land was the still somewhat new federal government.  The Constitution, which created that government, was only twelve years old.  The Bill of Rights, which tempered its power, was only ten.  Would this new government usurp the power that rightly belonged to the people, or would it be a faithful steward of the power granted to it by the people?  


When policy is being debated today I often think of this quote.  Will this new action by our powerful government leave us more or less free to regulate our own pursuits?  Will they restrict or enhance the blessings of liberty? And is this proposed public good quite good enough to justify taking the bread which the people have earned?  


I'm not providing the answers on any particular questions.  I just think that the questions are worth considering.