{"quotes":[{"text":"Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity.Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil.","author":"Thomas Paine","tags":["american-revolution","crime","dogma","enemies","feigned-morality","french-revolution","hypocrisy","injury","intention","justice","love","love-thy-enemy","loving","maxim","meaning","morality","motive","persecution","preach","premius","proverb","revenge","vague"],"id":4846,"author_id":"Thomas+Paine"},{"text":"I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journa.","author":"Walter Cronkite","tags":["dogma","journalism","liberal","liberalism","objectivity","politics"],"id":5326,"author_id":"Walter+Cronkite"},{"text":"The prison inspector and the warders, though they had never understood or gone into the meaning of these dogmas and of all that went on in church, believed that they must believe, because the higher authorities and the Tsar himself believed in it. Besides, though faintly (and themselves unable to explain why), they felt that this faith defended their cruel occupations. If this faith did not exist it would have been more difficult, perhaps impossible, for them to use all their powers to torment people, as they were now doing, with a quiet conscience. The inspector was such a kind-hearted man that he could not have lived as he was now living unsupported by his faith.","author":"Leo Tolstoy","tags":["dogma","faith","human-nature","incarceration"],"id":5863,"author_id":"Leo+Tolstoy"},{"text":"While you were busy trying to prove God stands behind you, God was before me lighting the trail, so he could lead us both.","author":"Shannon L. Alder","tags":["be-kind","building-people-up","commandments","communicate","conflict","dogma","end-it-with-talking","facebook","forgive","god","gospel","hidden-agendas","insecure","jilted","love-everyone","low-self-esteem","making-a-point","mental-illness","move-on","neighbors","novels","obviousness","out-there","over-the-top","piety","pious","practice-what-you-preach","preaching","privacy","problems","reach-out","relationships","relentless","religion","religions","ridiculous","rules","self-righteousness","silly","slighted","talk","tearing-people-down","upfront","worthless"],"id":7615,"author_id":"Shannon+L.+Alder"},{"text":"True education expands your imagination. False education fills your mind with dogma and makes you a prisoner of conformity.","author":"Debasish Mridha M.D.","tags":["conformity","debasish","dogma","education","inspirational","mridha","philosophy","prisoner-of-conformity","quotes"],"id":13622,"author_id":"Debasish+Mridha+M.D."},{"text":"Christianity is not a doctrine, I mean, a theory about what has happened and will happen to the human soul, but a description of something that actually takes place in human life. For 'consciousness of sin' is a real event an so are despair and salvation through faith. Those who speak of such things (Bunyan for instance) are simply describing what has happened to them, whatever gloss anyone may want to put on it.","author":"Ludwig Wittgenstein","tags":["christianity","doctrine","dogma","faith","religion"],"id":14497,"author_id":"Ludwig+Wittgenstein"},{"text":"We all know dogmatists who are more concerned about holding their opinions than about investigating their truth. ... If they are mistaken, they will never discover it; they have condemned themselves to perpetual error. Human beings (including myself) sometimes use their beliefs for wish-fulfillment. Too often we believe what we want to be true.","author":"David L. Wolfe","tags":["belief","dogma","self-delusion","wishful-thinking"],"id":15871,"author_id":"David+L.+Wolfe"},{"text":"There is NO way you're living out your purpose if you're conforming to the rules. There is NO way you'll fulfill your destiny if you're trapped in the dogma of what other people think.","author":"Catrice M. Jackson","tags":["catriceology","destiny","dogma","purpose","purpose"],"id":24043,"author_id":"Catrice+M.+Jackson"},{"text":"We are all tricked. We think that religion tells us what to believe; but it doesn't, it is telling us what not to believe. Atheism is not the absence of religion; atheism is the most undiluted form of religion: it tells us not to believe in anything at all. Atheists hate the religious and the religious hate atheists, but this is only a deception! We are all deceived! There is only one boat and we are all in it! All at the same time!","author":"C. JoyBell C.","tags":["atheism","deception","dogma","religion","the-great-deception","trickery"],"id":28756,"author_id":"C.+JoyBell+C."},{"text":"The duality and the freewill don't exist. There's only one choice to be made, the one that bring us upwards. Self-destruction is not a choice. And yet, every duality presents exactly that, and not really a choice.","author":"Robin Sacredfire","tags":["alchemy","choices","decisions","dogma","leadership","life","psychiatry","psychology","religion","self-improvement","spirituality"],"id":28862,"author_id":"Robin+Sacredfire"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":124,"pages":13,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}