Belief Systems

As a causal argument for what is happening around the world today, a friend sent me this essay written in 1877 by Charles Peirce. 

My reaction: 

It is so true. Therefore, one should belong to no institutions; religious or otherwise. Because every mission statement they are based on requires that joiners be ruthlessly loyal to it or do not join. Yen,  ken, prakaren…. 

Essay:

BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THEIR DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES.........

"Let an institution be created which shall have for its object to keep correct doctrines before the attention of the people, to reiterate them perpetually, and to teach them to the young; having at the same time power to prevent contrary doctrines from being taught, advocated, or expressed. Let all possible causes of a change of mind be removed from men's apprehensions. Let them be kept ignorant, lest they should learn of some reason to think otherwise than they do.

Let their passions be enlisted, so that they may regard private and unusual opinions with hatred and horror. Then, let all men who reject the established belief be terrified into silence. Let the people turn out and tar-and-feather such men, or let inquisitions be made into the manner of thinking of suspected persons, and when they are found guilty of forbidden beliefs, let them be subjected to some signal punishment. When complete agreement could not otherwise be reached, a general massacre of all who have not thought in a certain way has proved a very effective means of settling opinion in a country. If the power to do this be wanting, let a list of opinions be drawn up, to which no man of the least independence of thought can assent, and let the faithful be required to accept all these propositions, in order to segregate them as radically as possible from the influence of the rest of the world.

This method has, from the earliest times, been one of the chief means of upholding correct theological and political doctrines, and of preserving their universal or catholic character. In Rome, especially, it has been practised from the days of Numa Pompilius to those of Pius Nonus. This is the most perfect example in history; but wherever there is a priesthood --and no religion has been without one -- this method has been more or less made use of. Wherever there is an aristocracy, or a guild, or any association of a class of men whose interests depend, or are supposed to depend, on certain propositions, there will be inevitably found some traces of this natural product of social feeling. Cruelties always accompany this system; and when it is consistently carried out, they become atrocities of the most horrible kind in the eyes of any rational man. Nor should this occasion surprise, for the officer of a society does not feel justified in surrendering the interests of that society for the sake of mercy, as he might his own private interests. It is natural, therefore, that sympathy and fellowship should thus produce a most ruthless power."

From: Popular Science Monthly 12 (November 1877), 1-15.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce_bibliography#Articles_by_Peirce.2C_published_in_his_lifetime

What Gunther said:
Dear Charu, Pierce conceptualzies SCIENCE as a 'belief system' - and right he is! And yet he is wrong too, because he - as a pragmatist - conceives of 'truth' as something 'practical', something serving our needs and wants. What a limited and devastating outlook on 'truth' this is, producing all those conflicts it is thought to solve.....