> Aaah, but do you KNOW you're right? Are you SURE you're right? What
> Charron and others (including e.g. Marcus Aurelius, or - according to
> some interpretations - the Buddha) are talking about is a basic
> questioning attitude, living with and in doubt, which, at a certain
> stage, brings its own contentment/enlightenment at a deeper level -
> while the process continues ... Openness ...

> Francis

> On 7 Nov., 11:18, iam deheretic <dehere...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Interesting

> > It's a marvellous pageant of priests, philosophers and poets,
> > scientists, heretics and oddballs who all dared to "step outside the
> > box" and question the conventional wisdoms of their environments,
> > frequently at the cost of intense internal spiritual suffering and
> > external opprobrium and persecution. Not all of them are atheists, she
> > includes figures such as Jesus and Augustine as well, but all of them
> > are people who dared to doubt, to question.

> > What I would like to know is why when you step out of the comfort box and
> > challenge idea and there is the internal doubt whay ther is so much
> > suffering and turmoil. especially when you know you are right.
> > Allan

> > On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM, frantheman <francis.h...@googlemail.com
> >wrote:

> > > I'm reading a marvellous book at the moment; "Doubt: A History", by
> > > Jennifer Michael Hecht (HarperCollins, NY, 2004).

> > >http://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Doubters-Innovation-Jefferson-Dickinson/d.
> ..
> > > In it the author, an historian and poet, takes an eloquent trip
> > > through the whole history of ideas, from the pre-Socratics and the
> > > Buddha to Salman Rushdie and the Brights, tracing the story of
> > > questioning certainties throughout the ages. She quotes Pierre
> > > Charron, a student of Michel de Montaigne, who wrote in his book "Of
> > > Wisdom" (1601) concerning doubt:

> > > "It alone can provide true repose and security of our spirits. Have
> > > all the greatest and most noble philosophers and wise men who have
> > > professed doubt been in a state of anxiety and suffering? But they
> > > say: to doubt, to consider both points of view, to put off a decision,
> > > is this not painful? I reply, it is indeed for fools, but not for wise
> > > men. It is painful for people who cannot stand freedom, for those who
> > > are presumptuous, partisan, passionate and who, obstinately attached
> > > to their opinions, arrogantly condemn all others ... Such people, in
> > > truth, know nothing. They do not even know what it is to know
> > > something."
> > > (Hecht, p. 307)

> > > It's a marvellous pageant of priests, philosophers and poets,
> > > scientists, heretics and oddballs who all dared to "step outside the
> > > box" and question the conventional wisdoms of their environments,
> > > frequently at the cost of intense internal spiritual suffering and
> > > external opprobrium and persecution. Not all of them are atheists, she
> > > includes figures such as Jesus and Augustine as well, but all of them
> > > are people who dared to doubt, to question.

> > > It strikes me that Charron's view of wise searchers as those who dare
> > > "to doubt, to consider both points of view, to put off a decision" is
> > > not a bad aphorism for us here on ME.

> > > Francis

> > --
> > (
> >  )
> > I_D Allan