Points of View – Life, Work and Religion

Benjamin Franklin | Image: source

How open or rigid, would you say your views and beliefs are?

Here’s an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, in which he mentions the following interaction with someone:

I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it appear’d. He complain’d to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charg’d with abominable principles and practices, to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects, and that, to put a stop to such abuse, I imagin’d it might be well to publish the articles of their belief, and the rules of their discipline. He said that it had been propos’d among them, but not agreed to, for this reason: “When we were first drawn together as a society,” says he, “it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confin’d by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive farther improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, never to be departed from.”

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Notice the humility and level of awareness in that man’s views?

Let’s put that into present day business or religious or even political context. Would you say we’ve come a long way, or gone a long way backwards?

Improving on our habits or skills alone doesn’t change the world. It’s our views that need to be open to questioning, to reasoning, and to correction where necessary. Only then can we actually attempt to effect any improvement.

How often do you question your views and beliefs?

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Look forward to your views. And if you liked this post, do follow or subscribe to my blog (top right of the page) for similar topics that encourage reflection and discussion. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and on Twitter.