opinion control Quotes
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Twain was referring to the social norms and customs which make us all edit our speech so that we do not hurt people unnecessarily or mislead someone. True freedom of speech of this kind would exist only if there were no social structure of morality. For almost all of us, the political freedom of speech is what we cherish. The right to say anything and to be edited only by ourselves and our own personal view of propriety is the political. See linked quote for his quotation about the social consequences of exercising freedom of speech.
Islam had been the center of intellectual thought in the world, until the clerics had decided that innovation itself was a sin and one that called for the death penalty. Although most non-Muslim religions went through stages of death for religious dissent. However, the Koran deals with every part of society. There is no separation of church and state. All knowledge is in the Koran the fundamentalist believes and anyone who expresses a new idea is not only wrong and a heretic, but is dangerous and must be executed. It is therefore not very surprising that the Islamic contributions to science, medicine, and the arts has been so small. The Islamic fundamentalists are opposed by Muslim modernists who try to change the Islamic culture but they are on the minority. Most religions have gone through bad earlier periods where dissent was heresy and warranted death. Fundamentalist Islam is the only one which bans original thought of any kinds even it does not contradict established doctrine.
