To stand alone in the face of a Majority

This post is not exactly on topic, but being a physicist, I have to point out that Newton did not encounter much resistance to his theory of gravitation. When he was very young, he encountered a little resistance to his first theory, his (correct) theory of light. But I will get out of the way and let your intended topic continue.

I think it's theoretically entirely possible. Gallileo may be a better example for what you have in mind.

It's a romantic notion, being the only one who sees the truth, and has been played with in literature and movies -- "The Matrix", for example. Not to mention the bible.

Lots of people think it would be cool to be that one -- good to hone your critical thinking and debating skills if you want to get there tho. ;-)

What comes most immediately to mind for me are religious heretics. Before Martin Luther, Jan Hus was martyred in Konstanz in 1415. Hus had called for the free and open preaching of the gospel, and opposed profane powers for the clergy (i.e., powers to do with secular matters; religious matters would involve sacred power--political would be considered profane). He had in his turn been influence by John Wyclif, who had in the 14th century in England opposed papal powers, although his reasons were at least as motivated by patriotism as by religious conviction. Wyclif produced an English translation of the bible in a single volume. The church declared a ban on the work, and ordered that all copies be confiscated and burned. About 150 copies survive to this day. As this was before the advent of printing presses, the survival of so many copies is evidence of the the fervor of Wyclif's followers--both that these copies are all manuscript, someone copied each one out by hand; and that people went to so much trouble to protect this "vernacular bible" from the authorities that so many copies survive to this day.

Hus was condemned by the Council of Konstanz in 1411--this was a religious conclave met to discuss doctrine and practice in the church, and at a time when the church was in grave trouble, due to corruption in the papacy and the episcopacy, and the resultant low esteem into which the church's authority had fallen with so many people in Europe. In 1415, Hus went to Konstanz (or Constance, if you prefer the anglicized name) to plead his case. However, he was seized, condemned and executed as a heretic.

Hus was Bohemian, or, as we would say today, he was Czech. When news reached Bohemia of his execution, there was literally rioting in the streets, and in Prague, the Archbishop barely escaped with his life. There were at that time, two Popes, each of whom claimed the other was a fraud. To finance their public relations campaigns against one another, and pay for all of the puppet clergy the both erected, and the proxy armies of sympathetic rulers who fought for them--these Popes had both authorized simony. Simony is the selling of indulgences. Basically, show me the money, and i'll get God to forgive your sins. This practice enraged many christian scholars, including Hus, as it was to do with Martin Luther, one hundred years later. It was the abuses of the practitioners of simony, those who sold the indulgences, keeping a percentage for themselves before remitting the balance to whichever Pope they served, that drove Martin Luther into rebellion. The church had resolved its schism, and there was then only one Pope, but it was too late to retrieve the situation.

No one paid particular attention to Hus outside the political schemers and the theologians. He went off to Konstanz alone, unnoticed by his fellow Czechs. But after his execution as a heretic, a combination of outrage and latent Czech nationalism lead to upheavals in Bohemia (traditionally under the control of the Holy Roman Emperor), which resulted eventually in armed warfare between the Hussites and the League of Catholic Lords. This forshadowed in miniature and two centuries in advance, the political machinations and skulllduggery centered upon religious themes which was to result in the Thirty Years War. In one sense, the Hussite wars never really ended--with Martin Luther's Ninety-five theses and the widespread protests at church corruption which is now known to us as the Protestant Reformation, what Hus unintentionally began did not end until the Augsburg Confession's acceptance by the Emperor Charles V finally ended the Wars of the Reformation in 1530.

I would say that Jan Hus stood alone in the face of the still great and awesome power of the church, and died for his trouble. However, his death was the hammering in of the first nail in the coffin of the church's "universality" in Europe; or rather, let us say that John Wyclif had supplied the plans for the coffin, Jan Hus unknowingly constructed the coffin, and Martin Luther nailed down the lid with a will.

No one accompanied Hus on his last journey, and no one stood beside him as he faced the condemnation and sentence of execution from the authorities of the church at Konstanz. But his death definitely set in train a series of events which culminated in the institutionalization and implementation of the reforms for which he had called.

It seems to me that if everyone disagrees with an idea that is correct there must be a problem. Either the inventor of the idea is not being clear, or there is not enough data to convince others as of yet.

Is it the same to be right and have evidence backing you up, as it is to be right because of a wild assed guess?

You could know all the secrets of the universe, but unless you can convince others of the validity of your ideas they will not help anyone.

So my question to you is, how do you know for sure that your idea that no one else buys, is in fact the truth? (If you convince me, then you are no longer alone in your belief. If you do not, I have reason to believe that your idea is untrue. Of course I am not the end-all judge of what is true, but you get my point.)

Evidence.

I'm very fond of the stuff.



...or the inventor of the idea is wrong.

its always fun
Even if you are wrong in your theory its always fun to put one out there. Its kind of like being back in school and raising your hand to answer a question. Only your doing it with about several billion stundents and teachers. And if you look at it in the long run scale most theories are just built up off other theories. IE: Watson and Crick coming up with the double helix. There work was built off of other ideas and principles others had come up with or proven wrong. And in any case its always fun to stand up in front of a crowd and moon them.

Yeah but more than theories say you are controlled but the government and are only allowed to think what they tell you to think. Is it possible for one man to change everyones opinion and convince people to rebel against the government and think for themselves? or does it take hundreds of people to change a majority rule

Well I think it can start with one man and go from there. Like one man convinces a hundred or so. The hundred or so convince more, and it builds into a movement.

Well, that really depends on what we're talking about I guess. The above goes more for a belief system. A single scientist can present a very rigorously researched and supported paper and change everyone's opinion in one swell foop.

It can only require one man to lead a movement but the people in the movement are required. Ghandi in India as one example.

A single man with no one behind him is easy to dispense with. A nice jail or insane asylum will do the job and they will dissappear and be forgotten. Jail the leader of a movement and it creates the opposite effect.

bm

(I want to post about the "society" that the revolution takes place in. It seems that a form of revolution may be appropriate or necessary in one society but not in another. I will flush this out when I have time.)