" One of the most surprising things I've witnessed in my lifetime is the rebirth of the concept of heresy...."

"One of the most surprising things I've witnessed in my lifetime is the rebirth of the concept of heresy. In his excellent biography of Newton, Richard Westfall writes about the moment when he was elected a fellow of Trinity College:

Supported comfortably, Newton was free to devote himself wholly to whatever he chose. To remain on, he had only to avoid the three unforgivable sins: crime, heresy, and marriage.

    "The first time I read that, in the 1990s, it sounded amusingly mediaeval. How strange, to have to avoid committing heresy. But when I reread it 20 years later it sounded like a description of contemporary employment....   
    "Why has this antiquated-sounding religious concept come back in a secular form? And why now?
    "You need two ingredients for a wave of intolerance: intolerant people, and an ideology to guide them. The intolerant people are always there. They exist in every sufficiently large society.... To unite [them], an ideology must have many of the features of a religion. In particular it must have strict and arbitrary rules that adherents can demonstrate their purity by obeying, and its adherents must believe that anyone who obeys these rules is ipso facto morally superior to anyone who doesn't....
    "How do you disable the concept of heresy? Since the Enlightenment, western societies have discovered many techniques for doing that, but there are surely more to be discovered.
    "Overall I'm optimistic...."
            ~ Paul Graham, from his article 'Heresy' [hat tip Duncan B.]