It does not make something true, or change a thing in any way, to say I cannot understand it but I believe it, these are mere empty words that signify nothing. (1668)
This quote shows how doctor, lawyer and philosopher Adriaan Koerbagh fought for thinking for yourself, and warned against on good faith assuming things to be true. He placed using your own reason above dogma, and thought religion was irrational. He is seen as a radical freethinker. He was punished for his freethinking by being locked up in the Rasphuis, a prison where he had to grate wood that was used as a coloring agent. He died a year later because of the hard working conditions. This shows the limits of the press freedom in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Although the freedom of the press was much greater than in other European cities, it was not nearly the same as we know it today.