Dare to Know

Fear holds dominion over people when they understand little, and need simple stories and legends to comfort and explain; but legends and the ignorance that give them birth are a house of limitations and darkness. Knowledge is freedom freedom from ignorance and its offspring fear; knowledge is light and liberation, knowledge that the world contains itself, and its origins, and the mind of man, from which comes more knowledge, and hope of knowledge again. Dare to know: that is the motto of enlightenment.
~ Chapter 2, Verses 9-14 of The Good Book: A Humanist Bible by A.C. Grayling ~

Compare this snippet from Grayling's text with the first two lines of Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching.

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

At first blush, these two passages seem to disagree. Grayling posits that knowledge leads to enlightenment, while Lao Tzu suggests that losing knowledge leads one closer to Tao.

But I submit that the two passages are in sync with one another and it all comes down to how we define knowledge. If by knowledge we mean how to manipulate the world to conform to our desires, then neither Grayling nor the Taoist sages would be in favor of gaining more of this. If by knowledge we mean gaining insight into how the world operates, then I believe that both passages are congruent.

Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom and wisdom is what underlies life itself. When we are able to gain a sliver of the wisdom that the world (Tao) offers us, we are more at peace with ourselves and each other and less afraid of things that go bump in the night.