dogma vs truth...........

 

However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

dogmas.....................

 

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed.  Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion.  And the skepticism of our time does not really destroy beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape.

-Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Collected Works, Volume 1

an enormous refuse heap.............

 

The ideology of progress has led to barbarism, and modern science has become a tool of enslavement rather than a tool of liberation.  In this post-Nietzschean world, the enslavement was not restricted to dictatorships, the usual recipients of the epithet "totalitarian"; it was just as pervasive in the "democratic" countries of the West, where the all-embracing power of the culture industry had nearly buried the possibility of independent critical thought beneath an enormous refuse heap of commodified artifacts and reified minds.

-Wilfred M. McClay, Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (1994)

beyond.......................

 

. . . he was a prophet of tolerance.  Focusing on doctrinal disputes was divisive, he felt, and trying to ascertain divine certainties was beyond our mortal ken.  Nor did he think that such endeavors were socially useful.  The purpose of religion should be to make men better and to improve society, and any sect or creed that did so was fine with him.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

The slippery slope.................

Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. . . . Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane.  The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and - after some hesitation - the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical.  The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. 

-Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Renaissance

On dogma.......................

 

Understand the value of truth for its own sake. That is the vaccine to prevent you from falling so deeply in love with our own opinions.  That is the recipe for avoiding dogmatism. Be engaged, but don’t be dogmatic.

-as culled from here

On education......................

      One of the most enjoyable parts of Bagehot's essay is his attack on the pretensions of Gladstone's alma mater.  "No one can deny to it very great and very peculiar merits," writes the University of London alumnus of Oxford University.  "But certainly it is not an exciting place and its education operates as a narcotic rather than as a stimulant."

-James Grant, Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian

On dogma........................

Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion;  it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindness in favour of systematic hatred.  Since argument is not recognized as a means of arriving at truth, adherents of rival dogmas have no method except war by means of which to reach a decision.

-Bertrand Russell, Philosophy And Politics, from his speech delivered in 1946

Pretty good advice..........................

“My advice, as in everything, is to read widely and think for yourself.  We need more dissent and less dogma.” 

-Camille Paglia

Maybe part of the problem is........

..........not acknowledging that scientific truth is fairly elusive:

Religious and ideological dogmas are still highly attractive in our scientific age precisely because they offer us a safe have from the frustrating complexity of reality.  As noted earlier, secular movements have not been exempt from this danger.  Even if you start with a rejection of all religious dogmas and with a firm commitment to scientific truth, sooner or later the complexity of reality becomes so vexing that you might be driven to fashion a doctrine that shouldn't be questioned.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  21 Lessons for the 21st Century

On dogma

Give him an "A"................

........................................for strategic use of weasel words:

"Every religion, ideology, and creed has its shadows, and no matter which creed you follow you should acknowledge your shadow and avoid the naive reassurance that "it cannot happen to us."  Secular science has at least one big advantage over most traditional religions - namely, that it is not inherently terrified of its shadow, and it is in principle willing to admit its mistakes and blind spots."

-Yuval Noah Harari,  21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Data over dogma................

"The best investment advice often comes from books that have little to do with money."

-Tony Isola, as culled from here

A twofer........................

thanks jess

A few stray thoughts...............

As in the pseudoscience of bloodletting, just so in the pseudoscience of city rebuilding and planning, years of learning and a plethora of subtle and complicated dogma have arisen on a foundation of nonsense.

It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give

As in all Utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners in charge.

There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and be served.

-Jane Jacobs, as culled from her introduction to her 1961 book, The Death and Life Of Great American Cities

An assault on (intellectual) diversity........

The burning desire to paint a scarlet letter on the breast of those who fail to observe the officially sanctioned view of things has taken possession of many ostensibly liberal people in academe, which has tended more and more in recent years to resemble what the Yale English professor David Bromwich calls "a church held together by the hunt for heresies."

-Robert Boyers, as culled from this essay

via

On dogmaticism......................

“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.” 

-attributed to Stephen Jay Gould

some dogmatic cartoons may be found here

May I get an Amen..............?

"...I consider it cause for alarm when one subscribes entirely to the dogma of any group."

-Tynan, as culled from here

a deep reverence for the enigma of life....

Curiosity and irreverence go together.  Curiosity cannot exist without the other.  Curiosity asks, "Is this true?"  "Just because this has always been the way, is this the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?"  To the questioner, nothing is sacred.  He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search for ideas no matter where they may lead.  He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting.  He stirs unrest.  As with all life, this is a paradox, for his irreverence is rooted in a deep reverence for the enigma of life, and an incessant search for its meaning.

-Saul Alinsky, as extracted from here

Fundamentally..................

"In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost his faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought."
-Pope Francis, as excerpted from this read-worthy homily

thanks gene