My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma

[Katzpur]

Part of the problem with religious dogma is that it leaves no room for adaptability if your experience or feelings clash in any way with said dogma. It's unchangable, and you have to believe it. Is it better to follow your heart, or follow the rules?

But for those of us who believe that God is unchangeable, this wouldn't be an issue. If God doesn't change, neither does the truth about Him change. The way I look at it, one of the most important functions of religion is to educate us as to who God is and what He expects of us. (I realize that you're not a Christian, so that may not make a whole lot of sense to you.)

Obviously, you wouldn't want to be part of a religion that didn't speak to your heart. If it doesn't feel right for you, it's probably not. I just don't believe that truth is relative to how you happen to people's personal whims. If it was true yesterday, it's true today. If dogmas changed just to suit our personal preferences, of what possible worth would they be?

 

[lunamoth]

Uh...how old is she?

There seems to be an age when girls go through a "pink" phase. Somewhere around K or 1st grade, it seems. I don't know what that is, but it does seem to be common.

If that's where she is agewise, don't worry about it too much -- she'll move on to something else very quickly.

In which case, prepare to paint her room purple next year.

She's three and a half and very opinionated. She's in a 'ballet' phase, and she's never even done it before. Tomorrow she actually has her first introduction to dance. I think it's all about the dress.

And you're right about being ready to repaint again soon. That's why I don't do things like wallpaper or expensive/time-consuming decorations in the kids rooms. Too hard to change. The people who owned this house previously did not think the same way. They deocrated the whole room in a dinosaur theme complete with huge prssboard dinosaurs nailed to the walls with about a million nails and fake foam grass, hundrends of blades individually hotglued all around the base of the walls. *Forgive them for they know not what they do.* I spent two days and all of my fingernails picking the glue off, then filling the millions of nail holes with spackle. I tried to imagine myself as a monk working on that patience virtue as I did it.

luna

 

[lunamoth]

Of course. And, I would say it's also an example of the "bad" kind of dogma because it tends to breed the anti-religious attitude that tends to be just as obnoxious as thier religious fudamentalist counterparts.

So perhaps you consider yourself more of an agnostic, rather than an atheist? Not trying to nail you down, just being nosy I guess.

luna

 

[Booko]

Definition isn't the same thing as dogma. And, not all dogmatic ideas you could clash with are big ones - what if a Christian believed everything within Christianity to be correct, except that God is to be seen as a man. Do you just pick up and find something else entirely because that one idea doesn't mesh with your rules?

Perhaps not. There typically are things in religions we either don't believe much or have reservations about. And then, belief is often a process not an event. As an example I offer a friend of mine who became a Baha'i, but did not actually believe God existed until some two years later. Still, she did not go around teaching everyone that the Baha'i Faith says God doesn't exist.

Here maybe is where the issue lies -- it's one thing to believe what you believe, but another to pass that off as what a religion teaches when it's the exact opposite.

I suppose my ideas about religion are a little wacky, because I can't fathom not being able to change your mind down the road about some things if your experience lends itself to that change. I'm all for figuring it out on your own rather than having someone do it for me.

I can't fathom that either. Who said you can't change your mind?

As for figuring it out on your own, there's a reason one of the "dogmas" of my religion is "individual investigation of the truth."

 

[lunamoth]

Do you (anyone) make a distinction between dogmas and doctrines?

That's a good question. According to my pocket Webster a dogma is the same as a doctrine. But personally, I think of dogma as being more fundamental than some other doctrines. So, doctrines exist on a scale, with dogma being those most essential, and other doctrines not so much.

 

[lunamoth]

Part of the problem with religious dogma is that it leaves no room for adaptability if your experience or feelings clash in any way with said dogma. It's unchangable, and you have to believe it. Is it better to follow your heart, or follow the rules?

That's a question worthy of its own thread.

 

[Sunstone]

When considering the role (or non role) of dogma in Taoism, it might be helpful to remember that Taoism does not need an authority to constrain and unify opinions. For one thing, it is not concerned with matters for which there is little or no evidence and must therefore be taken on faith. Instead it deals primarily with things that adherents can test for themselves. In effect, the authority in Taoism is the Tao itself, rather than revelation.

 

[Booko]

She's three and a half and very opinionated. She's in a 'ballet' phase, and she's never even done it before. Tomorrow she actually has her first introduction to dance. I think it's all about the dress.

That sounds about right.

And you're right about being ready to repaint again soon. That's why I don't do things like wallpaper or expensive/time-consuming decorations in the kids rooms. Too hard to change. The people who owned this house previously did not think the same way. They deocrated the whole room in a dinosaur theme complete with huge prssboard dinosaurs nailed to the walls with about a million nails and fake foam grass, hundrends of blades individually hotglued all around the base of the walls. *Forgive them for they know not what they do.* I spent two days and all of my fingernails picking the glue off, then filling the millions of nail holes with spackle. I tried to imagine myself as a monk working on that patience virtue as I did it.

We really loved one house, but when we discovered the bedrooms were all wallpapered, we left in a hurry.

Just in case you ever need to, here's how to change pink to purple on the cheap: colorwash. Get a quart of semi-gloss purple, water it down, and use a rag to wash the walls. Very cheap. Very fast. Really cool effect. All here friends will be terribly jealous. [/quote]

And I have NO idea what this has to do with the OP...er...yes... I'm very dogmatic about the idea of not doing anything unusual to my house that's difficult to reverse. :run:

 

[lunamoth]

That sounds about right.





We really loved one house, but when we discovered the bedrooms were all wallpapered, we left in a hurry.

Just in case you ever need to, here's how to change pink to purple on the cheap: colorwash. Get a quart of semi-gloss purple, water it down, and use a rag to wash the walls. Very cheap. Very fast. Really cool effect. All here friends will be terribly jealous.

And I have NO idea what this has to do with the OP...er...yes... I'm very dogmatic about the idea of not doing anything unusual to my house that's difficult to reverse. :run:[/quote]
\
Thank you for the colorwash tip; I'd like to try that. And we are the queens of thread derailment, are we not!? I don't feel as bad when it's my own thread. OK. I never feel bad about it. :run:

 

[MaddLlama]

Perhaps not. There typically are things in religions we either don't believe much or have reservations about. And then, belief is often a process not an event. As an example I offer a friend of mine who became a Baha'i, but did not actually believe God existed until some two years later. Still, she did not go around teaching everyone that the Baha'i Faith says God doesn't exist.

Here maybe is where the issue lies -- it's one thing to believe what you believe, but another to pass that off as what a religion teaches when it's the exact opposite.

That's not what I'm saying though. I think that dogma should essentially be a framework. Some dogma is necessary to a functioning belief system, but it shouldn't be so rigid and all-encompassing that leaves you no room for questions.

 

[Katzpur]

Perhaps not. There typically are things in religions we either don't believe much or have reservations about. And then, belief is often a process not an event. As an example I offer a friend of mine who became a Baha'i, but did not actually believe God existed until some two years later. Still, she did not go around teaching everyone that the Baha'i Faith says God doesn't exist.

That's a great example. People think of Mormonism as being very dogmatic, but Joseph Smith (the religion's founder) once wrote that he didn't like the concept of a creed which a person had to believe in order to call himself a member of the Church. He said, "I want the liberty of believing as I please." In my Church today, people have pretty much the amount of latitude they want in terms of what they actually believe. If they don't accept a certain doctrine, that's fine, just as long as they realize that it's not appropriate for them to attempt to pass their understanding of that doctrine off as the Church's official position.

 

[lunamoth]

That's not what I'm saying though. I think that dogma should essentially be a framework. Some dogma is necessary to a functioning belief system, but it shouldn't be so rigid and all-encompassing that leaves you no room for questions.

I'd say that dogma would not be much use if it could change at any time. Dogmas are the essential framework. It's up to you whether you accept it, reject it, or come up with something else.

But there should always be room for questions. I think the use of doctrine is to act as a ladder, to allow one to reach a littler higher with their questions.

2 c,
luna

 

[Shtef]

Dogma, itself, is not a problem, it's what makes up the dogma that can be a problem.

 

[Smoke]

Dogma is just fine as long as it is correct, but karma always trumps it.:yes:

But what is "correct" dogma? What are the criteria for determining what dogma is "correct" and what's "incorrect"?

I don't see how grace can be distinguished from karma. :sarcastic

I don't see how a belief in grace can be distinguished from dogma.

 

[michel]

Some religions are more dogmatic than others. Taoism, for instance, has very little or no dogma in it.

My hunch is that stability is the main appeal of dogma to some people. That is, some folks look for a set of doctrines that will either never change or change only slowly and slightly. For other people, that's not a major factor in choosing a religion.

I agree; there are people who prefer the safety of having their choices made for them; I suppose dogma serves them well.

 

[Booko]

But what is "correct" dogma? What are the criteria for determining what dogma is "correct" and what's "incorrect"?

Well, there's the sticky wicket, eh?

Sometimes it's fairly clear from a text left behind by the person who founded the religion. Sometimes it's not so clear.

Dogma can unify people, or it can be a cause of disunity.

 

[lunamoth]

Seems to me that if you change the dogma you've changed the religion. If you get enough other people to agree with you, you've founded a new relgion.

Actually, it seems to me that something like Buddhsim can be considered to have as much dogma associated with it as the Abrahamic religions.

luna

 

[BrandonE]

I've come late to the party, but this is an interesting thread. As a UU, I enjoy our near-total lack of dogma. That's precisely what led me there.

 

[lunamoth]

I've come late to the party, but this is an interesting thread. As a UU, I enjoy our near-total lack of dogma. That's precisely what led me there.

I have to agree that of all religions I am familiar with, UU seems to be the most lacking in dogma.

luna

 

[PureX]

I have to agree that of all religions I am familiar with, UU seems to be the most lacking in dogma.

luna

No offense to the UU's out there, but isn't UU kind of based entirely on dogma? True, you get to sort of pick your dogma from an array of possibilities, but without all that dogma, there really asn't an UU. In fact, it's kind of a religion of religious dogma. *smile*