Dogma is the result of the inability to think rationally.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world”.
1 John 4:1
The need to think has long been done away with, especially in religion. While liberalism lives through emotionalism, conservatism thrives on dogma. Blind acceptance of tradition and the rejection of all progressivism is the hallmark of radical conservatives. That is a weak mindset to have.
The weakness comes from the fact that these individuals are so set in their ways of tradition that they do not want to go through the mental labor of thinking and evaluating what they believe.
Do I believe in holding to and preserving what the Bible says? Yes.
Do I believe in glorifying the traditions of man to the point where they are deified? No I do not. That would be just as illogical as liberalism.
Traditional dogma is when conservatives force an overload of rules on you, demanding that they must be followed without question, and threatening punishment if they are not.
The problem is that most people in the Church have no idea what they are talking about, and you can prove this by asking the most simple question in the world: Why?
They say, “Don’t use drugs”. Why not? “Drugs” is too vague of a word? What exactly do you think that is in your coffee pot? Have you tried any to know why they are bad other than the fact that your parents told you they are bad? (I’m not advocating drugs here, I’m opposing dogmatic mindsets and blind faith).
“Save yourself for marriage”, they say. They really should be more specific, because without specific, clearly defined boundaries, kids will push the envelope. Is oral sex before marriage okay? Depends on if you ask a Church elder or Bill Clinton doesn’t it?
Why should we save ourselves for marriage anyways? It doesn’t look like it did your marriage much good. You look just as unhappy and unfulfilled as any worldly marriage. An extremely important question with regards to this is: “If you saved yourself for marriage, how exactly do you know it is more fulfilling than if you hadn’t saved yourself for marriage?” You have nothing to compare it to. So what most people will do here is pull out the few cases of people who have regrets later about not waiting for marriage to have sex.
An important thing to note is that these individuals with regret are only found in the Church.
Less than 1% of all American save themselves for marriage. Therefore, shouldn’t we see a corresponding 99% regret rate? We don’t. Because people are not regretting sex in the same way as the Church preaches. The majority of people who regret having sex outside of marriage are people whom the Church has instilled a perverted manner of guilt into though dogma. They regret having sex because they were told they would regret having sex. It is a “no-cebo” effect.
Dogma is to be utterly avoided, both in learning from others and in teaching others. It should be attacked every moment it presents itself in the Church. Teach and learn through rationality, because your faith is rational.
Mantra
All dogma is for the weak.
Application
Don’t accept what is told to you just because people in the Church say it’s right. You have to “test every spirit” (1 John 4:1). You have to think with your rational mind. Do not preach dogma, do not accept dogma. The Biblical faith is rational and has no need for man made dogmatic, perverted blithering and prevaricating. Be rational. Be a Man.
Write down everything you believe. Start with just one teaching you have heard in the Church, take drinking or premarital sex for starters. You must now “test the spirit” of what you have been taught by comparing it to the Bible.
Ask yourself the following questions about the teaching to weed out dogma in your mind.
- Is the teaching I heard in the Church actually found in the Bible (you would be shocked at how much dogma fails this simple test).
- If the teaching is in the Bible, is the teaching being used rationally? (Some traditions people in the Church try to force on you based on the Bible simply do not make any sense logically. You believe in an intelligent God who makes intelligent rules. Therefore, there should be logic behind every commandment).
- Is this teaching biased? (Could be due to the teachers personal upbringing, opinion or agenda).
- What is the teacher trying to get me to do? (Obey God or obey his traditionalist teaching?)
- What are the biases of the teacher (Could be political or racial if the teacher is vile enough to pollute the Word of God with them. It could be a personal bias)
You can ask yourself more questions, but this should be enough to clear out most dogma from your mind. Never accept something as true just because someone in the Church said so. Always check them and cross reference what they say. Find out if they are being truthful or if they have an agenda. Then remove as much blind dogma from yourself as you can. You will be a better man as a result of being a rational man.
Conduct Yourselves like men.
