Official Discussion Forum for the works of Stephen R. Donaldson
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Wasn't something similar to that in one of the O God! movies ?Avatar wrote:--AThe technicalities of religion have no place in the minds of god.
While the word' phobia' is frequently misused, I think there is such a thing as 'dogmaphobia'. Let me offer a brief comment on this from a truly great thinker:danlo wrote:Well I've heard the dreaded words symbols and dogma on the last page-I really can't stand either, those are some of the many reasons I don't like religion. God doesn't do or care about real estate and a crucifix is an execution device, plain and simple.
Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, ch 20
Dunno if you're old enough to remember the sitcom "Mork and Mindy":danlo wrote:So, you're calling me a tree, eh? I can live with that. I should have been more specific by saying stagnant dogmae which many religions appear to cling to. I'm all for evolving dogma that the estemmed Christian thinker above suggests at, but then again Christian's don't believe in evolution do they? (humor)
It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.
Sounds like fun!danlo wrote:I'm very sick today and can't concentrate on reading a bunch of stuff, but I am very interested. What little I know of you views, rus, reminds me of my friend Ser Camaris who runs (or used to run) a quiant little board called The Badger's Den that discussed lots of Chesterton and Lewis. It used to be a sister board of my board, Ahira's Hangar.
Hi Rus - nice to meet someone who's beliefs seem very like my own, and who enjoys some of the same authors.rusmeister wrote: Hi Edge - I'm (Eastern) Orthodox Christian, which includes the Greek, Russian, Antiochian and other (canonical) Orthodox Churches. I'm as much a believer of mysticism as EO is! I'm American, but live in Russia and currently am part of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (although I was accepted initially into the OCA - Orthodox Church of America). They're all in communion, so it's all good.
I'm an eschewer of dogma in the sense that I think anything authoritative should be questionable. I don't believe in a universal truth, and I do think that questions of right and wrong, good and bad, are blurry, and rightly so. I'm against absolutes. That doesn't mean things can't be right or wrong or good or bad, it just means that what is right as far as I'm concerned isn't necessarily right as far as you're concerned.belief or doctrine held by a religion or any kind of organization to be authoritative. Evidence, analysis, or established fact may or may not be adduced, depending upon usage.
And this is precisely what Chesterton is talking about.Avatar wrote:I suppose much depends on how you define dogma.
I'm an eschewer of dogma in the sense that I think anything authoritative should be questionable. I don't believe in a universal truth, and I do think that questions of right and wrong, good and bad, are blurry, and rightly so. I'm against absolutes. That doesn't mean things can't be right or wrong or good or bad, it just means that what is right as far as I'm concerned isn't necessarily right as far as you're concerned.belief or doctrine held by a religion or any kind of organization to be authoritative. Evidence, analysis, or established fact may or may not be adduced, depending upon usage.
--A
Yes, but he thought it was a bad thing.rusmeister wrote:And this is precisely what Chesterton is talking about.
That seems like a typical educated modern view. With no intent to offend, only to encourage further thinking...Lord Mhoram wrote:The Chesterton quote is an interesting one. Here's my take: I think it's important to consider postmodernism and post-structuralism and all the other schools of thought he's talking about, in their historical context. The reason postmodernism became a viable school of thought was that Europeans saw the end-result of their millennia-old moral system go down in flames in two of the most horrific wars in human history - World Wars I & II. No one really believes that Christianity is the reason for the Holocaust. But it was apparent to a lot of intellectuals in the postwar period that there was something deficient in the moral systems that had dominated Western culture. It was dogmatism and nationalism and cultural selfishness that had caused the clash of the world wars. Hitler said that the German way is the only way. A more utopian moral system rejected that kind of thing - it said that nothing was the only way. We sort of threw the baby out with the bathwater in that respect. I for one agree with the postwar thinkers that saw the deficiencies in previous moral systems. I agree that the dogmatism of the Church and of Christianity itself ought to be abolished. Where I disagree with them is with regards to the matter of absolute morality - I actually believe in absolute moral truths.
(Edit) One more, because it is about the essence of dogma -"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World, 1910
G.K. Chesterton, from his collection of essays, "All Things Considered" essay - The Error of Impartiality)We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end. We say that the juryman is not a juryman because he has brought in a verdict. We say that the judge is not a judge because he gives judgment. We say that the sincere believer has no right to vote, simply because he has voted.