We struggle to differentiate dogmatic arguments from reasoned arguments. In our struggle, we can succumb to fidelity tests in place of sustained reasoning. Every cult or ‘cult’ure has to face this struggle almost daily. Whether we depend on one person or a community to establish ’truth’, we face the overwhelming challenge to filter out the wheat from the dogma. Dogma thrives when we silo our reasoning into isolated echo chambers.

Can I propose some groupings that appear to create dogma echo chambers?

• Religious Right
• Atheistic Scientists
• Academic Left

In my interactions with these groupings, the strength of argument diminishes as our common heritage limits dissonance with our assumptions and assertions. We requote dogmatic statements from each other as if they were rigorous evidence of the position’s soundness. I want to share a few examples of how these echo chambers create problems.

Science’s obsession with determinism

Brian Greene is a world-renowned scientist and noted Athiest. It is fascinating how so many in the scientific space start to worship determinism to the point that they sound cultish even with all their scientific reasoning.¹ Read his quote on free will and see for yourself.

I am not a believer in free will. I believe that the arguments we are touching on here establish that every action we take is the product of the physical constituents that make us up. Some people say if you do not have free will, then morality is gone. I think that is wrong. We are responsible for what our particles do. … At the end of the day, our behaviors are a product of our genetic and physical makeup that is affected by the stimulus that we receive and the responses that we yield across our lives. If I see something in the world and I see the agent being punished for their actions, my particles get rearranged and say “hey, I don’t want that to happen to me!”

Then Brian jumps off the deep end in his pseudo-scientific, religious, and metaphysical view on life after the interviewer asks, ‘You made the choice to write four books and your particles are the only ones on the planet who could write those books. Don’t tell me they were pre-written, and you happened to grab them! How do you account for that?’

You are right. The individual has a particulate arrangement that is iconic, and, therefore, your actions reflect your particle arrangement. So, when Beethoven wrote his Symphony No. 9, it was Beethoven’s particles that had the capacity to do that. But did they freely do that? No. Did I freely write my books? No. In a conventional sense—that I can claim that the actions originated fully and totally within me, that I somehow transcended the forces of the world around me and was able to do something that was not a product of those physical particles acting on me—then no, it was not me.

I have a greater arrangement of behavioral responses in me than a rock because a rock doesn’t have the internal organization to respond through a rich spectrum of behaviors. I have this rich spectrum of behaviors. I don’t choose them but, again, if there are stimuli from the environment that are slightly different, my responses will be different. One such response is writing a book. A rock doesn’t do that. It’s not freedom from physical law, its freedom from the constrained behavior that governs the inanimate world. If I write a good sentence or solve an equation, I don’t take credit for it in the way that we usually think about it. I say to myself, “hey particles, nice job! I’m really pleased that the forces came together to yield that outcome.” I am not joking. This is how I really think about how we fit in the world.

Religious Right

The Evangelical Reckoning Begins highlights how pastor Andy Stanley has had to figure out how to navigate his parishioners through this enigmatic last four years. The reporter writes;

What he seems to take issue with is the mindset that evangelicals should be all in for Trump because of their faith. “It’s disappointing,” he said. “It does not reflect anything in the New Testament. Zero.” Christians should put their “faith filter” in front of their “political filter,” he told me, putting one hand in front of the other before his mouth to demonstrate. “We dare not allow politics to define us as individuals if you’re a Jesus follower,” he said. “But that’s hard to keep straight for all of us, I guess.”

On a similar note, The Wall Street Journal podcast provided an interesting podcast. In A Church Tries to Bridge Its Political Divides, we see how on Christian group worked to address this political stress. I recommend listing to it. They create just enough safe space in their conversations to allow people to state their dogmatic beliefs about the other side so the two sides could find the wheat.

McKay Coppins, an LDS journalist for The Atlantic penned a piece on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that touched this topic for the LDS community. He argues that we are feeling this pull but are not succumbing quite as much as the evangelicals.

Robert P. Jones, the head of the Public Religion Research Institute, says this Mormon ambivalence is notable when compared with white evangelicals’ loyalty to Trump. “History and culture matter a lot,” Jones told me. “Partisanship today is such a strong gravitational pull. I think what we’re seeing with Mormons is that there’s something else pulling on them too.”

I have seen and felt this pull within my Latter-day Saint circles. It is interesting how we want to make our circles of influence identical. It is hard for many people to recognize that they can be religious and not need to be politically right. They can be a scientist and still believe in God.

One of the issues with the religious right is that we can move our religious beliefs into the political and social sphere with such tenacity that we forget God’s commandment to love. Elder Quentin L. Cook shared a story about his time as a stake president when he supported a few gay LDS members that contracted AIDS. The report shows how dark these dogmatic echo chambers can become. The gay boy’s parents would not care for them. These LDS parents kicked their sons out of their homes.

Academic Left

Henry Eyring is a prime example of how the academic left treats those that hold to a devout Christian belief. When you read Wikipedia’s post on Henry Eyring, it highlights how his work was world-renowned but not recognized due to his faith,

A prolific writer, he authored more than 600 scientific articles, ten scientific books, and a few books on the subject of science and religion. He received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1980 and the National Medal of Science in 1966 for developing the Absolute Rate Theory or Transition state theory of chemical reactions, one of the most important developments of 20th-century chemistry. Several other chemists later received the Nobel Prize for work based on it, and his failure to receive the Nobel was a matter of surprise to many. The Nobel Prize organization admitted that “Strangely, Eyring never received a Nobel Prize”; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences apparently did not understand Eyring’s theory until it was too late to award him the Nobel. The academy awarded him the Berzelius Medal in 1977 as partial compensation. Sterling M. McMurrin believed Eyring should have received the Nobel Prize but was not awarded it because of his religion.

Interestingly, Henry Eyring’s sustained reasoning in science and religion earned him ire from both sides. He was not allowed to find truth wherever it may exist by many in the sciences as well as those in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had to respond to Elder Joseph Fielding Smith’s direct letter to him about evolution in 1955.²

Give the differences in training of the members of the Church, I never cease to marvel at the degree of agreement found among believing Latter-day Saints. So far from being disturbed to find that Brother Talmage, Brother Widstoe, and yourself didn’t always see scientific matters alike, this situation seems natural and as it should be. It will be a sad day for the Church and its members when the degree of disagreement you brethren expressed is not allowed.

In my judgment there is room in the Church for people who think that the periods of creation were (a) 24 hours, (b) 1000 years, or (c) millions of years. … In any case, the Lord created the world, and my faith does not hinge on the detailed procedures.

I admire Henry Eyring for his reasoned approach to science and religion. He appeared to be able to stare dogma in the face and talk it off of the ledge. I hope you can see his balance of science and religion in the following two quotes.

I am of the opinion that some theologians have unwittingly assisted in this rebellion by taking positions so dogmatic as to stifle the honest and thoughtful inquiries of youth when they needed help and sought it. In this church, you only have to believe the truth. Find out what the truth is!

I believe that many of our young people have impoverished their lives by a thoughtless denial of all aspects of the faith of their fathers in their desire to be what they call scientific and objective.

Conclusion

Dogma is cunning. We can reach into other circles to figure out where our circle has dogma and where it has wheat. But we must be careful because other circles have just as ferocious dogmas that can take over our reasoning. I have watched a few people leave the LDS church over its dogmas or leave the Republican party due to its dogmas to be swept up in an entirely new set of dogmatic beliefs that provide no sustaining value.

There are proper positions in science, religion, and politics. In fact, there are sound positions that can stand in contradiction to each other, as we have seen for centuries with religious sects political parties, and scientific principles. The soundness of those opposing viewpoints should help us know where the dogmas permeate our thinking. As we ponder our dogmatic beliefs, I hope we can be comfortable knowing that we can be on solid ground and still have to find our balance at times. Henry Eyring understood that concept. I hope we can all be humble enough to believe that the ‘Lord created the world’ and that our ‘faith does not hinge’ on having everything figured out. Dogmatic belief cons us into thinking we have all the answers and that others are lacking. Sound reasoning seeks for others to help us in our progression.

• dogma
• general
• truth