Dogma on the other hand, is typically not to be questioned. For most Christians down thru time, the ten commandments just are. They are not to be criticized or thought about rationally. It is the idea that accepting dogma demands a suspension of critical thinking. Of course there are exceptions, I'm sure that you personally don't accept common dogma without some analysis. But you are the exception to the rule.
I guess the summary might be that an axiom is explicitly understood as such and is disposable. Dogma is not.
I don't accept any dogma as I'm not religious and never have been
There are obviously some dogmatic/literalist/intolerant versions of religion, we agree these are bad and don't have to be appeased.
What we seem to disagree how this should affect our judgement of the rest of religion.
How do you feel about these:
1. Religious dogmatists are likely prone to dogmatism and would be prone to following intolerant ideologies regardless of the form
2. Religions, although inherently conservative, are really quite adaptable. While this conservatism can sometimes lead to the extended acceptance of bad beliefs, it can also prevent adoption of harmful beliefs (Christianity prevents Marxist Communism for example)
3. Given that society will always be full of bad beliefs, it is counterproductive to reject those who hold broadly similar beliefs to us but for the 'wrong' reason (perhaps because they are atheistic or because they are theistic).
4. Humans are much less rational than they believe, are prone to hubris and are terrible at predicting the effects of their collective actions on society
I think this is the key point. An axiom often feels like common sense (but it doesn't always). But regardless, an axiom (positive or negative), is explicitly known as an axiom. A person can choose to discard one philosophy and try on another that uses different, explicit axioms. And finally, axioms are then built upon, logically.
What feels like common sense is mostly a product of our environment though.
We are (imo) a value pluralistic society, there are some things we can all say are wrong (torturing babies for fun) somethings we can all say are right (stopping a baby from being eaten by an animal) but many things fall into a grey area. Our nature is complex and often contradictory, and absent a higher power, we are just animals.
With many beliefs in the grey area, they often contradict each other but there is no objective reason why one thing is better than another.
Examples: the limits of group cohesion/the rights of the group versus the rights of an individual (or utilitarian v moral rights views of ethics); whether 'truth' is more important than contentment; capitalism versus socialism; etc.
The range of societies that can be built around these grey areas is vast. While being able to pick and choose axioms is nice, they can lead almost anywhere.
You advocate 'wellbeing of conscious creatures', the problem is that almost everyone believes their ideology is the best way to achieve this. Think of Communism, here you had rational, educated, ethical, altruistic people working for the 'good of humanity' doing terrible things. Eugenics was presented as both ethical and rational contributing to the greater good.
What would your arguments be that 'rationa/logical' axiom based ideologies will
in general work out better than tradition based ones?
