Beyond Dogmatism
Religion is sometimes attacked as a source of ignorance and conflict. While, as human beings, all of us are subject to confirmation bias , perhaps the real danger is dogmatism, or the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others, especially when it leads to prejudice or violence. That condition may affect both the religious and the nonreligious. Militants in any ideology can become destructive. Is Snoopy being "dog”matic? As this article points out, people who dogmatically hold to any topic without being able to consider other perspectives "typically pay a high price for their dogmatism. Not only do they alienate many people, but they actually imprison their own egos inside their figurative fortress of conviction." The solution is keeping an open mind. Higher thinking allows us to see beyond simple black and white categories and to see the full, multicolored spectrum of human expe