Religious dogmas and oppresion.

[diamantis]

According to my rationale, religious dogmatism is the most oppressive of all and the source of others, which tends to oppress global, universal values like peace and arts; being in total contrast with sound reasoning which entails the universal, global acceptance of those paramount values and others in turn, like justice, equality and freedom.

[FatalMuse]

It is my belief that religion can be oppressive, but only if the religious doctrine or those teaching and implementing it are oppresssive. Some religious institutions are oppresive, some are not.

Secondly, I think those values you outline aren't necassarily the result of sound reasoning. Most of them can be countered with further reasoning.

If religions dogma is the cause of oppression, why do we have oppression in completely secular states?

Oppression:
1.the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.

I believe authority is the cause of oppresssion. Not all religions support authority. Infact, democracy institutionalizes authority. You uphold democracy as a universal value that results from sound reasoning. But what if we have a democracy where, free of religion, 60% of people vote to oppress the remaining 40%?

[paulhanke]

... I wouldn't go so far as to say authority is the cause of oppression as to say that authority is the vehicle for oppression ... and if you can properly constrain the vehicle, then you can limit oppression ... in the political theory of the federal republic, the people are sovereign, but are balanced by executive, legislative, and judicial bureaucracies (which are in turn balanced against each other) ... so this political theory tends to avoid the oppression of minorities you find in pure democracies, while at the same time tending to avoid despotism by the executive and corruption in the legislature via a judiciary that is in principle bound to none of the above ... practice is a different story altogether , but I think you probably get the gist - the distribution of authority into mutually opposing camps can help to keep everyone honest in their respective uses of the authority that has been assigned to them ... that doesn't mean that religious dogmas can't have deleterious effects in such federal republics - the U.S. itself has a long history of self-serving hypocrisy and abuse of religious and scientific ideas ... but that being said, we have yet to spiral out of control into a situation where authority is so concentrated (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) so as to allow for full-out oppression ...

[FatalMuse]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

... I wouldn't go so far as to say authority is the cause of oppression as to say that authority is the vehicle for oppression ...

I thank you for the correction, as that is the wording I should've used. It is why I firmly believe in the idea that all authority should be questioned.