Hidden Dogma and Reverse Onus

[Boojatta]

Many dogmatic people who make a variety of allegations at least are willing to describe the dogma that is the basis for the conclusions.

What word or short phrase should we use to refer to the practice of asserting conclusions and also refusing to give more than a tiny hint about the dogmatic basis for the conclusions that are asserted?

I think that it's a dishonorable but brilliant strategy for some of the following reasons:

1. A large audience remains interested because they are mentally active as they try to fill in the blanks.

2. If you identify a potential error in the reasoning that links the dogma and the conclusions, then the dogmatic person can accuse you of committing the straw man fallacy.

3. If some conclusions are eventually recognized as being definitely false, then the dogmatic person can insist that there never was any connection between the dogma and the conclusions. The dogmatic person can say that the dogma is perfect and that mistakes were made by people who used the dogma to justify the conclusions.

4. The dogmatic person puts the onus on others to devote time and effort to the discussion or debate while himself or herself applying little effort.

5. Many critics react not by saying that the dogmatic person has failed to provide much help to anyone who wants to determine whether or not the conclusion is true. Many critics react (with some exceptions such as, for example, if the conclusion is a well-known and difficult conjecture, such as Goldbach's conjecture) by contradicting the dogmatic person and asserting that the conclusion is false.

Note: by using the word "audience", I don't mean to restrict attention to cases where someone speaks at a podium to a lecture hall of listeners. There are a variety of other venues for communication, such as the internet. Threads on a message board reach an audience.

[Silent3]

1. Lime green jello...

...and through it, refracted, the light of a sunset. Tomorrow you go home. The war is over, or as over as any war will ever be.

[Lerkfish]

2. it is a common phenomenon

and people are dogmatic about many things, including non-religious viewpoints.

[edhopper]

3. Are you now

having a dialog with yourself? Do you agree or disagree with your own dogmas? Are we the audience? Or are you the audience to our responses?
Is lime green jello as awful as it sounds?

[Goblinmonger]

4. The Reverse Onus sounds like a sexual position

That's all I have to offer to this discussion.

[Orrex]

5. My friend had a dog with a prolapsed onus--does that count for anything?

I mean, that's sort of reversed...

:shrug:

[Boojatta]

6. Note regarding 5. "Many critics react..."

The point is that eliciting an incompetent reaction from critics tends to help the dogmatist.

[Boojatta]

7. Kick

[Boojatta]

8. Kick

[dimbear]

9. That's not my understanding of the value of secrets.

Many religions have a longstanding tradition of secret knowledge/dogma/whatever. It was strong in the early days of the Christian church (GospelThom, Secret Gospel of Mark, Books of Jeu, etc...) , remains strong in the RC, certainly underpins Mormonism, and is the very lifeblood and currency of Scientology. But........ it exists/existed not so much to shore up against the demonstration of error as to create an inner circle, a further splitting of the horde not just into saved and damned but into saved and extraspecial saved. Extraspecial saved pay extra. Always have.

[Boojatta]

10. Did you notice an error in what I wrote?

I think that "for some of the following reasons" should have been "for all of the following reasons and also some other reasons."

[Boojatta]

11. In ordinary marketing, there's an effort to assign a higher price

to products that will be purchased by people who can afford to pay a higher price. I believe it's called "product differentiation." Do religious institutions take into consideration what people can afford when they try to influence people to join the extra-special saved category? I suppose that an alternative would be to simply try to get everyone into that category, and accept that many will be forced for financial reasons to drop out after the Good Lord mysteriously fails to provide.

[dimbear]

13. Pharmaceutical companies note that the more a medicine costs,

the more likely it is to work. It is likely the same reason that psychiatric hours bill so high.



on edit: the exact same medicine at two different prices.

[Goblinmonger]

12. I so thought this was going to be a sex thread.

The Reverse Onus--the chicks dig it.

[Boojatta]

14. Kick