Rationality: An Obligation for Human Autonomy
Rationality is not just a tool — it is an obligation that drives our autonomy, to fulfill our potential. It serves as our fundamental compass in navigating reality, empowering self-determination in a complex world increasingly dominated by systems seeking to control rather than liberate. Through rational thought, we question beliefs, free ourselves from illusion, detect manipulation, and rigorously examine the foundations of our deepest convictions.
This capacity for reasoned inquiry is necessary for both individual autonomy and societal progress because it provides the only reliable defense against pervasive forms of dogma that seek to subjugate the mind through unquestioning acceptance and obedience. To embrace rationality is to embrace the fullness of what it means to be human; to abandon it is to surrender our most essential faculty.
Where dogma demands false binaries, rationality questions. Bush’s infamous “Either you’re with us or you are with the terrorists” exemplifies how authority traps thought. Questioning such framing is not weakness, but portrays strength to demand evidence.
Where media and political rhetoric erase nuance, dig for the bodies. Where belief offers comfort, test for errors.
There is a cold comfort in this: The cold, solitary process of self-examination is comforting because it abandons superficial lies we might let slip, using personal agency to hold Truth as a high value; in ourselves and in others. The process reveals the struggle of integrity: Questioning “how much do I really value Truth within and beyond?” humbles us to recursively examine, and to not accept the first thing uncovered by an epistemological process.
To abandon rationality is to betray yourself. It means willingly submitting to intellectual subjugation, rejecting the responsibility of autonomy, and surrendering your power to those who would enslave your mind. Unlike external systems that offer fixed answers, rationality provides an approach that evolves as our understanding deepens. It represents both a personal imperative for individual flourishing and a social obligation for human progress. When we fail to think rationally, we not only diminish our own potential but sabotage our capacity to contribute meaningfully to society. Our progress, fate, and circumstances are determined by choices informed by reality — and rationality is our only reliable compass for navigating this complex world.
Whom fear controls, reason empowers to interrogate. What dogma suppresses, reason invites to question. Where obedience is demanded, rational inquiry sows the first seeds of dissent — not for rebellion’s sake, but for truth’s.
Religion: The Oldest System of Unexamined Control
Religion remains the most socially acceptable form of intellectual subjugation, and perhaps the most widespread form of psychological abuse inflicted upon children, its most vulnerable victims.
Faith demands unquestioning belief, regardless of understanding. It punishes doubt and rewards conformity. It elevates obedience to a virtue and casts independent thought as sin.
The deeper harm is more subtle: Religion interferes with thinking, offering the comfort of certainty in place of the inquiry and doubt essential to critical thinking. It relieves us from the labor of thinking independently, and that habit rarely stops at theology. Belief without critical examination weakens the mind, leading to the acceptance of falsehoods and the rejection of truths. In contrast, belief grounded in evidence resists the comforting temptation of certainty, keeping us aligned with reality, even when the honest answer is “I don’t know”.
Religion’s emphasis on faith over inquiry is deliberately self-sustaining. It valorizes obedience, casts doubt as weakness, portrays curiosity as dangerous, rewards adherence, and damns the disobedient — all to preserve its perceived authority and suppress dissent.
- Biblical Moral: Unquestioning obedience to divine authority is paramount; doubt and questioning are dangerous and damnable.
- Rationalist Moral: Question all claims, especially those from authority, as it is necessary for truth and liberty.
Consider the doctrine of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31–32) — unforgivable sin, “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven”. This doctrine weaponizes faith with eternal punishment to silence questioning and shield religion from scrutiny. This very article, in promoting rational inquiry to question religious authority, is blasphemous, by definition.
Religious control mechanisms exploit our faculties of trust and fear, while rational inquiry demands us to resist both. Throughout the Bible, God rewards faith and punishes doubt — a necessary tool of rational inquiry. “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) — this shows how the bible valorizes Absence of Evidence, which exposes its mechanism of control, praising illogic. Ask yourself what kind of god would grant you a rational mind, then condemn you for using it to question its existence — all while refusing to reveal itself?
Fear-Based Control
Where the Gospel of John offers a “carrot” – bestowing blessings upon those who believe without seeing, thus valorizing the absence of evidence and praising illogic – the Epistle of James portrays god wielding the “stick” of damnation in a sort of spiritual blackmail:
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:6-8)
In this and other Biblical examples, God rewards faith and punishes doubt, a necessary tool of rational inquiry, to foster obedience and conformity to social and religious order.
While the Bible demands obedience, faith, and submission, disciplined examination reveals its contradictions, moral incoherence, and mechanisms of control. Whether by error or design, the Bible presents inherent paradoxes that, upon further examination, goad us to think, challenge, and, if we have the heart, to break through its surface-level dogma.
Dogma Doesn’t Work
Trust me Bro, This Works!
For centuries, across cultures and religions, illness has been attributed to divine punishment. This bad guess, held in overconfidence, led to ineffective and harmful treatments like bloodletting or persecuting the sick for “possession”.
Witch Trial (and Error)
The Salem witch trials in the 17th century were an extreme case of dogma. They showed how an unproven, outlandish supernatural claim, coupled with complete certainty in the “touch test”, a method whereby the accused witch would touch the afflicted person to see if that would alleviate the affliction. If the affliction went away, the accused was found guilty and hanged or imprisoned.
“It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know that just ain’t so.”
What Did We Learn?
We have now learned that bloodletting and witch trials are bullshit but, more important than that, have we grown the mental skills to effectively question things that seem plausible? What seemed plausible back then is obviously wrong now, but the tendency to adopt such beliefs without careful scrutiny, or, worse, to refuse to reconsider them, is common, and persists. Dogma pervades online, especially in politics and policy, through perception management to effectively influence and manage public perception, as will be discussed later.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
Intellectual Sovereignty — A Mental Exercise
Do you value truth above all else? If so, what method do you trust most for determining it? These aren’t abstract questions, they define how you navigate reality. Are you genuinely open to revising your positions based on rational analysis? This stance demands strength, intellect, and humility.
Intellectual integrity trades false comfort for freedom, at the cost of uncertainty and the burden of shouldering your choices. To embrace rationality is to accept fallibility, to sometimes say “I don’t know” rather than cling to comforting beliefs.
So ask yourself again, honestly: do you value truth above all else?
What to Believe?
What do I believe, and why? This is the first question of disciplined mental housekeeping. We tend to become so comfortable with our beliefs that we forget the reasons we adopted them in the first place. If you teach, guide others to reason freely — not to obey. If you lead, lead them to think — not to follow.
There is no greater defense against dogma — religious or ideological — than intellectual honesty, clarity, and the courage to be uncertain. Rationality is the antidote to overconfidence.
Examine Your Beliefs:
- What do I believe? (Be specific. Write it down.)
- Why do I hold this belief? (Was it inherited, learned, reasoned, emotional?)
- How certain am I that it is true? (0 to 100%?)
- What evidence would cause me to revise that level of confidence? (And would I genuinely change my mind if I encountered it?)
- What are the ethical implications if I acted on this belief fully? (What would it justify, excuse, or demand of others?)
For example, posted on x.com:
Israel exists because GOD allows it! No one else…. God Himself. Jews came back to Israel to the land God promised them after thousands of years, a statistical improbability…. by the hand of God. Good luck with fighting God. You will lose
— The belief that the world is inherently fair and that whatever happened was deserved because god ordained it reveals errors in thinking: Wishful thinking, appeal to divine authority, emotional reasoning, confirmation bias, etc…
This is not just critical thinking — it is epistemic integrity; a form of mental hygiene against dogma, tribalism, and manufactured certainty. It is for yourself, as well as friends and family, and especially children, who are so often misled.
Reason Is Not Optional
In a world of propaganda, algorithmic echo chambers, and narrative warfare, reason is resistance.
It is the one faculty institutions cannot co-opt without your permission. It cannot be imposed. It cannot be faked. And it cannot be comfortably ignored.
Those who do not develop it will be governed by those who exploit their absence of it.
To Think Clearly Is to Live Freely
Rationality is not cold or mechanical — it is enlightening and empowering.
It is the clarity of mind to see through fear, deception, and control. It is to reject the default settings of culture, the familiar comfort of certainty, and the seduction of belief. It is the willingness to embrace the unknown in pursuit of freedom, knowing that freedom demands discomfort.
Reason demands we face the unknown at the cost of potential discomfort. Faith relies on things unproven, externally reframing discomfort as divine will, while demanding unwavering devotion.
Through analysis and inference, we transform raw observations into structured knowledge. Without this process, we are left adrift in a sea of information, observations, beliefs, assumptions, and deceptions. Reason enables us to evaluate information, reevaluate our beliefs, and more consistently arrive at the truth.
Moral Autonomy vs. Authoritarianism
Fundamentalist or authoritarian religious traditions glorify submission to divine will, treating dissent as heresy. Similarly, rigid state systems demand loyalty to the chain of command.
Systems of power — religious or state — survive on submission and obedience. They quash independent thought by punishing dissent and othering nonconformists. Whether through divine will or chain of command, both exploit the same psychological mechanisms to override moral judgment. In both, dissent becomes heresy.
Heresy — from Ancient Greek haíresis (αἵρεσις), originally meaning the process of personal examination to determine how to live.
The Nature of Authoritarian Systems
Authoritarian systems exploit our instinctive deference to trust authority figures that is reinforced by cultural conditioning that trains us to obey. This results in a psychological vulnerability that is systematically weaponized against individual conscience.
God-Fearing Bootlickers
Authoritarian systems glorify moral surrender, rewarding compliance and punishing independent judgment. Many religious interpretations of Genesis 22 exemplify that, praising Abraham’s willingness to murder his son at God’s command as a triumph of faith over reason, which we’ll discuss in much greater depth. And in modern society, “just do what the police tell you”, is a common authoritarian trope that discourages the assertion of individual rights (thereby weakening them) to appease authority.
Psychological Foundations of Obedience
Research has demonstrated the disturbing ease with which normal people surrender their moral agency. Solomon Asch revealed how group pressure can override individual judgment, leading people to accept a false consensus. Milgram showed that most will obey even the most abhorrent orders when issued by authority figures, suppressing their own moral conscience.
School Reinforcement of Obedience
These studies expose human tendencies to conform and obey — traits reinforced by compulsory schooling. Children are not given a choice; attendance is mandated by law and enforced through truancy penalties. From the outset, their time, attention, and thought are placed under institutional control. Adults dictate what is learned, when, and how. This hidden curriculum conditions children, rewarding passive compliance, suppressing independent thought, and normalizing lifelong subordination to authority. By removing volition and punishing deviation, the system trains children to internalize obedience as virtue and comply without resistance.
Modern schooling functions like a secular religion. It has supplanted the Church as the institution for shaping belief, behavior, and identity, with six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. “Childhood” is extended until age 18, treating young people as non-persons requiring constant supervision, stultifying by enforcing dependence.
Religious Dogma Kills — Genesis 22 and the Glorification of Obedience
In Genesis 22 , God asked Abraham to kill his son. Some people read the story literally; others read it allegorically, symbolically, or morally, suggesting it’s about trust in God under extreme circumstances, a rejection of child sacrifice (since God ultimately stops it), and virtuous faith that transcends human reason. This final point is contentious, as Abraham’s willingness to plot to kill his son and lie to his family about it praises the faithful obedience to suspend moral judgment.
Command over principle and obeying unjust orders prevents exercising moral decisions. In Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to murder his only son, and Abraham commits himself to doing it. As Isaac innocently asks, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
(Genesis 22:7). Abraham’s deceptive reply, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son”
(Genesis 22:8), starkly illustrates his commitment.
This reveals not a loving and compassionate God, but one with a psychopathic willingness to inflict profound suffering for the sake of a test. The test itself was an act of mental torture, which should be expected to cause immense lifelong psychological trauma on father, son, and wife (also half-sister) damaging familial bonds.
“When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son” (Genesis 22:9-10)
Regardless of the sacrifice being called off, Abraham still has to live with himself, and with a mutual understanding with his son, whom he lied to and plotted and determined to kill — stabbing him in the back, figuratively and almost literally. It’s no different than if Abraham had pointed a gun at his son and the gun jammed. He tried to kill his son and now has to live with it, because God put him in that place, knowingly, maliciously to torture Abraham to damage his family through his willing lies and murderous betrayal, as Abraham obeyed God’s command rather than his own moral conscience.
This story has been used to justify extreme acts in the name of faith. It’s an archetypal tale that illustrates the harm of accepting religious texts without considering the harmful implications of their teachings. The veneration of Abraham’s willingness to murder his son stands as perhaps the most prominent example of how religious authority demands the suspension of moral judgment — a pattern that extends into secular authoritarian systems.
The bible tells us to obey, but is obedience virtuous? When orders demand submission, moral agency raises questions. Conscience compels us to act not in allegiance, but in accordance with principles that reduce harm and preserve dignity. Obedience offers simplicity and security at the cost of agency, including moral agency.
Moral action demands clarity, which comes from understanding, regardless of, and sometimes against faith. Unlike the tale of Isaac’s binding, most moral corruption does not begin with grand betrayals, but with small compromises, made quietly, one after another. It progresses insidiously, until the compass is no longer surrendered, but simply gone.
Brownshirts Example: Ernst Röhm
As a revolutionary socialist and WWI veteran, Ernst Röhm conformed to Hitler’s vision to became a lead figure in the Nazi party to lead the SA (Brownshirts).
The Brownshirts were not just blind followers but also victims of the internal power struggles within the Nazi regime. Many were ordinary men who, through their loyalty to strict Nazi ideology, gradually suppressed their own moral judgment. Hitler’s eventual purge of the loyal SA leadership shows that even total loyalty offers no protection when an authoritarian leader’s power is paramount.
Modern Example: Authoritarian Tendencies in Crisis Response
The COVID-19 response revealed authoritarian dynamics in action: indefinite lockdowns, prolonged school closures, censorship of dissenting scientific views, vaccine mandates, and the rapid expansion of digital surveillance. Under the guise of emergency, basic freedoms were suspended with minimal debate or accountability. Most people complied without question, falling in lockstep with approaches that prioritized obedience over open inquiry and control over consent.
Star Wars: The Force is Within You!
In the Star Wars saga, Luke Skywalker embodies the power of moral agency over authoritarianism. Despite facing the overwhelming might of the authoritarian Galactic Empire and the powerful influence of his father, Anakin (Darth Vader), Luke consistently chooses his own moral path, to defy seemingly impossible odds, risking the ultimate price, willing to say, “I will not serve”.
In stark contrast, Anakin Skywalker’s tragic fall to the dark side shows the slippery slope of compromising moral choices and misplaced obedience. Initially a promising Jedi, Anakin’s descent is marked by a series of decisions driven by fear and a misguided belief that the Jedi Council’s authority was preventing him from saving his loved ones. His father Anakin, tempted by power, had been skillfully manipulated into a position of absolute obedience to the dark side. Anakin’s obedience ultimately led him to betray his principles and commit horrific acts as Darth Vader, demonstrating the devastating consequences of surrendering one’s moral autonomy to an external, corrupting influence. His journey shows how noble, well-intentioned men can be led down a path of moral compromise through the insidious allure of authority and the erosion of independent thought.
The Imperative of Moral Autonomy
Authoritarian systems glorify moral surrender, rewarding obedience and punishing independent thought — conscience be damned. The U.S. Constitution, forged in the fire of revolution by men who had directly experienced tyranny’s weight, stands as testament to what happens when individuals refuse to surrender their moral compass. Its young framers, of Enlightenment thinking, determined that power must bow to principle. Unlike Abraham, who raised his knife against his son at divine command, these revolutionaries resolved to craft a preeminent system of checks and balances, where power cannot outrank, supersede, or infringe upon individual rights.
Law enforcement officers swear an oath to uphold these constitutional principles, including disobeying unlawful orders from superiors. This commitment to principle over power stands in direct defiance of systems that demand unquestioning submission. It embodies the fundamental choice we each face: will we surrender our moral agency, or defend it?
Define your values, or someone else will define them for you. When you wake up serving a cause you never chose, you’ll wonder how you got there—and the answer was always your silence. Every small compromise of conscience paves the way for larger ones. The Milgram subject who administers a small shock today becomes capable of delivering lethal voltage tomorrow. The schoolchild conditioned to seek permission for biological functions becomes the adult who surrenders medical autonomy without question.
To resist authoritarianism, you must retain your right to think independently and to question orders that violate your moral conscience. This isn’t rebellion for its own sake—it’s the sacred duty of every human being. The cost of compliance is your integrity; the price of resistance may be steep, but the alternative is the loss of your humanity itself.
Our capacity for moral choice is what makes us human, and is reflected in our actions, which defines who we are.
Authoritarian systems exploit our human vulnerability to surrender moral judgment to higher power. The Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) is a model example that shows this vulnerability in Abraham’s willingness to submit to God’s authority, and how God exploits his human weakness for a cruel test. Biblical narratives rely heavily on such patterns of control. We will use critical thinking to reveal how these stories promote faith over critical thinking — the very faculty they discourage — to reveal their hidden mechanisms and the deeper revelations of authoritarianism that eventually gave rise to Enlightenment philosophy.
Doctrine Versus the Heresy of Reason
Truth is discovered through reason, not dictated by authority. Religion replaces reason with doctrine and condemns inquiry that deviates from it. Its narratives are not mere myths but tools of subjugation, using fear and false hope, influencing communities that use social pressure to enforce obedience and conformity over reason. That’s why it condemns rational inquiry as heresy. This conflict between authority and reason is encoded directly in scripture’s foundational stories, which frame-knowledge seeking as disobedience.
Biblical Narratives as Control Mechanisms
Throughout scripture, key narratives establish patterns of control by criminalizing curiosity, punishing autonomy, and fragmenting human understanding. These stories serve not merely as myths but as foundational justifications for intellectual subjugation.
The Tree of Knowledge: Criminalizing Curiosity
The Garden of Eden narrative establishes the first and most fundamental criminalization of human intellectual curiosity. Genesis casts the serpent as a symbol of deceit, and the Tree of Knowledge as the forbidden source of moral discernment — the capacity to reason, judge, and choose.
What if the Serpent’s words helped Eve realize that to eat of the Tree of Knowledge was liberating — a necessary step towards consciousness and self-determination? The serpent offers knowledge. God demands obedience.
The inversion of the traditional interpretation exposes the narrative’s true function: humanity’s first act of intellectual curiosity — the embrace of autonomy, the capacity to choose — is condemned by the Bible as “original sin”. This condemnation shows the narrative’s role as a system of control. Our nature, our fate, demands that we claim our autonomy and break free.
- Biblical Moral: Do not seek knowledge beyond what is permitted.
- Enlightenment Moral: Seek all knowledge — especially the kind they forbid.
The serpent is cast as a symbol of deceit, as it led Eve to question God’s command (doubt) and to seek knowledge independently (rational inquiry), ultimately resulting in their expulsion from the Garden (punishment).
The serpent represents choice, self-empowerment, and knowledge-seeking — traits the Bible condemns as temptation into sin, which is then punished by expulsion from the Garden. To valorize knowledge-seeking is to side with the serpent, choosing enlightenment over divine command.
Lucifer’s Rebellion: Punishing Autonomy
The narrative of Lucifer’s fall represents the ultimate condemnation of intellectual autonomy. Lucifer is cast as defiant. His sin is pride, autonomy — the refusal to kneel.
- Biblical Moral: Submission is virtue; rebellion is damnation.
- Enlightenment Moral: Autonomy is virtue; submission without reason is moral abdication.
Lucifer’s Rebellion: Intellectual Autonomy
Lucifer symbolizes the quest for knowledge and truth over blind faith or obedience. His rebellion is not merely a refusal to obey, but a declaration of intellectual autonomy — rejecting authority without reason or inquiry. This mirrors the struggles faced by independent thinkers throughout history, from Galileo to Socrates, who challenged accepted norms and faced persecution for their pursuit of truth. Lucifer’s punishment represents the cost of intellectual freedom.
Lucifer’s Rebellion: Intellectual Autonomy
His defiance is not just rebellion, but a declaration of the individual right to self-determination — a core principle of the U.S. Constitution. This ancient lesson embodies the refusal to submit to unaccountable or unjust control, challenging societal and authoritarian domination over independent thought — and reminds us that the pursuit of autonomy comes at a price. Free men owe no compliance to unaccountable power. When consent is demanded under duress, refusal is a moral obligation.
Enlightenment rationality is Luciferian in the symbolic sense — rebelliously humanist; the archetype of defiant intellect against unaccountable power. Not malevolent, but willing to say, “I will not serve.”
The Tower of Babel: Preventing Collective Understanding
The Tower of Babel narrative illustrates how collective knowledge and unified human purpose are portrayed as threats to divine authority. The Tower was a symbol of ambition and self-governance without divine permission. God scatters humanity for their audacity.
The Tower represents humanity’s collective ambition — our natural drive to build, connect, and reach higher understanding. Yet in Genesis, this collaborative quest for advancement is portrayed not as progress but as dangerous hubris! God’s response, to scatter humanity and confuse our languages, reveals perhaps the most telling biblical attitude toward human potential: unified knowledge is a threat to divine authority.
This fragmentation of human understanding serves a specific control function. Scripture teaches that human power must be subordinated to obey God. But our capacity for reason and learning drives our advancement. The Babel story reveals that power fears independence, as human knowledge poses a threat. When God scatters humanity for building toward the heavens, the message is clear: humans united in understanding represent the greatest threat to unchecked authority.
- Divine/Biblical Moral: Man must remain obedient and humble before God.
- Enlightenment Moral: Human ambition and collective advancement should be pursued freely, guided by reason and evidence. Unity in understanding empowers human progress.
Babel’s legacy reveals doctrine’s primary goal is the subjugation of man. The bible’s portrayal of God fragmenting humanity’s knowledge and loyalties, then exploiting these divisions, reveals that to transcend this subjugation, we must independently determine to rebel against such imposed obedience. Individuals united in understanding are ungovernable. Outgrowing the thinking that sustains these narratives will mark a step forward in mankind’s evolution.
These foundational narratives in Genesis reveal a consistent thread: divine action to subdue mankind’s free will and intellectual ambition, punishing curiosity (Eden), autonomy (Lucifer), and unified endeavor (Babel), for obedience and submission to God.
Modern Manifestations of Doctrinal Control
The patterns of control portrayed in biblical narratives appear in everyday modern life. People acquiesce as they are coerced, then internalize inculcated beliefs as their own. Casting dominance as moral duty is doctrinal control: a system where authority is upheld through unquestioned belief, and deviation is treated as moral transgression. Doctrinal control is more pervasive and sophisticated than “might makes right”, it aims to foster moral obligation and instill beliefs, not just behavior, and its perceived normalization (social acceptance) reifies it, making it harder to resist internally. People obey not just because they fear the consequences of disobedience, but because they allow unexamined beliefs to bypass independent thought, internalizing them as their own.
Divine Entitlement: Land Claims Through Divine Right
The archaic belief that a universal creator selected “chosen people” with exclusive land claims remains one of our most dangerous myths — especially when backed by modern nuclear arsenals and geopolitical entanglements. Of the many justifications invoked in this geopolitical dispute, religion is the least rational, resting on an unverifiable appeal to divine authority that conveniently evades empirical scrutiny. The enduring land right claims over Israel/Palestine based on Abraham’s lineage beg a fundamental question: Was it, in fact… divinely granted?
The assertion of exclusive and perpetual land rights based solely on an ancient, verbal exchange with God (Genesis 12, 15, 17) fails basic standards of evidence. While religious tradition is one among several justifications invoked in this geopolitical dispute, it is uniquely resistant to scrutiny. It appears instead as a myth used to justify a land grab, repackaged as divine right. The control mechanisms established in scripture reappear here in modern form. Challenge these claims and you’re not just wrong — you’re a blasphemous antisemite.
This weaponization of belief against inquiry follows the biblical pattern precisely. But do the people making these claims even believe them? And if the outcome is the same — conquest, displacement, violence — does it even matter? And if we’re discouraged from asking these questions, what does that reveal?
- Divine Moral: Divine right overrides human rights. Questioning it is blasphemy.
- Enlightenment Moral: Rights must be justified by reason and evidence. No claim is above scrutiny.
Absolutism, religious or political, short-circuits autonomy, replacing reason with obedience and severing empathy by demanding and rewarding compliance as a virtue.
Secular Dogma: Non-Religious Control Mechanisms
Dogma extends beyond religion, appearing in academic orthodoxies, corporate policies, social movements, and authoritarian regimes through identical control mechanisms: excommunication for dissent (cancel culture), unquestionable axioms (faith in “settled science”), subordination of evidence to belief (ideology over biology), and shibboleths (mask donning; pronouns in bio to signify group compliance). These systems replace priests with bureaucrats, scripture with scientific pronouncements, and divine revelation with ideological dogma. Conformity is rewarded; inquiry punished; heterodoxy condemned.
Mao, Stalin, and North Korea
The regimes of Mao, Stalin, and North Korea all emerged as powerful political ideologies that resonated deeply with populations facing immense social and economic upheaval. These figures rose by inspiring hope for salvation from poverty, oppression, and injustice. Through powerful messaging that championed “the people” against existing elites, they acknowledged populist ideals of progress and liberation by promising a heroic utopia born from desperation, using faith and hope to inspire awe and cultivating cults of personality that approached self-deification (reaching near-divine status with the Kims) displayed via ubiquitous media presence, thus reinforcing devotion through collective conscience. Initially, they established movements promising a better future through collective action. This initial vision of a just and equitable world allowed these ideologies to gain traction, but ultimately destroyed individual sovereignty, paving the way for their devastating consequences.
Stalin’s Iron Fist
To enforce ideological conformity, Stalin othered groups, using terms like “fifth column”, “enemy of the people”, and “saboteurs” to demonize vast segments of Soviet society during the Great Purge. This “othering” — portraying dissenters as existential threats — justified the systematic arrest, torture, and execution of millions, from party members and military leaders to ordinary citizens. The decree of collective family guilt (also seen in North Korea) fostered fear and suspicion.
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas” — Josef Stalin
Mao’s Great Leap Forward: The Deadly Dogma of Ideological Purity
Mao emphasized continuous revolution and ideological purity rooted in the peasantry. During the Great Leap Forward, this dogmatic adherence to Mao’s ideology applied to agriculture subordinated practical knowledge. The result was the implementation of disastrous policies that led to famine that killed tens of millions. Faith did not adapt to reality, and dissenters were cast out, labeled “rightists”, demoted, stripped of their livelihoods, sent to labor camps for re-education, and killed, like apostates.
The Kims’ of North Korea: The Deliberate Hereditary Theocracy
While the initial revolutionary aims of Mao and Stalin can be viewed optimistically, the Kims’ plans cannot. Knowing the outcomes of those regimes, the Kims deliberately copied their core aspects, adding the unique feature of a hereditary totalitarian regime that functions almost as a theocracy. This system was designed to preserve what they planned to be a godlike social status, presented as divinely ordained and passed down through lineage. The extreme nature of this inherited, quasi-religious authority necessitates an equally absolute and pervasive totalitarian grip, including stringent global isolationism.
Totalitarianism usually begins in soft tyranny, as a growing number of people give up their natural rights and critical faculties in favor of collective good, sublimating individual concerns, and blurring lines between individual rights and the demands of the collective.
The exploitation of crisis, the control of information, the elevation of unquestionable axioms, and the othering of dissenters can manifest in more subtle yet equally impactful ways within societies not considered authoritarian.
The loudest opponents of individual freedom never frame their arguments honestly. Ask yourself: Who defines the collective good and who benefits from your sacrifice?
Secular Dogma in Practice: COVID-19 as Case Study
The COVID-19 outbreak response revealed how secular institutions exerted control, weaponizing fear, moralizing obedience, silencing dissent, and elevating slogans over inquiry.
“Follow the Science”: A Mantra of Compliance
“Follow the science” functioned not as a commitment to evidence but as a means to elevate a slogan over inquiry, insidiously replacing actual scientific inquiry with a loaded, anti-scientific catchphrase. This mantra became part of a secular pseudo-religion, along with the shibboleths like masking and the mantra “stay safe”.
Shibboleths of Virtue
The demand for conformity moralized obedience, pitting “science deniers” as modern heretics, regardless of their arguments’ merits. “The Science” was treated as revelation: singular, static, authoritative. Distrust was cast upon non-compliant, polarizing them as unmasked, anti-vaccine, science-denying conspiracy theorists. While those wearking masks or vaccination stickers were cast as morally “good”.
Compliance Rituals and Moral Signaling
Despite inconsistent evidence for cloth mask efficacy (none outdoors), mask mandates became ubiquitous. Initially discouraged then universally required, masks became shibboleths — symbols of social compliance signaling virtue, with noncompliance cast as selfish or ignorant.
This reframing of science extended beyond the mandates, revealing authoritarianism disguised as an emergency public health policy response to a global emergency.
But science is a method, not a doctrine! Science involves continuous testing and refinement based on new evidence and open inquiry, with disagreement and critical scrutiny. When these are actively suppressed and policy is elevated above question, dogma prevails.
Heretics and Thought-Crimes: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
November, 2019, COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China near the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a center for coronavirus gain-of-function research. The idea that COVID-19 could have originated from the WIV — unknown, but plausible explanation — was denounced as a racist conspiracy theory. This stigma persisted even as U.S. intelligence agencies, virologists and journalists examined the question, revealing the WIV was getting funding from the U.S. government. The very scientists who had helped fund the research at the WIV used their positions to publish research that denied the lab leak hypothesis. As in all dogmatic systems, certain questions could not be asked, lest they destabilize the approved moral narrative, resembling how biblical narratives establish unquestionable authority.
Perception Management
Government encouraged online platforms to restrict discussion of the lab leak and skepticism about masks and vaccines. Not only were ideas limited, but those who dared speak them were demonetized, restricted, and removed from many online platforms, echoing the tactics used by totalitarian regimes, maintaining ideological dominance by quashing all dissent and casting out dissidents.
Anthony “I am The Science” Fauci
Anthony Fauci pronounced himself “the science”, building on the “Follow the Science” mantra and elevating himself to an unquestionable authority. Yet he frequently stepped outside his self-described “scientist” box to proscribe public health decrees, asserting that cloth masks should be worn, and that the mRNA vaccines were safe and effective at preventing infection. Worse, he proposed that COVID was of natural origins, and outright lied about his role in funding the WIV.
“No Evidence of Transmission”: The Strategic Ignorance Fallacy
Public health officials repeatedly claimed “no evidence of community transmission at this time” while simultaneously refusing to test for it. Symptomatic patients were denied testing through early 2020, creating circular logic to preserve institutional credibility rather than reveal reality. This “don’t test, don’t tell” policy delayed public awareness while maintaining an illusion of control guided not by reason but narrative protection.
“Safe and Effective”: Profit Above Scrutiny
The rapid deployment of vaccines was framed as scientific triumph, yet questions about safety, risk stratification, and natural immunity were treated as betrayal. Pharmaceutical companies, granted legal immunity, generated record profits; Pfizer’s 2022 revenue exceeding $100 billion, with nearly $40 billion from COVID products alone. Even modest skepticism was treated not as inquiry but apostasy.
Follow Reason, Not Science™
Rationality cuts through all dogmas, religious or secular, and all other bullshit, using evidence and reason to prevail over allegiance and consensus, and accepting the social cost of intellectual autonomy over mental fealty. Claims should be examined critically not obediently, especially those presented as beyond question or when obedience is coerced.
Historical Persecution of Reason
The conflict between reason and dogma has manifested throughout history in the persecution of those who dare to question established doctrine. These historical examples demonstrate the mechanisms by which institutions maintain control by suppressing rational inquiry.
The Case of Galileo: Science vs. Doctrine
The pernicious reach of doctrine extends beyond ancient mythologies into documented history. Religious doctrine, by design, defines and establishes absolute truths while suppressing deviation — a mechanism of control that manifested clearly when the Church mercilessly subdued Galileo Galilei’s rational inquiry.
Galileo’s case perfectly illustrates this. His observations were rejected not merely for contradicting scripture, but because they challenged the Church’s authority as the ultimate arbiter of truth — a threat to the very structure of doctrinal control. Isn’t the establishment of absolute truth and the suppression of deviation the inherent nature of doctrine? Galileo’s reliance on empirical evidence and logic was deemed heresy, a belief against Church doctrine. Accused, tried by the Inquisition, and forced to recant, his fate starkly shows how powerful institutions label rational inquiry as heresy to protect their authority and suppress intellectual autonomy in the name of dogma.
Just as Galileo’s pursuit of scientific truth was condemned as heresy for challenging established doctrine, so too does the individual’s assertion of intellectual autonomy challenge the religious doctrine of obedience. In a world that demands conformity and unquestioning belief, he who dares to think autonomously — the original meaning of ‘heresy’ from the Greek ‘hairesis’ — stands in potential opposition to prevailing dogma.
Intellectual Independence: The Ultimate Heresy
You were not born to obey.
You were born to see.
To think.
To question.
To learn.
These maxims are heresy in the original sense: they reject external authority and ground understanding in reason. Curiosity, no longer condemned, is reclaimed as a merit. Reason and observation, not faith, yield knowledge and understanding.
Where scripture says:
“Lean not on your own understanding…” (Proverbs 3:5)
This stance replies:
“Your understanding is your only reliable compass.”
Your mind is your own — this is the ultimate heresy against all systems of control
Reason as Liberation
Rationality empowers us against dogmas with objectivity, to forge a more intimate connection with the world as we own our volition and the gravity of its consequences. This ownership of our minds allows us to reconnect with reality, free from dictated truths. In accepting our freedom to choose, we embrace the full weight of consequence where moral growth begins.
- Biblical Moral: Human power must be humbled.
- Rationalist Moral: Human power must be cultivated — through knowledge, not submission. The Enlightenment restores clarity, curiosity, and communication as tools to guard against oppression.
The liberation offered by reason transcends both religious and secular dogmas, restoring intellectual sovereignty and the capacity for genuine moral agency. By rejecting externally imposed certainty in favor of evidence-based understanding, we reclaim our fundamental autonomy as thinking beings. Freedom begins where obedience ends.
