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    %CONFORM DOCTRINE AFFIRM DISINTEGRATE DISHONEST 921019

     Conformal  doctrinal affirmations are disintegrative.
They promote dishonesty and suspicion of dishonesty.

     If confessions of belief are not grounded and  rooted
in  personal  experiences,  they tend to  degenerate  into
disintegrative    doctrinal   affirmations;    for    such
confessions  are  rooted  in a desire  to  please  people,
rather  than in a desire to honestly know people  as  they
truly are.

     Religious  communities  of insecure  people  who  are
compulsively  preoccupied  with what they regard as proper
and/or   improper   doctrinal  statements---tend   to   be
communities  which  promote  the dishonest  recitation  of
conformal doctrinal affirmations by those people  who have
not had  the  experiences  which  have lead the leaders to
formulate their doctrinal statements as honest confessions
of  their  own  personal experiences.  It  would  be  more
integrative to elicit from each person true confessions of
their own spiritual experiences.

     We cannot helpfully tell each other what  confessions
to  make,  for while we may know our own experiences;   we
cannot  know  each other's experiences in the  absence  of
open   and   honest   personal  confessions   enabled   by
unconditional gifts of true security.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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