dogma

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. n. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.
3. n. A principle or belief or a group of them: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” ( Abraham Lincoln).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A settled opinion; a principle, maxim, or tenet held as being firmly established.
2. n. A principle or doctrine propounded or received on authority, as opposed to one based on experience or demonstration; specifically, an authoritative religious doctrine.
3. n. Authoritative teaching or doctrine; a system of established principles or tenets, especially religious ones; specifically, the whole body or system of Christian doctrine, as accepted either by the church at large or by any branch of it.
4. n. In the Kantian philosophy, a directly synthetical proposition based on concepts of the understanding. It is distinguished from an analytical judgment, from a fact of experience, from a mathematical proposition, and from an indirectly synthetical apodeictic proposition, such as the law of sufficient reason. Synonyms Precept, Tenet, etc. See doctrine.

Wiktionary

1. n. An authoritative principle, belief or statement of opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true regardless of evidence, or without evidence to support it.
2. n. A doctrine (or set of doctrines) relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth authoritatively by a religious organization or leader.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. That which is held as an opinion; a tenet; a doctrine.
2. n. A formally stated and authoritatively settled doctrine; a definite, established, and authoritative tenet.
3. n. A doctrinal notion asserted without regard to evidence or truth; an arbitrary dictum.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof
2. n. a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative