Can Atheists be Libertarians?
Can Atheists be Libertarians? (A series of questions with very few answers)
In order to believe that limited government allows for a harmonious society is it necessary to believe in God? When the limitations and constraints of bureaucracy have been removed from society what is to prevent chaos from reigning? How, without a system of applicable rules and regulations and a multitude of officials to enforce such protocols under the threat of force, could peace and justice ever take hold?
Is the good will of men strong enough to stave off greed, covetousness, manipulating and scheming?
Will the rule of the majority and the consensus of the group point towards benevolent goals or will a mob mentality arise wherever collectivism reigns?
Isn’t government necessary to tame the evils in society, to squelch injustice and encourage equality? Isn’t man a self-serving beast that needs to be controlled by laws and codes written down on paper? Isn’t government the very existence of good in society? Doesn’t society improve only as the government is able to regulate it for the better?
Without a far reaching and consistent bureaucracy to govern the affairs of men, who or what will?
If you are an atheist I’m not sure how you would answer these questions. It seems like so many atheists, having relinquished faith in a higher entity, have placed their faith in the order and control offered by government. Others have placed their faith in the multitudes. They feel certain that given time, the people will come to their senses. When the belief of atheism and the policy of Libertarianism are followed to their extremes, however, they seem to be competing.
If one is an atheist and places ones faith in the people, what happens if the majority of people decide to pool all resources and enact communism? What if the people declare that those in the minority, opposed to such measures, will be shot on site? It would seem that placing faith in the general public would not only be foolish but dangerous because it would enable such situations to arise.
In the vacuum of laws favored by Libertarians what is to prevent a state from forming that acquires the power to confiscate private wealth, imprison dissenters, and stifle once-held freedoms? Has America come to resemble such a state and does religion have anything to do with it?
Without man to govern man isn’t a higher power needed? Does the atheist recommend random chance as the power by which we’ll be governed? Or does he only propose a different set of laws to replace the current, outdated ones? Is it merely just a lessening of the laws that the atheist Libertarian is after?
If you abolish the income tax and the atheist is able to keep his money – what is to prevent him from enacting something detrimental to society?
My belief in a natural, divine order allows me to support Libertarianism without fretting over the potential ramifications. I believe that when government steps out of the way, the natural harmony that has been handed down by the creator will reign smoothly without interference from intermediaries. Those that stand against it will suffer in strife while those that live in accordance with it will prosper and enjoy the comforts of life. (Much like our current situation except that government has deemed itself a corrective force - doing battle with the results.)
Even if I were a pagan – I could be comfortable believing that the laws of nature will supplant the force of government. As a Buddhist I would feel confident that Kharma would reign supreme. I’m not sure if I’d be able to support Libertarianism without serious misgivings if I didn’t believe in any higher power whatsoever. Is it even possible to be an atheist and a Libertarian?
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One of the stupidest questions I've seen in a long time.
Not only can atheists be libertarians, you must realize that many capitalists (corporatists to be accurate) are atheists, Marx realized that capitalists are people who have no morals and exploit workers, anarchists are mostly atheist.
Of course, I don't expect a religious idiot who thinks only people stupid enough to believe in God can be moral, to think that only people who believe in God (or their version of it) can believe in freedom.
"The government should be afraid of its people, not the other way around".
> One of the stupidest questions I've seen in a long time.
< really? obviously you've not been following adamadamr on this forum. this is hardly the stupidest thing from him.
"Our friend in the Northwestern US will
not quit --- it is best to attempt to steer clear RPaulican"
Actually, the argument gets stale pretty fast. I just happened to have a little extra time these days, avoiding what I should be working on.
I notice you keep coming back to the thread.
I also noticed that nobody is willing to take up my very simple challenge -- ten "laws" and the god who made them...
Bright future for America... I can see that.
"Your statement, "there isn't a shred of evidence suggesting our beginning came from a "God" other than a dusty old book filled with nonsense," seems to indicate that you believe that if strict interpretation of the world based on Holy Scripture can be proved wrong, then the whole concept of God and anything else in those Scriptures is equally fallacious. E.g., if empirically we can say that there never was a flood in Mesopotamia, then the rest of the Old Testament sinks with that.
Obviously, not true. At least in the case of the Old Testament and New Testament, the "Bible" as we think of it, is composed of different books by different authors living in different time periods with different intents. "
Ahhh yes, but the dusty old book makes the claim that it is all true, and that the author is god.
You're right, having the dusty old book be not true does not automatically make the claim "there is no god" true, but it does make the Christian claim that they know what god "intends" a blatant and obviously lie.
Next time you hear a Christian on TV telling you who to vote for, remember, you are staring at a liar and respond accordingly.
Methinks Adam needs some nice music to go with his invisible spaceman morality?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzfEXb9S9iw&feature=related
"2: to annoy with persistent or urgent approaches (as attacks, pleas, or importunities) : pester"
Oh yes! I like this one. "To annoy"...
We musn't annoy those who wish to take their unified delusion and use it as a political tool to elect a "tool" like G W Bush.
We mustn't annoy those who wish to point at a dusty old book to make declarations as to what is and what is not "proper behavior".
We mustn't annoy those who claim to not only know that a god exists, but claim to know the intent of that god and wish for everyone else to follow them in their claim.
We mustn't annoy those who point to a book containing the promotion of slavery and genocide and death penalties for working on "the sabbath" and proclaim they have found morality.
Holy Crap! We should not be annoying now. That would be a sin.
I choose the word nutjobberdoodoohead because it is the best description I can come up with for someone who claims they know the intent of a diety they claim to know. I use it on people who believe in talking snakes and giant arks and dancing dead people. I use the word to describe people who believe a body can come back from the dead after being dead for three days. I use the word on people who believe in virgin births and afterlifes and places for souls to go to be punished, and for people who believe that bodies "ascend" (into space? They blow up in space!)
It is a good word, actually. And it fits perfectly. Maybe you have a better word?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-ZrwFwLQg
I like this man's take on religion...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-ZrwFwLQg
"Personally I think it is cowardly to criticize any religion. People tend to criticize that which they don't understand."
Why cowardly? Is it cowardly to criticize Communism? Statism? Consumerism? Egomaniacalism?
When people claim they know something they cannot know, when they claim that things transpired that cannot be true, and when they purport to "know" the motivation and desires behind that which they've fabricated and attempt to use that proclaimed knowledge to dictate political decision-making, then... I'd say... (I'm only taking a stab at this mind you...) that they might be a wee bit deserving of criticism.
Pat Condell lives in a country that REQUIRES its citizens to pay taxes to the church, btw.
Pronunciation:
\ˈkau̇(-ə)rd\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French cuard, from cue, coe tail, from Latin cauda
Date:
13th century
: one who shows disgraceful fear or timidity
— coward adjective
Cowardly yes, maybe not for the criticism so much as the persecution. So I said criticism and that was the wrong word to use... I'm beginning to get irritated and typing faster than thought I guess. I see persecution as cowardly because one feels they must have some sort of power over another. I tend to seek those who want for that type of power as weak. That's just me though.
“There is more benefit from speaking out imperfectly than remaining perfectly quiet.”
~ Jahfre Fire Eater http://alphavilledecoder.org/
Ronpaulican, do you believe that it is always wrong to oppose people in their beliefs, or do you think that sometimes you have to stand up for what you know is right? Pat Condell doesn't want to see women in England being treated as second class citizens just because certain lobby groups within the Muslim community are demanding Sharia court alternatives to the British legal system. We in America don't want our tax dollars going to pay for teaching creationism in schools. If we did nothing, for fear of appearing ethnocentric or arrogant, or for fear of offending Muslims or Christians, I think that would be very cowardly, and would do a real disservice to the victims of those religions.
I am in no way advocating the use of force. You were talking about persecution, but it's you can't persecute someone or exercise power over them by just disagreeing with them. That being said, sometimes it is good to have power. Just laws protect people, but they are no good if they cannot be enforced. If you saw someone hurting an innocent person, would you rather have the power to stop them, or not? I am certainly glad that the laws in Great Britain and in America still for the most part favor Western secular values, and I will continue to speak up for these values that I know are better than the alternatives.
It is the name calling and the generalizations that are troubling me. I like a good disagreement as much as the next guy. I choose to try to make my oppositions based on my beliefs without insult to any of their's. Just laws are fine, and Claire you have always been more respectful than Awesomo and Scott. I have seen them call religious people or actions names, but I haven't seen you do it. I guess I am only trying to point out that if you take the right of the individual to speak out or work in favor of their religion, then what is next? Kinda like it's fine when it is some one else's belief but when they come for yours.... For the most part I'm Agnostic, I don't know maybe Agnostic Theist, but I'll be danged if I try to tell anyone else what's right for them. That's why I defend all religion. I have so many family members and friends who have faith in God that I love and respect so I take offense for them.
I agree with you that our tax dollars should not be used to push creationism in public schools, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be rude to all religious people because of it. I would explain simply that that is not something that the government should decide. I wouldn't go off saying God is silly bs or nutjobbery. That's what my main issue is here, ad hominem attacks. I don't care if people are atheists and I don't see why they care so much that others are religious.
“There is more benefit from speaking out imperfectly than remaining perfectly quiet.”
~ Jahfre Fire Eater http://alphavilledecoder.org/
"I don't care for the actions of those individuals either and I agree they are hypocritical. I still blame the people and not the religions."
Ummm, the religions cause the behavior.
They all teach obedience without reason. Reason is what creates the morals to not behave like animals. Religions teach the opposite, contrary to the claims of the religious. If you are taught that "faith" and servitude are moral, you will get unreasonable, servile people.
People who do not think they have the ability to reason, stop reasoning (just look at Adam). When you stop reasoning, you stop acting reasonable.
Clear as the sunshine...
"Please don't waste your time arguing as(previous threads have displayed)arguing over faith is futile."
Ahh yes. Declare the "truth" to be something nobody can agree on, then run away. Nevermind that truth is not based on "faith", but based on the same rationality and reason and logic that produced the "rights" you were trying to find the source of.
I can understand your confusion now. You DON'T possess rationality and reason and logic, therefore you don't understand how they function.
Here are a few truths to ponder.
Faith=wishful thinking
Faith=willful ignorance
Faith=woeful self-delusion
Faith=wanton lying
If there are words that belongs in the "immoral" category, "faith" would be one of them.
It is very unbecoming of you Adam, to hide behind such a wicked word.
"This is where you take your influence from? What is the world coming to?"
Ummm, no. I just know Pat gives a succinct opinion worth listening to.
I've been anti-religious since I lived in Jerusalem as a small child. I lived in an Arab apartment building, went to a Catholic school, and crossed fences to get into the Jewish zone where fundie Jews threw rocks at our UN jeep as we drove through their neighborhoods. As Americans, we snuck out the back door while a war came in through our apartment building in some form of a bomb blast. Our jeep was destroyed in an explosion and the DC-3 pops flew had a wing blown off...
You might say, I got an early start in the lunacy of religion thing, and am unduly impressed by anyone's claim that "morals" come from one of the three sand religions, or that goofy Mormon abomination.
After Jerusalem, we settled in the Bay Area just north of San Francisco. Gays from "religious" parts of the country were common, as they were chased out of their hometowns by loving religious folks. Some told stories of having been beaten by their Christian parents. SOme were simply beaten by a loving congregation.
We used to have our Southern Baptists relatives come out and visit, but we stopped inviting them when they would make fusses about eating in restaurants with either "those gays or niggers". These were my good Christian relatives. The ignorant ones.
There were lots of other runaway types too. I knew a woman who ran from her Mormon father, because he would beat her everyday she refused to pray. California is full of religious refugees from some of the more "moral" parts of the country, you see...
So, that gets me up to the age of twelve.... Still no sign of Pat Condell. Shall we talk about what obscene things I've seen religion DO since then? Want to do a body count?
Yes, I too think "What is the world coming to?"
I don't care for the actions of those individuals either and I agree they are hypocritical. I still blame the people and not the religions.
“There is more benefit from speaking out imperfectly than remaining perfectly quiet.”
~ Jahfre Fire Eater http://alphavilledecoder.org/
When you boil it all down, atheists should be Libertarian leaning. If one does not believe in a god, why should they believe in a fairy tale government that loves them? Athiests tend to be smart, critical thinking type people (the reason they arrived at their disbelief) and if they take that same philosophy and apply it to governmental questions, they would wind up in the Libertarian camp.
What's that you say? You want to pray to an invisible man or sacrifice a goat to your lord? Whatver man, just do it over there on your land and keep it the hell away from me.
How much more Libertarian can you get?
Please note, I mean the average person that just doesn't believe, not those whose religion is atheism. Evangelical atheists that insist that if you do believe, you are a dangerous idiot and not worth listening to. They are worse in my opinion than the biblethumping 'my church is better than your church' guys.
Also, some famous atheists have also stated they are Libertarian:
Penn Jillette (Penn and Teller)
Bill Maher (however his Libertarian credentials are shaky at best)
just to name the two on the tip off my tongue
seems to be populated by many "evangelical atheists" That is a very accurate term!
I have neither the time nor the patience to read through other people's responses and make an all-encompassing, brilliant, and no-doubt Pulitzer Prize winning response that finally determines the answer to every single one of your questions and the questions of these worthy responders.
Hell, I hardly have time or patience to read the entirety of the original post. So, AAR, just thank your lucky stars that an illustrious thinker such as yours truly has taken what little time and patience he has to acknowledge your questions worthy enough for his meagre response.
I only want to answer personally, which isn't a cover designed to protect me from criticism but rather it is all I know. What did the philosopher-dude Sokrates say? "All I know is that I know nothing." Well I guess this is something like that.
I believe that our liberties and rights descend from the fact that the Creator gave us life. That belief causes me to grow annoyed at the phrase "the government has granted the right to x, y, and z..." I don't think it's just semantics - how we construct grammar reveals how we construct our reality. That phrase betrays the sense that the government is the arbiter of what our rights are and who deserves them. This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, it is not even the Constitution which is the originator of these rights, as its amendments admit that the rights of the people are not limited to that document alone.
It is the Creator, whoever He is, that has granted us freedoms and right. Of course, this makes the line of what we are entitled to and what we are not entitled to a rather subjective matter. In practice, it is the government who decides what rights exist - but I think that this is just a byproduct of our imperfection, insofar as we cannot completely discern all of our rights 100% of the time. But it remains that government does not create our rights, it only rightly or wrongly interprets what rights we have.
So rights are inherent to humanity, and therefore exist for all people in every culture and period of time. But I can see how atheists can side-step my interpretation. They could very well say that rights are inherent to human-ness, and that this does not require a higher being or Creator. This would be an anthropocentric view on an issue that I have spun theocentrically.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
for your reply
>>It is the Creator, whoever He is, that has granted us freedoms and right.
And what is this creator going to do if our rights are violated? What is he doing for all those whose rights are violated on a daily basis all around the world? Must we wait for the afterlife for all these victims to be vindicated? Should we count on the fear of god keeping evil dictators (many of whom are theocrats) in line? Or do we just get on with it, put questions of God aside, fight for the rights we know we possess, regardless of how we came to posess them, and strive to educate those who are less enlightened?
I did not say that the Creator will do anything or stick up for us if our rights are violated. Your critique is slightly modified version of "if there is a God, why is there suffering?" Clearly we have been endowed with free will - whether you think that free will stems from our Creator or just innate humanity sans Dieu - and we often exercise this free will in the most horrific ways that we can think of.
Rather, I agree with you that regardless of how we come to believe in our rights, that they need to be fought for. My theocentric interpretation of the origin of rights does not seem to be pressing as I am unwilling to press it on others or attempt to make it logically exclusive of an atheistic or anthropocentric interpretation of the origin of rights. On the other hand, I can barely stand those anti-religion and anti-God sorts of persons, who seem equally as tyrannical as any theocrat or "mind-controlling" priest.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
Well said. Regardless of our creation, even though there isn't a shred of evidence suggesting our beginning came from a "God" other than a dusty old book filled with nonsense, we are cognitive, conscious, beings with emotion and feeling and because of such we have developed a sense of morality that gives respect to rights that we would want for ourselves so we allow them for others because of this.
As I said earlier, our ability to think logically that has developed much of our morality. Religion has been around since the dawn of man, and it wasn't until recently in history that we developed an appreciation for individual freedom, where was your God a thousand years ago? What about five hundred years ago? Where were these rights we were born with?
I would love to hear Adam answer these questions philosophically with respect to only facts and observations that can be repeatable, testable, and observable, I do not want to waste my time arguing over pseudo-science.
Gail,
Your statement, "there isn't a shred of evidence suggesting our beginning came from a "God" other than a dusty old book filled with nonsense," seems to indicate that you believe that if strict interpretation of the world based on Holy Scripture can be proved wrong, then the whole concept of God and anything else in those Scriptures is equally fallacious. E.g., if empirically we can say that there never was a flood in Mesopotamia, then the rest of the Old Testament sinks with that.
Obviously, not true. At least in the case of the Old Testament and New Testament, the "Bible" as we think of it is composed of different books by different authors living in different time periods with different intents. It was not meant to be cohesive, and therefore if one part is scientifically incorrect then it does not follow that all other parts are incorrect both physically and metaphysically.
Furthermore, scientific and physical veracity never ranked high on the list of priorities for the writers of these books, who were exploring the depths of their soul, and the soul of their people and religious sect, in an often honest pursuit of truth.
Your critique also seems to extend to "dusty old books" in general. Dusty old books are the basis of Western civilization - from the Hebrew Tanakh to Greek and Roman poetry, historiography, and philosophy, to Christian hagiography to Islamic science, to modern literature. Dusty old books contain important ideas and beautiful literature, much of which is still pertinent today.
Secondly, you said, "Religion has been around since the dawn of man, and it wasn't until recently in history that we developed an appreciation for individual freedom, where was your God a thousand years ago?" I have this response to that statement:
It does not logically follow that if God is the originator of our rights that He is the guarantor of our rights. Similarly, because the Constitution is the guarantor of our rights does not mean that it is the originator of our rights.
We have free will and we exercise it as such, without constraint from God (well, at least so long as we are on this earth). Other humans, in more powerful uses of their will, have restrained the freedom of men.
-dommy
http://dinodinodino.wordpress.com
"facts and observations that can be repeatable, testable and observable" with religion which is a matter of faith
Please don't waste your time arguing as(previous threads have displayed)arguing over faith is futile.
I am not arguing faith, I just wanted to be certain that faith was left out of this discussion, that is why I set those terms. I am talking about 300+ years ago where religion was present yet libertarianism wasn't and we found very unsatisfactory living conditions, please discuss this.
for a discussion --- perhaps you should post a new thread :)
I have a couple problems with your "terms" as I don't think libertarianism is a recent invention (past 300 years). I think the idea of "live and let live" has been around for as long as society has existed and it has probably been in conflict with those individuals who band together to assert their collective rights as a group over individuals.
I also wouldn't pit libertarianism against faith in comparison as I think they belong to different spheres.
Also, you'd have to be specific about living conditions from 300 years ago. certainly there was a small fraction of government regulation in most societies compared to now. The digital international grid is capable of monitoring people's transactions at virtually anyplace in the world at any time. nothing like that has existed before in terms of a threat to personal freedoms. How does this affect our standard of living?
I'm not really sure what you had in mind -- but I think the terms you set are too vague and far reaching to deal in anything but large scale generalizations. Is there something specific you had in mind?
Also, why, may I ask, are you asking me? I don't present myself as an authority on world history from 3 centuries ago. Perhaps there is someone else whom you should ask?
If you're are making the observation that standards of living have improved over 300 years I'd have to agree for the most part --- at the same time -- if you consider things like access to fresh drinking water, access to clean air, access to unpollutted soil, you could make an argument that many measures of our standard of living have improved while some have declined.
Anyhow, do you mean to say that because science has made progress in our society that this refutes the existence of a creator? I'm not really sure where you are going with this.
It sounds kind of like an invitation to continue a debate that was exhausted in the creation vs evolution thread. If so, I'm not interested as I think those arguments have been thoroughly considered
You said it for me Adam, you said that they belong to two different spheres, so why the article at all? Obviously if they have nothing to do with each other, clearly atheists can easily be libertarian. I was just making a point suggesting that God nor any other religion has had anything to do with the rise of the libertarian ideology.
your comment or before?
Liberty and freedom are innate. The moment you think atheist are heathens is the moment you can admit you've been totally brainwashed and need to be reprogrammed.
You aren't better because you believe in God. That whole thinking is the freaking point. We are all equal! Your organized religion gives you a disadvantage you have to overcome the bullshit that 's been programed in your head. At least the atheist comes in clean.
I am dumber for having read your post!