I find it a little strange that those who believe that governments screw up economies in every way imaginable can still follow today’s religions (mainly the “big 3”). Haven’t government and politics also screwed religion up enough to create skepticism about it as well? Or is there some original text that those who are against government have and/or believe in that others do not, that allow them to practice their faith without ever having to worry about government tampering with it? Maybe we could compare following today’s Christian faith to driving on a public road, for those who advocate for a stateless society? Sometimes you just have no choice. I don’t know. [:P]
Personally an apatheist with first principle deist leanings, but there are certain forms of Christianity such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites etc that do have a good record when it comes to opposition to war and the state in general. It ought also should be taken into consideration that as long as they don’t receive funds through coercion churches can provide an alternative to state institutions; in terms of education and charity for example. I’ll agree with you that most religions and religious people are in bed with the state, but it’s not inherently inconsistent to be religious and be against the state.
I’m more or less talking about the teachings of the actual religions themselves. For example, there are and have been many different versions of the Bible due to politics. Why would someone who is against the state read the King James version of the Bible and follow it, for example?
Faith faith faith faith faith faith faith faith everyone else around me is christian.
Me? I belong to the Cult of Zeus. Thunderbolts > floods, Hercules >> Jesus
I’m not really getting the connection here. Moreover, believing in God or reading the Bible does not necessarily make one religious in the sense that one doesn’t have to go to church and believe what everyone else believes just because one believes in God or reads the bible.
I’ve heard some convincing arguments to be made for the notion that the Render unto Caesar passage was a lot more radical in terms of anti-statism than most folks think .
I don’t know; part of me believes that religious institutions can provide alternative institutions to the state and they can give people some moral fiber while resisting the state. But another part does acknowledge that their record of supporting the state, equating opposition to the regime with opposition to God, living off taxpayers’ dollars, and for the most part preaching the notion (as Hitchens put it) of a deity who has a lot in common with Kim Jong-Il.
The part of the New Testament that strikes me as the most pro-anarchist is the one where the Devil promises Jesus reign over all the kingdoms of the Earth. Perhaps he was lying and did not have the power to give away the crowns. But what if he were telling Jesus the truth?
THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS (THE PENTABARF)
The PENTABARF was discovered by the hermit Apostle Zarathud in the Fifth Year of The Caterpillar. He found them carved in gilded stone, while building a sun deck for his cave, but their import was lost for they were written in a mysterious cypher. However, after 10 weeks & 11 hours of intensive scrutiny he discerned that the message could be read by standing on his head and viewing it upside down.
KNOW YE THIS O MAN OF FAITH!
I - There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess. There is no Erisian Movement but The Erisian Movement and it is The Erisian Movement. And every Golden Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm.
II - A Discordian Shall Always use the Official Discordian Document Numbering System.
III - A Discordian is Required during his early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday; this Devotive Ceremony to Remonstrate against the popular Paganisms of the Day: of Catholic Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism (no meat of Pork), of Hindic Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of animal), and of Discordians (no Hot Dog Buns).
IV - A Discordian shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns, for Such was the Solace of Our Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.
V - A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads.
IT IS SO WRITTEN! SO BE IT. HAIL DISCORDIA! PROSECUTORS WILL BE TRANSGRESSICUTED.
well, I have more “problems” with atheistic statists than religious anarchists (which I encountered very few). In my opinion State does more damage than fairy tales about gods. Though these too are not very mutually exclusive as they thrive on indoctrination from generation to generation.
But anyway, religion is usually personal thing, while advocating for a sate is…not so personal [:D]
As a Catholic anarchist I understand how ancaps get mad at people of faith, but I don’t think it’s necessarily think it’s faith that’s to blame. It seems to be political apathy. I’ve had many discussions with Catholic priests/sisters about politics and they really can’t come up with good reasons for believing in statism. The only thing I’ve come across is that Thomas Aquinas seemed to say the state was legitimate, but then I point out that Catholics today don’t believe everything he says because we’ve learned since then.
Religious anarchists are hard to come by since anarchy is not the natural state of thinking for most, so to question the need for a state also undermines other previously held beliefs.
Can you rephrase the first scentence please? Because as I’m reading it now it seems total gibberish.
If there’s a single thing that I think Nietzche got almost totally correct it was religeon, so let me make this very clear.
GOD IS DEAD AND WE HAVE KILLED HIM.
Ironically however I consider radicle agnoticism to be the only really logical position.
I’m sure the beliefs of the Church of Satan are widely libertarian in nature.
Why would you find it hard in the first place Morris? As far as I am concerned, a State that tampers with religious structures and doctrines does not naturally follow that a religion ought to be viewed with suspicion either, nor does it disprove it either (Unless the State originated the religion itself, as is the case of North Korea’s official religion ).
Odd demand you are making Jmorris. That a religious text condemns coercive governments or not is irrelevant. In case you don’t know, this is the sad reality of devoted Christians in China. The Communist Party of China does not permit ministers that are not approved by them, practically keeping some of the churches there under their thumb. And then you got the Clandestine Churches in China that refuse to obey the statutes of the Communist Party, many of them dying in the process. What devotee of any system of belief is NOT going to worry when you got a State going after you?
Eh… I dont really understand your analogy regarding those who are devotees to Christianity driving a public road, and also advocating a Stateless society. Can you clear up a bit?
I don’t get the hostility towards people who follow a religion and do their best to abide by the NAP. Are they really that threatening? I mean, a statist is a statist no matter their race, gender or religion.
Truth be told, the expression “Render unto Caesar what belong’s to Caesars and to God what belongs to God” was hardly an anti-statist expression (That’s the modernist reader inserting values that did not exist in that time period). The expression is declaring, to put it in our terms, “Because this coin has the face of the Caesar, lets get rid of this coin and be rid of it’s image amongst us!” An answer that cleverly satisfied Judaic separatist notions, yet at the same time, did not incur the wrath of Rome either, and in effect, leaving his questioners who challenged him with the question looking like idiots.
There was no such thing as Separation of Church and State in that era, or to put it in their terms (I hate anachronisms), no Separation of a religious system and a domain of a lord.
Some people do that.
Many do so so, your point? Pfftt, that comparison that Hitchens pulls off be nothing more than a Strawman of God, typical of Fundamentalist Atheists like Hitchens.
There is nothing pro-anarchist regarding Jesus’ rejection of lordship of the world, that’s you reading your own modernistic values and understanding in a text where no such values existed in it’s time period. Satan was not lying when he offered every kingdom on Earth, but what Satan did was the equivalent of offering a dime to a person that already owned billions and billions of dollars (It in effect, portrays Satan as a fool.). It’s a Shame and Riposte challenge, one that Satan lost miserably in the narrative. There is nothing anarchist about it (Jesus, as King, is going to retake the world either way by establishing his kingdom on Earth, making Satan’s offer all the more silly).
I’m a christian anarchist. The OP makes very little sense, and I’m not sure how to respond to it. Instead, I’ll say a few things to say about the relationship between christianity and anarchism.
First of all, christianity implies anarchism. Under the ethical system prescribed in the the Bible, States of any sort are immoral. This is explicitly stated in I Samuel 8. Moreover, many other passages have anarchist implications. “Do not steal” comes to mind. Acts 5:4, The parable of the vineyard, and the parable of the talents imply that people have the right to do as they please with their money. This right is incompatible with the existence of a state. Moreover, heaven and the garden of Eden (the biblical portrayal of perfection) are both stateless. Finally, freedom and individual responsibility are central to the message of the bible. These concepts that are impossible to reconcile with stateism.
The question of why there aren’t more christian anarchists is a tough one, I admit. I think it stems from several things. First, from the unfortunate tradition that the church (particularity the catholic church) has had with authoritarianism. I suppose the inference is that if the church can control people’s lives, then it’s okay for the State to do so as well. This view is supremely unbiblical, but it is perpetrated by those with religious authority, and it is unquestioned by their sycophantic drones. Secondly, the State is the result of, and the punishment for sin. This is also implied in 1 Samuel 8, as well as in the garden of Eden story. As soon as Adam sinned, God forcibly evicted them from the garden, and sent a coercive figure (an angel with a sword) to guard his private property. Yes, an angel is not a state, but it was a sign of things to come.
Heya bro, a couple observations here regarding some understandings you hold regarding Bible writ, and how it translates in Anarcho Capitalist Christian Ethos and values.
True, the OP was not exactly the shine of comprehension.
I disagree. Remember that the existence of Private Property does not mean an absence of Lords and Masters. In Property Rights terminology, the one who is proprietor of a thing is by definition, lord over that thing, and can do whatever he/she pleases with it, this includes land properties. If one wishes to work or live in the field in the private property of another, he/she must submit to the rules or laws the owner of that property has erected.
What the Israelites did in the narrative of 1 Samuel 8 has nothing to do with the evils of the State. What’s going on here is the equivalent of the employees of a company demanding the replacement of their boss, on the basis that their boss makes the company look weak against their competition, and they want a “stronger” looking boss that will make the company look more powerful. They allowed their concern with how the nations around them thought of them get the best of them, and wanted a warrior king to lead them in battle (So it can also hardly even be called coercive the demand of having a king in the first place! The Israelites knew damn well what was it in for them, but their sense of superficial honor got the best of them. They preferred the honor of men, instead of the honor of God). (Oh, and mind you that remember that honor-shame dialectic was the social dynamic that governed their behaviour, honor being defined as how others looked at you in positive fashion, whilst shame is others looking at you in a negative fashion).
Remember that the land that constituted ancient Israel was considered the private property of God himself, a point God stated in Leviticus 25:23. The Israelites themselves were never coerced to sign the contract either. The book of Deuteronomy is in truth a contract, a contract that Israelites willingly signed and were expected to honor (And you know as well as I do how they kept breaking the contract again and again and again, in contrast with God, who always kept His end of the bargain).
No objections here, but I would hardly have the “Do not steal” as exclusive to anarchism.
This was pretty much a given amongst ancients. He/She who is lord of a land, is lord of it, nuff said.
It is Stateless, but neither it is lordless. The Garden of Eden was still the private property of God, and Adam was merely it’s occupier, who still has to answer to God. (The expression, Image of God, in ancient thought, was an idiom of Representative of God. If memory serves, being the Image of a king in ancient thought conveyed that you were his representative, and thus, possessed his authority as well, examples of other ancient literature back this up).
I would hardly deem it the central message of Bible writ, that’s your own modernistic values being shoved in a text where none of it existed, at least, not in the terms that your thinking.
Firstly, freedom, as we conceive it, is never talked about in the Bible. The ancients had a completely different understanding of Freedom, it was understood like this (to cite Malina and Neyrey, Biblical Scholars of the Context Group):
“When ancient Mediterraneans speak of ‘freedom,’ they generally understand the term as both freedom from slavery to one lord or master, and freedom to enter the service of another lord or benefactor.”
Secondly, yes, there are verses that imply individual responsibility, but they are expressed in terms of being accountable to the in-group you belonged in (In the case of the Christians, the Church). The ancients were collectivists, and being accountable to the group you were in (family, clan, tribe, nation, etc), was what took precedence. Failure for being individually responsible meant that those within your in-group will suffer the consequences (welcome to the reality of corporate responsibility of the Ancient Middle East).
I don’t consider it tought at all, because I suspect that your average human being believes that States are a natural thing of humanity, at least that’s my take on it. In many ways it has cooperated with many authoritarian governments (in 19th Century Latinamerica, the State, together with the RCChurch, were concieved as being the enforcers of morality). But do not forget a huge deal of it’s oppositions towards authoritarianism as well (By the 20th, Latinamerican dictators deemed the RCChurch an incredible nuisance, and kicked them out of their affairs). For example, The very same Roman Catholic Church were opposed to the dictatorships that plagued Latinamerica in the 20th century, and many noble hearted priests were killed for it (And there were of many flavors. There were some with socialist orientation, but there were others who didn’t give a crap regarding political ideologies, and merely sought to defend communities, pure and simple).
I agree on this one as well.
The State the result of our sins? Well, I must admit you are half right regarding this matter. Because the masses are too foolish to recognize the irrationality that IS the State, and refuse to stop feeding the State apparatus with their taxes because they are too chicken to conceive of Stateless societies, they will get their rears handed to them, just as it happened in 1 Samuel 8. But I will hardly deem that this was implied in the Garden of Eden (The only thing it implied, Adam and Eve violated their end of the bargain in Eden, and God rightly exiled them out of Eden just as a Landlord, that instructed his tenant not to keep pets in the apartment, but did either way, and evicts the unfaithful tenant).
Not sure what Rabbinical or Biblical scholar would agree with this interpretation regarding what the angel represented… 0.o
The mass atheism we see today is a product of Marxian thought.
Can you elaborate a bit further on that?
Personally I am a Christian Voluntaryist. However, it’s sad that I rarely see writings in the Austrian Tradition on religion in particular (I found the section in the Literature section here and it looked so dead ). This thread has struck my attention massively in the case for applying Christianity in Austrian thought. Can anyone suggest specific readings/Biblical texts, etc. that show the libertarianism/anarchism in the Bible more thoroughly?
I remember there was this article as well:
^ Outlines very clearly the ideas of Christianity and Anarchism. I found it a nice read. Anybody have particular pieces of literature, however?
What I find interesting is that in the oldie, it is god who promises Abraham the very same thing for his progenitors. But somehow when gods does it its fine, but when satan does it its eeeeevil. Typical statist moral relativism.
Funny… I didn’t know Richard Dawkins was a marxist. [*-)]