http://www.garynorth.com/public/508.cfm gary north says the bible has all the answers
the market does not have the answers
god has the answers
following gods answers for the market is the answer
Against my better judgment I’ll continue to engage you.
Speaking as somebody who as long considered the relationship between libertarianism and the belief in God, I can assure you that there is no reason to assume a lack of intelligence or an inconsistency in christian anarchism. Many anarchists I respect a great deal are also Christians, and if you talked to me a few months ago I would probably also self identify that way.
However, I have yet to hear of a single libertarian or anarchist christian who simply says “whatever god says” as that clearly is open to a wide range of mutually exclusive interpretations. Its fine if you think God talks to you directly and you think he has told you the perfect system of government/nongovernment, but don’t pretend that that means anything to anybody else. You may as well say “it’s clearly written in the clouds. Can’t you read?”
In this thead, and only in this thread, Cab gets to tell us all about his thoughts religion.
Am I allowed to question the existence of god here so long as I am not directly insulting?
crap, this pobably means I’m over-modding.
You can question whatever anywhere and not be polite - so long as you aren’t abusive.
Cab is either obviously trolling and being a dick (which I think is true), or in F4me territory, that’s why I made this thead
Actually, this is an interesting thread because I get to ask a question I had been wondering about.
I’ve seen a quote on Reddit’s atheism subreddit by North which said something like “America must be a Christian nation and there is no space for any other blah blah.” You get the idea. Highly Christian-nationalist. What’s up with that? Ever since I read that quote I’ve been hesitant to send people Gary North articles from Mises lest they respond with “isn’t that some crazed Christian wacko” and ignore any logic ge might be presenting.
why is talking about religion, trolling or being a dick?
calling gary north a crazed christian wacko does not seem so nice to gary north and work to give us blueprints.
Gary North is a Reconstructionist (he son-in-law to R.J. Rushdoony). Reconstructionists seek to “usher in” a theocracy which is a thousand-year reign of the literal, physical Jesus Christ on Earth. North is a fair-weather friend of the libertarian movement merely as a tactical maneuver against the Estabilshment. The long-term goal is theocracy.
So, yeah. I am puzzled by Lew Rockwell’s choice to prominently feature Gary North articles.
Clayton -
Well, I’m a Heathen reconstructionist (different use of the term reconstruction) and I think this entire thread is going to be filled with lol r u srs? and various facepalms.
http://lewrockwell.com/block/block206.html walter block on christians
And again, it doesn’t matter if these stories are true or not. I of course don’t think they are, but I can’t understand for the life of me how person can be any sort of libertarian at the same time he not only believes, but praises, someone (God) like that. That God doesn’t exist actually makes it worse, because that means the believers at least hope these stories are true. I’m rather interested in understanding how the same person can abhor human violence and tyranny while praising godly violence and tyranny.
http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2009/12/religious-libertarian.html
Re: Theonomy — Think of it: Christians by definition believe in God. God by definition is omniscient and omnipotent, and therefore sovereign. God’s law therefore reigns supreme over all. Theonomy is by definition the state of being governed by God. Therefore, all humans are theonomists in fact, even if they don’t admit it, and all true Christians admit it.
Someone can believe 1 + 1= 2 AND C comes after F in the English alphabet. Who gives a rats ass about “C after F” when we are talking about “1 and 1”? Or if that isn’ta good anaology I can “seriously” believe that vanilla is better than chocolate,even when my own logic I enspouse puts it in the “who gives a shit” category.
Most who citique such romantic sentimentality are just as much, or worse of a romantic, Platonist, mystic, and useless fool as the person they citique.
disregard this post. I misread you
REDO:
You seem to have an obsseive "one track mind"nature that is condusive to derailing threads
why is talking about religion, trolling or being a dick?
Because from what I have noticed no one knows if you are serious or offering a legit (sacastic?) citicism of something. Perhaps there is al anguage barrier or something, but your posts are less than clear if you are offering legit, on topic dissent from the threads at hand.
If you show me to be wrong, or say English is not your 1st languange, I owe you an apology
PS: This is William the Mod.
i think the belief is f comes after c teaches us 1+1=2
i think the connection is methodology to moral authority.
it creates different ways to get to 1+1=2
the axioms of god vs no god seem to make a difference
it would take more than just repeating some conclusions, but going into the whole methodology behind those conclusions, which takes a lot more time.
First, this humble Libertarian article is a little old. Wes Messamore is a very dear personal friend of mine (like we drink beer together on the weekends kind of friend). I can tell you that he is now a full fledged AnCap; a characteristic not evident in this article.
Second, you are half right that (some) Christians (myself included) believe that God governs the Earth. But so irrelevant is this idea when talking about praxeology and libertarianism. I’ve lightly touched this idea recently in a couple of other threads, and I’ve tried to made it perfectly clear that if you reject my faith I totally honor and respect that. The reason I bring this up is because it seems like it has become more and more common for people on these forums to post questions asking how Christians can be libertarians or AnCaps. One’s faith is totally irrelevant.
I think it is also important to note that it is true that Libertarian Christians are a minority in the faith. 99.999999% of American Christians are Neo-conservative war-mongers in my opinion. I think the bible has fallen into the hands of some evil people, many claiming to be Christians, and they have perverted it by means of misleading translation, poor contextual insight, poorer interpretation, and obviously even the selection of the books in the canon differ from denomination to denomination. My kind of theology is hardly recognizable to the mainstream Christian, and not just because of my politics.
Basically, I do not see any reason why Christians cannot be libertarians (as many others on these forums have also noted) and I would be happy to entertain an opposing position on this assertion in friendly debate. I think it would actually be rather fun and insightful for both parties.
i think i have just seen so much of the argument that god is the only moral authority from Christians that i’m having some wonder about the interpretations and dontrine of the Christian ancap side. my experience with Christians has been all kinds from left to right, and it seems like i find passages and interpretations that are used for most any position. i think one separation could be people that call the bible infallible vs more liberal interpretations.
probably what would help is reading about some Christian ancap theology and what doctrines are there. from translation, to context, to interpretation, i think that would give me a clearer picture.
right now, probably because of the Christianity versions i am more familiar with, it seems hard to understand why gods authority would not be relevant to a libertarian discussion. ethics seems tied to authority that would either come from rational thought, god, the minds of men. i see these Christians in debates always turn to without god there would be nihilism and no moral ground or authority for anyone to stand on.
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/03/can-a-*christian*-be-an-*anarchist*.html here is a example of gods authority vs atheist nihilism from Robert p Murphy
Indeed it’s precisely because of my Christian worldview that I can level such a strong charge against the State. I can say, “This organization facilitates widespread injustices that are offensive to God, and therefore I cannot in good conscience support it.” In contrast, an atheist libertarian is going to have a much harder time to distinguish his objections from merely claiming, “Hey, I personally don’t like how this is going, so stop it.”
Even though you did not write this statement you are using it to justify your argument:
Indeed it’s precisely because of my Christian worldview that I can level such a strong charge against the State. […] In contrast, an atheist libertarian is going to have a much harder time to distinguish his objections from merely claiming, “Hey, I personally don’t like how this is going, so stop it.”
Elaborate how an atheist cannot distinguish one’s objections making a claim about what he may or may not support. Does an atheist not have a worldview?
Cab, how do you know that god exists?
my argument is " there are Christians that say moral authority comes from god, and not from man". with robert murphys statement, it appears he is using that argument. my argument is also " morality is important to the foundation of anarchy capitalism". it looks like some say " because of gods moral authority, i can make a argument for anarchy capitalism". this makes the question of gods existence a important one, if people are going to base their moral authority on it and say atheists would not have the moral authority when supporting anarchy capitalism.
the elaboration is something that i am curios to hear from the Christian anarchy capitalist, as the necessity of god’s moral authority claim seems to be their claim.
“this makes the question of gods existence a important one”
So what is the answer to this question?
the three answers i have seen so far are yes, no, and maybe with variants of yes, but not that one, or yes, but not interpreted that way. so far i’m at god is made in the mind of man as a tool and defence mechanism