Well of course they’re not identical: Rothbard didn’t talk about an after life, for example–but that’s basically the only significant difference. You apply Rothbardian ethics, which is rooted in natural law (one truth), as a guide to your life. People debate the “true teachings” of Rothbard, citing his works, calling those who don’t agree with his theories (their interpretations of his theories) evil. I don’t see how this differs, in kind, from the various debates between Islamic and Christian philosophers. The biggest difference between religion and various ideologies, as far as I can tell, is that the former says its code comes from God, and the latter says its code comes from nature.
Let me put it this way. Suppose an Alien comes to earth in order to study its religions. The alien comes across two individuals. One is in a church, praying at an altar, bible in hand, and the other has an image of Rothbard on his dress, holding “For a new liberty” in his right hand, citing directly from certain passages and condemning those who support the government as evil. What would the alien think?
Again, I’m not knocking your beliefs. But I’ve always found it rather peculiar that those who hate religion often embrace ideologies which resemble religion (like the Marxists, for example). [I’ve edited this comment a lot in order to avoid confusion].
There’s a difference between simply taking something on (A) belief and then taking something on (B) belief and intellectual principles. A person of belief can abandon all or some intellectual principles. A person of belief and intellectual principles hasn’t abandoned either one.
It’s okay, some are afraid of comparing ideologies to religions, & admitting that ideologies can resemble secular religions & end up feeling like a “nihilist” of some sort.
Well this is merely your own shallow interpretation of religion. There have been many intellectuals and philosophers who came to religion through reason. Frederick Copleston was not some fool who blindly accepted religion purely on faith. I’m not saying that religion doesn’t require a certain degree of faith. I’m saying that all ideologies require a certain degree of faith (many automatically dismiss Cartesian doubt, for example).
Nope, although I just realized how it looks regarding the post order :\ .
I meant that in general, ideologies can water down to secular religions or belief systems of sorts (i.e. compare to the establishment of the USA circa 1776 - 1800 & the understandings of it’s Constitution compared to say, now, with the general population).
I did kind of felt like you were giving a pass at ideologies being incapable of becoming secular religions, but it wasn’t entirely clear to me.
Nothing wrong with comparing ideologies to religions, or saying that some can resemble them, saying that they are always the same thing is the problem.
No, I was saying something else. I was pointing out that those devoted to for instance Marxism or the u.s. constitutional limited gov’t even though the theories has surpassed them with logical deduction that would be (1) that I was referred to in my previous post which was, if I remember correctly, faith that has abandoned some or all intellectual principles even though they are present and known by those of such faith. I wasn’t saying Rothbard or Mises don’t incorporate a value preference within their systems of thought, they obviously do. Theirs incorporate the most logically extended theories in certain regards that I know of presently, but theories are open to revision which I will discuss in this post.
I find the value (or moral) preference to be a given in any human action. What those values (or morals) are, are based on the individual’s own perspective content (which I read individual as natural liberty in this instance based on my paradigm). The logical extension aspect of human action and all that intellectually entails human nature, personally, I find valuable. I hold onto my moral, ie. spiritual view, and my intellectual view hand in hand and don’t separate them out as I am only one person acting.
Axioms and principles don’t change, but the theories cultivated from them do change, and my moral perspective can change too (if you label it my religion so be it I don’t think that’s arguably important in this context). Axioms and principles don’t work without theories and what is unchangeable in my view never hits the light of day or is acted in time unless those axioms and principles have a workable and corresponding theory that applies those axioms/principles. The intellectual view (that includes principles, axioms, and theories) is always revisable and it is the theory that revises, not the principles or axioms.
The absolutism of axioms/principles can not be projected into time and they stay conceptual - unless - there is a theory being applied with these absolutes. That’s why I don’t see the absolutes being changeable, even if one tried, it is humanly impossible to change them. Yet the theory corresponding to the absolutes do work in time and therefore are changeable. The logic doesn’t change, but what logic has to work with - the theories - does change, and each theory will be capable of a logical extension or logical refutation. The theory will be the theory (read: A will be A), but that logical insight will never be wrong/false - though - the theory the logic is being applied to can be wrong/false. And if something supposedly logical was found to be wrong/false, well, it was never logical to begin with and was illogical the whole time. Humans, in other words, are capable of making mistakes.