I know that these sorts of debates might be important to religious/quasi-religious people, but I think it is pretty silly from a non-believer viewpoint. Religions are a collection of wisdom tales, priesthoods, political motives, long-forgotten analogies, myths, legends and self-referencing theological debates. There are things in them that are true, things that are false, things that are just plain nonsense.
You can make an argument that practically any religion is, or is not, libertarian. This is because they are nothing but elements of popular and intellectual belief, a product of the culture. As most cultures are fairly libertarian in small groups and not very libertarian about outsiders or taboo breakers this is exactly how most religions are.
The only really libertarian religion would be Jainism, and even that’s only libertarian by the fact that Jainists don’t belive in using force against anyone, even people who use force in self-defense. I think that the Raelian faith is the only one that is explicitly pro-capitalist and pro-technology, and they seem to consist 90% of Asians who love sex orgies and UFOs.
I’ve always struggled to see how anyone could have any spiritual pretentions worth considering and be free market oriented, or even a libertarian (whatever that means); I mean it is all tied to egoism, materialism, and biological narratives with a dash of technocracy and cosmopolitanism if viewed correctly… but whatevs
I mean it is all tied to egoism, materialism, and biological narratives with a dash of technocracy and cosmopolitanism if viewed correctly… but whatevs
Probably why about half the Raelians I know are libertarians.
But I can see why religious people are libertarian; fringers who take their religion seriously and give it a libertarian spin for whatever reason.
Probably why about half the Raelians I know are libertarians.
That’s an interesting unexpected statement on a few levels for me. ( I mean it is odd for someone to know a raelian, much less be able to make the statement “half the realians I know”). Though I guess I just know the really quick stereotypes of that stuff, as it is really beyond my radar of concern. Though the psychiatry stuff that got filtered hrough the mass media always struck me at least as something with a point.
Also, Katie Holmes is from my home town and lived on the same block as me. Her mom still lives on the same block as my mom. Trivia.
But I can see why religious people are libertarian; fringers who take their religion seriously and give it a libertarian spin for whatever reason.
Also, the first thing I think of when I hear the word Realin is from the video game Xenosaga, I wonder if there was a connection they were trying to make?
I don’t know, a friend of mine played the game but I never did.
Raelians are really easy to find on the internet. They’re flamers about it, with pictures of their Swastika beds and 14 half-naked friends. Funny group of people, I started talking to them because of my interest in nuclear power, transhumanism and capitalism. Most of them are avid about the first two and tolerant or better of the third; which makes them better than 90% of the rest of the people ideologically - even on a logical level, aliens is way less of a crazy theory than mystical being which has no definable characteristics.
If you make the case that all religion is ultimately reducible to culture, then of course the practice of religion is not libertarian. However, even if religion were reducible to culture, it still would not follow that no religion is libertarian. You’re confusing a religion’s tenets with the actions of its followers. Its tenets may be wholly libertarian, but its followers may be totally inconsistent.
Anyway, all of this is just circular. You have to assume that all religion is reducible to culture in order to make the argument that no religion is libertarian (which doesn’t follow). So obviously this works if you’re ‘preaching to the choir’, but if you’re intent on accomplishing more, then you’re going to have to do a bit better than that.
Religion is culture, though a certain somewhat ossified substrate of culture. It’s the same as any codified or semi-codified relic, such as Roman law. The entire preamble to the Byzantine Empire’s legal code is libertarian and then it goes nuts after that. Religion is the same way. The various Mosaic traditions, inaccurately called ‘the ten commandments’, are pretty libertarian but then there is all that stuff about stoning people and whatnot.
None of it is totally libertarian because no culture has been totally libertarian.
It’s frustrating that any discussion on religion becomes an excuse for many libertarian’s to temporarily ignore their normal rigor in the employment of reason. Theist bashing I guess is just too un-resistable for them. At any rate, great post Mr Schnapps, nice to see someone post somethign that actually makes sense here.
That’s what I mean about preaching to the choir. Unless you’re already an atheist, you’ve given no compelling reasons to accept any of your argument, since it relies on assumptions not granted by your opponents.
So unless this post was just meant to reiterate something that was fully implicit in atheism anyway, then it’s trivial, but if it was intended to add any new information, then it’s invalid since it begs the quesiton.
It’s frustrating that any discussion on religion becomes an excuse for many libertarian’s to temporarily ignore their normal rigor in the employment of reason. Theist bashing I guess is just too un-resistable for them. At any rate, great post Mr Schnapps, nice to see someone post somethign that actually makes sense here.
I’m not ‘theist bashing’, I think religion is metaphysical nonsense and what is good in the major religions is all just Stoic and Epicurean anyways. My point was to address people who don’t believe in magic, whatever their thoughts on particular religions are. You see lots of non-believers arguing whether Buddhism is libertarian and whatnot, and I think the answer is obviously, ‘no, but if you cherry pick you can find things libertarians would accept’.
For the theistic side I find the whole debate pointless, since most of them have no idea the content or history of the Bible or the various churches. Catholicism is a slap-dash of various Gnostic and Marsianite sects with Judaic Christianity in there for fun, to pretend there is any kind of single doctrine - even today - is just ridiculous.
It’s frustrating that any discussion on religion becomes an excuse for many libertarian’s to temporarily ignore their normal rigor in the employment of reason. Theist bashing I guess is just too un-resistable for them. At any rate, great post Mr Schnapps, nice to see someone post somethign that actually makes sense here.
I think because we don’t view it as a “thing”, it is a “non thing” or an aesthetical taxonomy; to me it is like going on about human, man, good, or whatever as this “thing in itself” that can be discussed with any coherent sense outside of its scientific taxonomy. You can not do it, it is the “wrong language”, and if it was the “right language” what the hell type of God are you worshiping? He would sound like some uber Hobbesian space alien or something.
With the exception of Biblical critics, debating religious believes is usually pointless; my original post had to do with the actual content and history of religious traditions and I am not going to talk theology (which, as Walter Kaufmann points out, should be called ‘theosophy’).
Metaphysically and philosophically, it boils down to (slightly over simplified) minimizing the negative and maximizing the positive. The time I spent learning about and practicing the religion years ago, it seemed to me that there was far greater emphasis on minimizing one’s own negative impact on the world. In the absence of it, positivity and harmony would naturally flourish–becoming a self perpetuating process after a certain point. Bhuddhsit are renown for being decidedly non-aggressionist or coersive.
Given the above, so long as you do not harm others in any way, it adheres to a live and let live principle. I can’t imagine what is more libertarian than that.
When considering these points I have to ask you, and I think there could be a bit more clarification. Are you saying that culture is not fully libertarian because of religion? Or because of culture itself? IE Does religion keep culture from being libertarian? Or is it culture itself?
You can’t cry fowl when you write a post that inherently is asking for debate, and then just fall back on ad hominems when you don’t feel like meeting the burden of proof that goes along with the sorts of claims that you’re making.
You just don’t get to say that “No Religion is Libertarian” and then claim that every response is just invoking theosophy. Conversely, for me to start a thread entitled “Atheists disbelieve in God because of X, Y, Z psychological reasons” and then libel everyone who attempted to engage me would be childish, wouldn’t it? Where exactly did you get the idea that you could shrug off the burden of proof like that?
“Religions are a collection of wisdom tales, priesthoods, political motives, long-forgotten analogies, myths, legends and self-referencing theological debates.”
This is “all religion is” if you don’t believe it in the first place. For people that adhere to a particular religious belief system it might be some of these things as well as the truth claims of their belief system.
These sorts of statements are a priori acceptable if one already doesn’t believe. To a religious person, they are not.
