Religious anarchists; please explain

Miscellaneous General
1

In my experience, free market thought is almost always coincided with atheist thought. But at lewrockwell.org as well as in the introduction thread here on the mises forum, I find quite a few people who are Christian and anarchist. Although I do recognize that they are a vastly different creed of Christians, they are still Christians.

Let me quote Joseph Campbell on this:

The above quote intends to show that both theism (metaphors are facts) as well as the reactionary position of atheism (those facts are not facts and thus lies) are not quite getting it. It introduces the idea that metaphors are in fact metaphors and their function is to penetrate us to the mystery. Could it be that the Christian anarchists are actually metaphorical Christians, or do you believe that God, Jesus, Satan, heaven, hell, etc. are facts; and not to be confused with metaphors. Because if that is the case then I think we have a problem on our hands, because the purpose of knowledge is to understand, describe, explain and predict reality, which religious speak - as facts - do not do.

2

Do you want the religious anarchists to answer how their religion coincides with their beliefs in an anrcho-capitalist society?

Or do you want the religious anarchists to justify why their religion is factual?

Just a little confused from how your post played out.

3

When I first read it, I thought this is going to be reconciling christianity (teachings of the bible) with anarchy (absence of government). It is usually assumed that christians have to subscribe to some kind of government (Romans 13).

4

I think that rational anarchists that are still Christian/religious still have some layers of cognitive dissonance to peel away. I think the decision as to whether or not they still hang on depends on their answer to this question:

Can man use reason to know all there is to know, or is there an off-limits realm that can only be known through revelation?

I agree with you that rational knowledge should describe and predict tangible reality and should be duplicable. Religion has none of this.

5

Statists aren’t atheists, they worship the State as their source of morality, prosperity, and faith.

The god of Abraham has always been a metaphor for anarchy. Authority has always been rooted in superstition, monotheism was an attack on nation-states.

6

Wasn’t it Saint Thomas Acquinas who founded the thought process of praxeology, and therefor, the entire foundation for the Austrian School of thought? He did so using his Catholic mental framework and his superior reason. Same with the spanish scholastics.

Further, there are truths within the faith that predict, describe, and can be duplicated. I am at work so I can’t post everything I would want to post but as a quick reference there is Thomas Woods book entitled “The Church and the Market” which describes how the ends in Catholic Social docterine are the same ends that are achieved in a Capito-Annarchist society. Therefor, the Catholics who developed the Catholic social docterine were guided by the same reason that led the Austrians to thier logical end. Does that not count as a truth? Are the truths derived by the spanish scholastics, St. Thomas Acquinas, and other great thinkers within any faith not true knowledge?

I refer you also to “How the Church Built Western Civilization” also by Thomas Woods who points out that The Roman Catholic Church is responsible for the lions share of knowledge that underlies most of Western Civilization. Is that also not valid?

I just think it isn’t fair to say that there are more layers of ideas that block a religious person from achieving a truly rational state of thought than a person who rejects religion.

Gotta honor my work contract! So much to say but so little time! Too bad there isn’t an actual mises univeristy campus where we can all sit around and talk about these things all day…::sigh::…

7

You haven’t addressed anything I raised in the opening post.

8

I am a Christian Orthodox - this is not a neoprotestant sect, but the ecumenical (i.e. universal) Christian Church founded by the apostles in the Roman Empire and from which the Catholic Church split in the year 1054. I may not be a very faithful person but maybe I’m trying to be : anyway I have great respect for the christian orthodox traditions (not without critics though) and Christianity at large. Here are my answers to your puzzles.

There are, first of all, different kind of knowledge and I see no non-arbitrary way of rejecting on kind of knowledge, in this case theological knowledge. Now, not any kind of knowledge is science. A minimalistic definition of science will be “science consists of a rational discourse”. But I for one recognize limits to a rational discourse. Moreover, science inevitably involves some kind of metaphysical assumptions, for example claiming the physical world actually exists is in itself a metaphysical statement : the only criteria for its existence is that we sense it, we experience, but then again dreams, religious experiences and so on are also experienced in some way. On the other hand, a rational discourse is itself limited by limits of reason and its analytical tools - namely logic. One cannot easily claim that anything that is not rational is non existent. Nor do I think one can easily claim that everything that it’s not rational is ultimately a question of emotions and ultimately psychology or physiology. I believe there is room in the sphere of of knowledge for a special kind of knowledge - metaphysical knowledge. I don’t see why God, Stan, haven etc cannot be methaphysical realities of some kind, tough certainly they are not - and don’t claim to be - facts of the same nature as rocks, rivers, mountains etc.

Now let’s leave the gnoseological question and go into ethics. Christian ethics are perfectly compatible with libertarianism. All historians of political philosophy will tell you that the notion of individual rights developed from the christian ethic. At the core of christian ethics is the absolute emphasis on voluntary action, illegitimacy of violence and individual moral freedom and responsibility. It is always a compromise, a sin for a Christian even to do good through evil (killing, stealing etc). That is why, in the Christian orthodox tradition for example, which is the closest to the spirit of the Church in apostolic times, and especially in the Christian orthodox monk communities, the question of whether the Emperor or the Prince (in modern terminology read the State) can actually be a Christian was never really answered and although the majority in the the Orthodox Church concluded that there is a need for a worldly ruler some monks - and in Christian orthodoxy the monks are the most influential as far as theology goes, the backbone of the Church - did not agree with this and never actually legitimize the rule of man over man form a Christina point of view.

Here’s a very interesting essay on the political ideas developed in the Christian Orthodox world from the beginning of Christianity and until the schism of 1054 the conserved - not without historical compromises, ignorance and even some adjustments - after the split of the Western (Catholic Church) in the Byzantium Empire and the East-European Christian orthodox countries that were not conquered or have survived the Turkish conquest : Fr. George Florovsky - Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert.(The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 1957)

9

I think the most convincing argument against the existence of god is positivist in nature. If it is unobservable in any way, how can we say it exists. The existence of the universe is not proof nor observation of god’s existence, it is proof and observation of the universe. You can still say “god is the universe” but that’s a pretty weak statement and most theist claim to have a much more precise idea of what god is.

Anarchists who rely on Austrian economics are sometimes defiant about positive science since Austrian Economics relies on a priori reasonning. This may explain why they maintain a belief in god.

Mises believed for example that the axiom of action was revealed to man by its nature, but Rothbard on the other hand thought it was an observable fact. Relying on experience to induce laws and deduce things from these laws is not a particularity of Austrian reasonning. Any engineer does it every day ! He applies for example the newtonian laws of motion (discovered empirically) to a system and deduces its a priori behavior. He does not need to experiment with the actual system to be confident in the result. Austrian economics is no different, it relies on empirical laws and build on them.

Back to god. I think the Austrian defiance to positivism in science is warranted when it comes to analyzing society and human behavior, but I think some tend to forget that, in the end, every knowledge is empirical, even the knowledge of our own nature is given to us through introspection, by analyzing our own thoughts, wills and actions. This defiance may explain why some feel that knowledge of god might be possible outside of the realm of senses.

All in all the believers probably maintain their belief because of cognitive dissonance as it has been mentionned. I find this sad, but it’s not big of an issue. If someone finds solace in religion, if it gives meaning to his life, if it provides him good ethical guidelines, it is not a big deal that he believes in a fantasy.

10

By all positivist standards (except for the most primitive of them), the only thing the non-observability of something can claim is agnosticism : we don’t know it exists because we don’t observe it, we might observe it, discoverer it in the future - this is what a positivist will properly say.

But anyway, I think you’re making your life way too easy on this question from a philosophical point of view. There is a metaphysical debate before even getting to a positivist view. But let’s say you start with the positivist idea that all there is must be something observable : how do you know then that the world still exists when you go sleep ? how do you know that you had a dream ? how do you know atoms exists because nobody saw them, right ? or an economy for that matter ? etc As I said before any sort of discourse implies some kind of metaphysical foundation, positivism included.

One must at least make the distinction that even the theologians do when they talk of God, haven etc namely that the theological realities are on a different metaphysical level then the physical realities of this world which can be investigated through science and so on. The two don’t necessary contradict each other and prima facie I don’t see any independent criteria for definitely discounting one of the two.

11

Nielsio,

I think Edgar did address a crucial point you raised in your original post, albeit in an unsatisfactory way. He rejects your presumption that religion is necessarily irrational and if this were true the rest of your points would become irrelevant

12

The only thing the non-observability of something can claim is agnosticism

True. The problem is when you say “I am agnostic to God” it generally implies you give some credibility to the hypothesis. I am as agnostic to god as I am to the existence of an invisible boogie monster creeping under my bed.

But anyway, I think you’re making your life way too easy on this question from a philosophical point of view. There is a metaphysical debate before even getting to a positivist view.

One must at least make the distinction that even the theologians do when they talk of God, haven etc namely that the theological realities are on a different metaphysical level then the physical realities of this world which can be investigated through science and so on. The two don’t necessary contradict each other and prima facie I don’t see any independent criteria for definitely discounting one of the two.

I’d be happy to go there. Any belief is a set of propositions, some of which are held to be true some of which are held to be false. One way to distinguish between true and false propositions in the real world is experimentation and the use of our senses. One way to distinguish the true from the false in mathematics is to logically deduce when possible the proposition from accepted axioms.

What about religous or spiritual propositions ? If there are “spiritual truth” there must be “spiritual not-truth” for example it cannot be that “Jesus died for our sins” and “Jesus dit not die for our sins”. Religion needs a way to determine if a specific “theological reality” is true or not. One way to do that is to rely on a set of axioms. One could claim: the Bible is religious truth and deduce all kind of propositions from that. This is nice and all but why take the Bible and not the comics of spiderman as a set of axiom? The choice of axiom in mathematics is not random, it results from a modelisation of physical problem, we use axioms that model physical things (for example Peano’s axiom reflect our intuition of counting finite objects). One could also say that religious truthes can be revealed through prayer, meditation or faith.

What do we mean by god’s existence. If god’s existence is only a “religious truth” then I can say that Spiderman exists because he is a “Marvel Comics truth” and put Spiderman’s existence on par with god. That is hardly the position of religious people, they claim that the existence is real. For the existence of god to be real, it needs a tie to the real world the physical / sensorial world.

13

Free market thought is built within the confines of good government. Many times you will read about the government enforcing “natural laws”. A biblical government would do this, e.g. it would enforce private property rights based on moral statutes not unlike " thou shall not steal".

Romans 13:3

14

Are you asking why I’m a Catholic or why I’m religious?

I’m a Catholic because I was born a Catholic, everyone in my family is Catholic, and my culture revolves around Catholic teachings and principles.

I’m religious because religions, all religions are steps to greater truths beyond the ethical dilemmas of man. Religions everywhere are essentially the same, they are only separated by culture and divided by ethnicity.

15

Why do you assume the two are mutually exclusive? If one were able to separate their religious views from their economic life there shouldn’t be a problem with believing in both.

There’s this socialist guy I argue with quite often on another site that throws things into the debates like ‘usury is immoral’ and, my personal favorite, ‘the God of Jesus owns everything’ to try to justify his collectivist views but it never adds anything of value to the conservation. If someone here were to argue that Jesus said money lending is a sin so we need laws to abolish it that would go against all that the Free Market stands for so that is most likely why you don’t have people using Christian metaphors to prove their points.

Doesn’t that go without saying? People don’t truly believe ‘the world is a stage’. True, some folks believe that every word in the Bible is literal Truth but I would say they are the minority by all accounts and chances are they wouldn’t accept Austrian economic theory anyway.

You really don’t seem to be asking how people reconcile their religious beliefs with their political beliefs but are asking people to justify why they believe in Christianity in general. My personal opinion on the subject is that is a question for another forum…

16

You will agree with me that the truth value of the propositions of ethics cannot be fundamentally asses trough experimentation or logic (as a matter of fact logic cannot, by definition, establish the truth value of something, but only the formal coherence of the system of propositions at hand) and yet any reasonable person concludes that there is something truthful about ethics. Things aren’t any different with religion. I for one believe, as many illustrious people before me observed, that human nature has a universal propensity for religiosity, for religious sentiment - just as much as it has a propensity for rational thought, and I observed this religious propensity on many occasions even among atheists of many sorts, among which communists : the fact the outer discourse appears to be a categorical negation of religion does not preclude a (perverted) religious fervour like that found in atheist communism with regard to the future establishment of the earthly paradise and the transfiguration of the ordinary man into a new higher form of humanity.

17

No, I’m not metaphorical at all. I believe Jehovah is literally there and in charge of the world, and that Jesus is His divine Son, and I’m going to worship Him this morning.

“We”? Not much of a free market anarchist, are you? You’re in you’re group; I’m in mine; there’s no magic “society” to which you and I both belong, unless we choose it. If your take on “facts” is true (you stated an awful lot as fact), then I have a problem, not you. In fact, you have zero problem at all, because the interface between us is one of complete market anarchism; as far as you’re concerned, I’m just another market anarchist who happens to take care of certain internal private things differently from how you do.

Couple of pointers as to why Christianity compels me to be an anarchist:

God ordained the free market when He said: “Thou shalt not steal.”

I Corinthians 5 makes it clear the church is a “government” which accepts and retains members only voluntarily, is commanded to exercise zero jurisdiction over non-members, and thus interfaces with the rest of the world through free market anarchism. The church is commanded not to judge those outside of its membership, and the maximum penalty it can impose on its members is to expel them, putting them back into the rest of the world and thus the category of those we leave to God rather than judging ourselves.

On top of that is the pacifistic teachings of Jesus, prohibiting me from designating agents to use lethal violence in my defense. But of course that’s somewhat debated, and you don’t have to go that far to get to Christian anarcho-capitalism.

Finally, you might like to read David Lipscomb’s book Civil Government for a more detailed treatment. You can find it to read free online. I’m a member of the same faith tradition as Lipscomb.

I understand there’s also a pretty good book out there from the Catholic perspective, from one of the LewRockwell authors, but I haven’t read it and can’t comment on it.

18

Please provide an example of a “truth beyond the ethical dilemmas of man”. This sounds similar to Shakespeare’s “thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.” An individual can imagine the concept of an unthinkable thought, or realities that are not perceivable. However, what sort of action can an individual take in light of these limitations? Should he abandon the perceivable for that which is not perceivable?

There is a big difference between faith in inertia and faith in God. A scientist can demonstrate inertia’s existence, and say that because inertial experiments are repeatable there is a certain level of confidence (faith) that inertia will continue to be in effect tomorrow. No experiment can be done to show that some perceivable effect is directly attributable to God much more that God will continue to act in such a was as to produce the observed effect.

This statement is false on face value. The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster ( http://www.venganza.org/ ), The Bible, and The Koran all conflict each other in fundamental ways. Pastafarians, for instance, believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodley appendages not gravity hold us on the earth. They also believe in a heaven that contains stripper factories and beer volcanoes as opposed to angels and streets of gold. There is no such thing as equality between religions. At best there is approximation.

19

My position is that human share intrinsinque normative truthes. When I say: we ought not murder other people, I mean it is within human nature to feel compelled not to murder other people. From the normative proposition that we can gather through introspection into our own nature, we can logically deduce a whole set of ethical truthes. We can experience morality in our lives, it is shared and repeatable. Ethics is a statement about our nature.

The only thing you’ll be able to deduce is something about man’s propensity for religion, what kind of god can man imagine, what kind of attribute do we feel god would have etc. You cannot go from this to statement about the physical world, which is what religions do.

Experiment tell us what is, ethics what ought to be - notice the completely different verb… religion can make sense if we add a new verb. Let’s say religion tells us what “spiritualy-is”… but then again spiderman tells us what “marvel-comics-is”.

Religions make unsupported statement about what is.

20

I’m a deist, so I do not fit into the category of either a theist or an atheist. I believe in the rational necessity of a perfect, complete, and permanent good, and the only thing that can fit into this category is a philosophical God (but I am agnostic as to what God this might be, and don’t particularly care either way.) I suppose, though, that this would mean that I believe my philosophical God is a necessary fact, and not merely a metaphor.