Necessary to what and why?
Because I am man, I do not know the truths that are outside my own ethical dillemmas. The reasons for the actions of God, the world beyond my own perception which I only am allowed a faint glimpse of.
But apparently not faith in RonPaul. [:O]
Cool. Doesn’t really speak to what I’m saying. The Lord is hardly summed up by Newton’s laws.
I don’t know what you mean by “face value.” Are you saying things can be perceived and conceptualized beyond High School chem. experiments?
Oh no!
Oh, God. Not that tired stupid joke again. If the FSM is a religion, then it is a religion based on the concept that something outside of basic perception exists. Thats a step.
So… Only being separated by ethnicity and culture suddenly is synonymous to every detail being… synonymous?
[8-)]
Your newest village idiot here…
“because the purpose of knowledge is to understand, describe, explain and predict reality, which religious speak - as facts - do not do.”
It seems to me that both knowledge and facts are based in faith.
Faith is in the origin of knowledge and facts. One may perceive knowledge to originate in man’s intellect, another may perceive the source of knowledge to be divine.
All facts would then be metaphors depending on one’s perception.
O ye of little faith. Repent before the flying spaghetti monster removes is noodley appendage from your head and you fly off into space.
The actions of God i.e. the world beyond your own perception is by your own logic imperceivable. How can you have a faint glimpse of something that is not perceivable?
“The actions of God i.e. the world beyond your own perception is by your own logic imperceivable. How can you have a faint glimpse of something that is not perceivable?”
" 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."
So, does this peception mean that if something is not testable it cannot 1) be true 2) exist?
Because, for the slightest moment all men are capable of going beyond their ego, going beyond what is defined as perception. They enter a new realm, a realm of perplexing and indescribable complections.
God is not for man’s senses, man is not for God. It is only by God’s will that man may be allowed to travel beyond his dismal existence into a new and greater reality. Not quite man, not quite God, man is transformed into something else, something better.
No. Truth exists independent of my finite ability to perceive it. What is true is that I perceive. An individual’s interpretation of his sensory inputs may be incorrect.
Testing is how you prove that you perceived phenomenon correctly. A purple and orange squirrel living in a black hole may, in fact, be the most powerful being in the universe, but being unability to provide evidence of this make it difficult to convince others. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, on the other hand, is real http://www.venganza.org/. He has touched me with his noodely appendage.
So at certain points in time man can go beyond his own ego, and become man/God half man half God. Sounds like Jesus. This reminds me of a south park episode http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/316/Are-you-there-God?-It’s-me-Jesus.html.
I’d like to remark something I think has been missed out. Namely that the morality the bible teaches is incompatible with libertarianism. I’m talking here primarily about slavery, which is variously talked of, and even endorsed in some cases, though they use the word ‘servant’ as opposed to slave, I think the context makes it obvious what’s going on. Likewise, intolerance with regard to others’ religion and punishment by stoning of other adherents (Deuteronomy 13), together with the whole owning of women concept, and the brutal hatred towards homosexuals. I’m not even talking here about the double standards and hypocricies of “Thou shalt not kill”, considering how many massacres were endorsed within the bible as long as it was in the name of God. None of this would bode well in a libertarian society.
I don’t think the main issue is the type of knowledge. It is widely known that intelligent people can reason with regards to one matter, and then suspend critical thinking with regards to something else. The main problem here is morality, and although libertarianism doesn’t set out morality, it only sets out laws and rights, these basic rights are still incompatible with the rather barbaric morality and lack of rights of many groups seen throughout the bible.
And of course, if you call yourself a Christian while rejected the old testament which Jesus himself endorsed, then you’re not really a Christian. It is also worth mentioning that the new testament was written many generations after Jesus’ alleged death, so using the new one to trump the old testament doesn’t seem to make sense. You’ll have to somehow reconcile the cruelty and violence of the old testament and the ‘turn the other cheek’ of the new one.
By the way, since we’re talking about an anarchist system, we still need some sort of code of laws used by private courts. Just imagine if courts only prosecute those who killed not in the name of religion. This, although it sounds absurd, is conceivable in a market economy with a bout of biblical fundamentalists, who may decide that they would only wish to work with courts who advocated biblical morality.
“old testament which Jesus himself endorsed, then you’re not really a Christian”
not sure what the word ‘endorsed’ means - given how he argued in the temples and spoke of a newly revealed God of love (instead of the OT jealous, vengeful One).
also, a Christian libertarian is easy to understand in the context of “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” … where a belief in limited authoritarianship in this life does not contradict a belief in the total, just authoritarianship by our Maker in the next. If you keep the two sides of death separate in your minds - it won’t be difficult to appreciate how they’re not mutually exclusive at all.
Cheers
Yes, I’ve always thought that, God being all-mighty in the eyes of Christians, that God would himself punish any offenders or blasphemers. Certainly, an eternity in hell is punishment enough, no? Well apparently not. For some reason, fundamental christians have throughout history (read: inquisitions, crusades, persecution of jews and muslims) found it necessary to punish people on earth, so this separation you talk of (unless I misunderstood you) unfortunately doesn’t exist.
And regarding what Jesus preached, I’m afraid no records survive of what Jesus may or may not have said. The earliest records appear at around 90 AD, and much later, and were written by people who never witnessed Jesus, in other words through hear-say. Now unfortunately for Christians, hear-say is not regarded as even remotely evident proof in history, or in law. There is no real historical evidence for what Jesus said, or even for his existance. All mentions of Jesus outside the bible were based on that bible, and some were simply fraudulent (quoting Eusebius he had a chapter in his book called, “How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived”). For a detailed historical analysis of Jesus’ existance, see this. Also worth noting, that the earliest surviving copies of the new testament had serious geographical, and various other errors within them. Certainly errors you would not expect of disciples living their whole life around Jerusalem.
In any case, if what Jesus Christ said had no relevance to the old testament, indeed if it was contradictory, then why did the ecumenical council of Nicaea include the entire old testament? Especially since this old testament was basically the foundation of Judaism, and considering how much they hated Jews (the whole theory of how Jews murdered Christ).
The point i’m trying to make here is that both the old testament, and the new one make up Christianity’s core belief system, and since one was extant during Jesus’ life, while the other was written generations after, to assume the supremacy of the latter over the former seems to contradict any common sense, considering the errors found throughout the new testament. Errors which took many editions and entire centuries to iron out.
The most concise answer summarizes the Neoplatonic mystical tradition which says, in a nutshell, that while man’s reason is essential to engage the ontological character of God’s existence or to critically engage the end for which this or that religious life is directed, that it ultimately is unable to reach God. Thus one mystic, Pseudo-Dionysius, renders vexing and annoying verses saying that God’s being is the being beyond all being – that any tool by which we understand the character of “being” must utterly fall short of God’s Being. He further taught, not unlike other mystics, and not unlike the gentleman above, that we must sit in a temperate silence – that since man cannot know God or conceivably have anything to say about Him, man must sit in a controlled state of silence, presuming nothing, and waiting from God to emerge from the Divine Dark to illimunate religious truths. We would glimpse, says these Neoplatonic mystics, not by anything that man as avail to, but purely by the desire of the Godhead to enlighten us and the very best would could do is attempt to make ourselves receptive for these illuminations. Though many mystics are probably Augustinian in the sense that they say that one cannot become worthy of these illuminations in the same that one cannot earn grace.
This is the only way I can make sense of what this gentleman says and I think it might be his meaning.
I find that you make a rather bold claim about the function of knowledge. Is one of the essential features of knowledge its ability to predict anything? I have my doubts about that. Let us say that I prefer the color red to the color blue. It is then an existential proposition – ultimately true and knowable – that I really do prefer red to blue. In so saying, “I prefer red to blue” I understand reality, I understand that fact – but there is no explanation of that ultimate fact other than it is what it is and there is no predictive power in the knowledge of the proposition, “I prefer red to blue”. Take another famous example from the literature of epistemology, “Here is a hand.” It can be ascertained whether or not this is the case. Does it explain or predict reality? Not really – it is hard to comprehend, in any meaningful sense, what this explains or predicts in reality, yet the truth of the proposition really is a part of ‘reality’.
I wish to separate, as your quote does not seem to, the ontological character of a theistic proposition (“God exists”) from the dogma associated with the ontological proposition (“God punishes the sinful”). Even if we were to deny all dogma of all religions, what would we be refuting? I cannot but help to think that all our analysis would say things only of the dogma itself – the Bible might very well endorse un-libertarian principles, does this fundamentally refute the ability to unify a doctrine about the positive existence of God and the libertarian ethical edifice? Most certainly not. Does it refute the ability to unify a doctrine about the positive existence of a God who, in some way, does something of the character that is described in many religions (punishes sin, saves the faithful, &etc) per se? Again, I do not think so. It must necessarily be answered on a religion-by-religion basis.
Directing my inquiry into Christianity, I suppose I must ask, why does belief in God amount to an inherently un-anarchist belief? You seem to implicitly advancing an awkward inference suggesting that because Christians cannot distinguish from religious metaphors from realities, they will somehow unable to be good anarchists. (If this is the argument, which I do not think that it is or should be, then we must readily admit that it is a fallacy.) That anarchists are required to know something – what that something is, I cannot say, but it seems to be of a particular character that separates anarchists from non-anarchists. I cannot make any sense of it. I ask for elucidation.
I’ve just completed an article about anarchy and Bible:
http://armchairpraxeologist.blogspot.com/2008/02/rise-and-fall-of-bibleic-anarchy.html
In this post I will not address the veracity of the Bible (OT and NT) or the conduct of people doing things in the name of scripture but why there is no contradiction between OT and NT and why on can be a Christian and a Libertarian Anarchist.
Firstly it is a political philosophy which deals with man to man relationships; it does not deal with man to God relationships. So in regards the OT the Mosaic Law can be fitted into libertarian thought since it is a law given by God for Israel; if it had been given by man then it would be obviously anti-libertarian but since it was given by God it is not. From the persepctive of God he created everything ex nihilo and thus is the rightful, ultimate, owner of everything and so cannot infringe upon anyone’s rights.
To understand the actual content (I won’t comment on slavery because I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the history of it in Biblical times) you have to understand why the law was given. First and foremostly it was a mirror for man to show him that he is not perfect (he is a sinner) and that he needs the grace of God to save him. As Paul said I would not known sin except the law. More importantly for our purposes here the law was part of the armoury for Israel to establish God’s kingdom on Earth. Israel was given the task to institute God’s perfect rule on earth but as we know they failed and God knew they would. As is seen throughout the whole OT all the leaders were imperfect and couldn’t rule perfectly but the throughout there is the prophecy about the perfect ruler, the Messiah, who would justly rule and redeem the world: Jesus.
That out of the way, “stoning of other religious adherents”: do you actually know what a lot of these other religions actually practiced. Most notable would be the Canaanites who conducted child sacrifice by heating up an image of the god Moloch, till it was burning white, then put the child on it and while he/she was burned alive drums were sounded to drown out the screaming.
“The ownership of women”: this is absolutely not endorsed anywhere in the OT or NT. It is clear in Genesis 1 that men and women were created equal, yet different. Further women play important roles in OT history such as Deborah who was a judge. A great case in point was Rahab, who was a prostitute, protected Israel’s spies from the Jericho soilders is portrayed in a great light, was saved and is part of the genealogy of Jesus cited in Matthew 1. The idea that the Bible is anti women is completly absurd. Contrast this with Buddhism in which women have to reincarnated into men before they can reach Nivarna.
“Brutal hatred towards homosexuality”: it is clear from the mosaic law and Romans 1 and many other parts of scripture which say that homosexuality is wrong. It is punishable by stoning in the OT along wih many other crimes. However it is merely another sin and as the Bible makes clear the result of sin is death. They can still be saved though , like everyone else, through believing that God would save them in the OT (Abraham’s faith was imputed to him as righteouness) and now faith in Jesus will save them (it amounts to the same thing).
At this point it is necessary to point out that God does not give us laws, or rules, to spoil our fun but because he knows what is best for us because he created us. Is putting diesel into a petrol powered car a good idea? Obviously not but this is essentially the what we do everytime we sin; it harms us and people around us. This leads me nicely on to the highly innacurate perception that God is vengeful in the OT but loving in the NT. The grace of God in abound throughout the whole of scripture. When Adam sinned against God, God had everyright to condemn him to hell and give up mankind as a failed experiment; however he does not. He casts him out from Eden but provides him with clothing and with the promise that he would defeat sin and enable mankind to have a relationship with him again. Other examples abound from the nation of Israel: they continually fail God and worship idols (the term whoring after other gods is used many times) yet God is always ready to forgive if they repent. Jonah prophecied to Ninevah that forty days God would overturn Ninevah. The Ninevites repented and God accepted this and did not destroy it. It is also clear that Nebuchadnezzar was saved yet he put Daniel and his friends into a firery furnace. If you read the OT it is clear that God is gracious.
In regards the NT and turn the other cheek it is instructive to see what the summary of the law is (as Jesus said): The First is this- Love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, soul and strength. The second is this love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no commandments greater than these. Now these two commandments are quotes from Deuternomy and Leviticus respectively; thus showing the continuity between OT and NT. When Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek he is dealing with first and second party relations not as a third party (judge) in a legal case. So in that respect it is consistent with the Mosaic Law which Jesus fufills on the cross. Jesus talks about hell more than anyother character in the whole Bible which throws a stake in the heart of the Jesus nice Jehovah vengeful idea. However as we read in the NT “vengeance is mine says the lord” which leads on to the differences between OT and NT.
God decided that in the NT he would bring his kingdom about not through the nation of Israel as a political entity but through the church. The church being the body of believers in Christ who’s role is to evangelise and to bring every aspect of their lives under the lordship of Christ. Due to this sea change there is no commands for statism in the NT. As we can see, in the church age, there is only one rightful ruler: God. And as such there is no mandate whatsoever to reintroduce parts of the Mosaic law. We have been commanded to renounce the weapons of the world and fight with spiritual weaponry. It is clear from this that anarchism is clearly a biblical concept especially in the light of 1 Corinthians 5 and 6. While we should oppose sin and show people to God and a better way we are not to coerce others (ie weapons of the world)
As alluded to before the righteous vengeance of God will be unleashed after the judgment on those sinners who have not repented and those sinners redeemed (Christians) will enter heaven. This judgment is for God alone not any Christians before this time.
In conclusion one can be a Christian Anarchist.
The bible dealt with man to man relationships through man to God relationships. The relationship of the “chosen people” in the bible decided their relationship to the other people. Namely that they were inferior, and to be treated as such. All throughout the bible we see the concept of inferiority due to a differing religion. If for some reason you think the bible is the only religious text to advocate this, you are wrong. Many religions advocate the infinite supremacy of their own against that of others. They can’t all be right…and what if they’re all wrong?
See we’re not that different really. You believe in one god, I believe in none. When you realise why you dismiss all Gods but the one you believe in, you will realise why I also dismiss yours.
You don’t have sufficient knowledge? What about the whole story of Jews being saved from the slavery of ?
Here comes the you’re a sinner again. Masterbation was considered a sin. Then scientific evidence concluded that some animals (supposedly sin-free) also masterbate.
Killing was supposed to be a sin, but the more devout you become, the more the degree of sinning involved is negotiable. Death itself becomes negotiable when you do it in the name of your God, and the bible does it all over the place. Suddenly the sinner argument doesn’t make sense.
Or let’s look at commandment number 10, the first part of which says “You shall not covet your neighbor’s stuff.” I’m sorry but that’s just ridiculous. When my neighbour gets a new car, I want one too! That helps the economy, so that commandment actually directly contradicts a lot of the capitalist self-interest mentality.
Actually if you ask the Jews, Jesus wasn’t the messiah, and you know, Jews did write the first testament, and their religion is 3000 years older than yours. I think they know better who their messiah was, or will be. But then you believe all religions have got it wrong except yours, and that yours is absolutely correct, so I bring you back to my previous comment in bold.
So you’re approving the stoning of Jews, Pagans, Mithraists, Muslims, and every other religion that was in no way comparable to the example you gave, on the basis that some religions are overly brutal? That seems like a serious stretch to me. It’s like saying: well since my book says kill A, B, and C, and since A is demonstrably bad, this gives me an excuse to kill B and C.
I didn’t think it would come to this, but it’s your fault. Quotation time! To be honest with you, the amount of references that ridicule women and pose them as inferior to men makes me sick, and I can’t quote them all,but I’ll show you a few. Also, if you really thought the bible didn’t talk badly of women, how do you explain all the witch hunts and persecutions of women throughout the middle ages?
Genesis 3:16 “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
Exodus “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” So, apparently wives now belong to men.
Exodus 34:23 “Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of .” I wonder why he doesn’t want to see the women…
Leviticus 27:3 “And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.”
27:4 “And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.”
So females, to God, are worth more or less half as much as males.
To top it off:
Numbers 31:15 “And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?”
31:17 “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.”
31:18 “But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
Oh and look at this:
31:9 “And the children of took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.”
Slavery! Either you haven’t read your own bible, or you’re blinded by your faith.
You’re actually trying to justify punishment of homosexuals by stoning? Your self-righteousness is seriously getting out of control here.
This is precisely the type of paternalistic attitude that socialists exhibit. Except here instead of the government, you use God as the ultimate paternalistic figure. How being submissive to God, and individuality (choosing your own path) mix together I don’t really know.
If you love god with all your strength, there will be no strength left to work at a job in the economy. If you love god with all your heart, what love will there be left for your family members? All I’m doing is taking your extremely ideological statements to their logical conclusions. You probably don’t even notice it but some of the things you write simply don’t make sense.
If you actually bother reading through my response, you might realise why throughout your entire post you contradict this statement. The problem is that you can’t convince a believer of anything, because their belief is based upon a deep seated need to believe (Carl Sagan).
A word used by proponents of freedom to discredit { to regulate, to infringe upon (as our founding father’s would say) our God given right’s} the mechanism that allows and protects economic and private property rights is “anarchist”.
But unlike the great economic thinkers of yesterday we identify ourselves with the word “anarchist” and make it our paradigm. However….
Freedom is not anarchy. Freedom is freedom, Anarchy is anarchy.
Henry Hazlitt would tell you to your face that economic freedom can not exist without good laws.
Even the idea of economic freedom and private property is a Biblical idea, a moral idea and to steal is immoral no matter what the republicans say.
So stand against anarchy. Stand against socialists. And stand for righteousness like austrian economics
Good laws/rules/policies can exist without government. Walmart has a really good return policy. Is that because the government pointed a gun at them and said you must have a good return policy?
Please defend this statement. Where in the Bible do these ideas exist? In the OT, the Bible mandates theocracy. Conversely, the NT claims that individuals no longer need a priest to get to God. The NT also encourages civil disobedience to the point of death e.g. Jesus and most of the his disciples were tortured to death by the state.
Why stand against anarchy? Yes, people misinterpret the word; and maybe a different word should be employed. Nevertheless, upon what is this strong admonition based? Also, why is anarchy not freedom?
I don’t know why Rothbard was so keen on adopting the word anarchy as a slogan for libertarianism. Most people who aren’t familiar with his work and general ideology perceive anarchy as a term to describe utter chaos with out any sort of order. When a Rothbardian refers to anarchy he is referring to process which is the utter opposite of chaos.
I think it was a bad idea for the promotion of liberty to take on the word “anarchy”. I think Rothbard looked at it as a challenge. Who knows. Anyways, I think libertarians should try to redissassociate themselves from the word. It provides a substantial barrier to the progression of a libertarian movement. I know alot of libertarians like to consider themselves “unique” and “cool” or, beyond the general confines of mainstream culture, but if that culture is to be penetrated I think the word needs to be given up.
I agree with you regarding the preconceptions people have with the word anarchy. Just the other day I was talking to a friend, and I said “have you considered anarchy?” and the first thing he said was “That’s all good, but anarchy doesn’t work”. When I tried to explain anarcho-capitalism he just gave me a blank stare.
If you have any suggestions for a better word, go ahead. Remember etymologically it still needs to make sense.
what’s wrong with the term ‘libertarian’, or even ‘minarchist’ - a subject just brought up on another dialogue of this site? Libertarians are for pragmatic (as in realistic) solutions within the system - rather than the absurd total denunciation of authority. Etymologically, the ‘min’ replaces the ‘a’ - and there you have it. GoRonPaul is on the mark here - ‘anarchy’ makes the average person cringe and dart as much as the word ‘conspiracy’ … even if just being theoretical, anything said after those words is not taken seriously today.