Grüezi mitenand. It is good to be back into the libertarian discussion arena.
In some libertarian discussion, one can find suspicion, if not out right hostility, to Christianity. Not necessarily hostility to it as a faith, mind you, but as a source of ….inspiration for meddling in other’s affairs.
The easiest examples are Blue Laws – especially those aimed at alcohol sales on Sunday and their ilk. Other simple fingers to point are the crusading against pornography or gambling. You can rightfully hear the question “How can Christians be libertarian if they can’t even stop themselves from using the Law to dictate their vision of morality?”
My answer to that is… THEY ARE DOING CHRISTIANITY WRONG.
Being a Christian means you should behave certain ways, not force others to behave that way. That is the way of the Taliban, chopping off hands of women who wear nail polish or beating men who don’t have a long enough beard. As a Christian, you are supposed to persuade, be an example, teach the willing and pray for everyone. Many of the lessons of Scripture are recognizing real faith and virtue vs rote, faithless observance of forms. If you think gambling is immoral, then don’t gamble. Go ahead and persuade people that gambling can lead to all sorts of problems. But if you find yourself in front of the zoning commission arguing against a casino being built in your town, knock it off.
Even with the admonition found in Genesis
[5] And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
[6] Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
a Christian can remain libertarian on capital punishment. While I favor the existence of capital punishment – I am not blind to the abuses the State can, and does, perpetuate. Its one thing to execute the no doubt guilty John Wayne Gacy – it is another to try and shove Corey Maye into the grave.
So, my fellow libertarians, I would ask that you give Christians the benefit of the doubt. But if they advocate the use of the power of the temporal State to fashion an end to their moral liking….then let them have it!
The hostility toward religion and the reflexive coupling of libertarianism to atheism mystifies me as well- despite the fact that I’m a libertarian atheist, or at least a Laplacian (“Je n’ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothese”). The abuses of Christianity are just as egregious on the Left as on the Right, and it strikes me that from a reading of Christian “holy” books, the imperative is to keep one’s faith separate from the State, irrespective of one’s particular brand of religion and politics.
But what the fuck do I know.
“the reflexive coupling of libertarianism to atheism mystifies me”
While one certainly does not imply the other, the two *are* correlated. Very few people are, in my experience, raised libertarian and/or atheist, but rather come to them via rejection of the system in which they were indoctrinated. The willingness to examine and reject one’s own ideology is often the common causality.
So is it correct to reflexively couple them? No. But it’s probably a reasonable assumption, similar to assuming a smoker is also a coffee drinker.
Great thoughts, Swissy. And from my many readings of the Bible, lo, those many moons ago when I identified as Baptist, completely accurate presentation of Scripture.
Two thumbs up, would R&R again!
A couple of thoughts, and this is informed by having a recovering, no-shit Commie for a wife (and hearing her tales of what is was like to live under Communism – lest you forget, UKR was the last Soviet Satellite to declare independence, no thanks to all those Gazprom pipelines running through the Road Apple of Europe).
1) What to do when Atheism is the ‘de facto’ religion, where ‘Secular Humanism’, Ubiquitous Society, and The Nebulous State, now operate as the Holy Trinity, having displaced Theism (like Christianity, in the Former Soviet Union, whose fall led directly to the recent revival of openly practiced religion, including Islamo-Mohammdanism)?
2) How to properly delineate b’twixt, “You don’t want to pay for or even sell me birth control because of RELIGION!,” v. “I can’t afford it, and I have a right to it, so’s by denying me the funds for it, you are denying me my right to gestationless sex!” *Just using the Birth Control Mandate as an example. I dare say
*2) is of special interest to my wife, who spent five days in jail for refusing to perform a surgical abortion; the patient was referred to another physician, but still turned my wife in to the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) Goon Squad. UKR does not provide explicitly guaranteed Freedom of Religion or Conscience for medical practitioners. She does not like the limitation placed on the poor unable to afford the level of medical care we provide by working in Free Market Medicine (she still hasn’t entirely been disabused of Socialist Tendencies), but it’s really the only place where we are not required to perform procedures we find objectionable, conscience informed by religion or not. This issue is why ‘Gay Nazi Cakes’, forcing people to provide services regardless of objection, is such a high priority for us.
Freedom of association, how does that work?
Apparently, it doesn’t. Which was my main point: We may not have interest in others, but they have interest in us, and won’t leave us alone and won’t take, “No,” nor, “Nyet,” as an acceptable answer. And they have no compunctions using The State to those ends, under the guise that Secularism isn’t a religion unto Itself, due to a lack of a “Sky Fairy” (yet that nebulous, faceless Government doesn’t seem to apply for some odd reason). The pendulum has swung the other way.
When the Secular takes over totally completely, then the Secular can (and has been doing) dictate the Rules of Association, regardless of Public or Private life. *ESPECIALLY* if it is a tenet of Progressive Left (every bit the religious body and institution as Theistic religious, save their Gods are Government, Society, and Self). To wit, if bakers and florists can be forced to violate conscience, informed by religion or not, unilaterally forcing hospitals, physicians, nurses to violate theirs is not a stretch. Both me and my wife agreed that the day we are forced to violate our beliefs and people will not leave us alone, is the day we go legit violent. No one will ever make me perform an objectionable procedure. EVER.
Wait, so I’m not gonna be ridiculed on here incessantly about religion…until Tonio shows up.
(I KEED!!!)
I thought I would get in first….
I’m heeeeeeere!
????
Awesome. Good to see you, my friend.
Bingo. Excellent read.
Ой! Привбет, Свисс! Я хотел, что функция вебсайта на Русский язык и букви!
УРА!!!!!! АГА!!!!!! Ещё Русский букви функция!
Great, spam from some Russo-Ukraniain pr0n site?! 🙂
A more interesting question would be: how can a Muslim be a libertarian without turning his/her back on the tenets of their faith?
Well not necessarily more interesting but definitely more able to turn a comments section into a jihad.
That would be harder – Islam does seem to push for much more of “behave thusly”, everyone.
Perhaps if you were more of a “God will take care of it” bunch…Sufis?
Calvinist Muslims? I think they’re all essentially Calvinist in that respect…like Ray on TPB. Aren’t they? I thought so, anyway.
Islam is not often big on letting one not act, leaving it solely up to God.
Insh’allah… “with God’s assistance” presumes a human act, first.
I met a woman in college who was from Kuwait. She’s a very secular Muslim – lives in Switzerland now – but she came from a very wealthy family, went to college to get an art degree, is into high fashion, and now raises pedigreed dogs.
There was a brief moment in history where Muslim countries embraced secularism. What happened since then?
I think the majority of commenters I am familiar with agree with that position Swiss. I know I do. I will try to contribute tomorrow on a related subject – family values – if I can get an hour undistracted. I will try to do better than my usual ramble.
I’m pretty sure that Jesus, as presented, did a pretty good job of promoting the individual.
Just alright with me, if you know what I’m sayin’.
*narrows gaze*
*preens*
Good job, Swizzy.
I’m a long-term atheist of the non-evangelical bent. This article, however, does strike close to home for me because i grew up in a small town – more like suburb – that was fervently religious. We are talking “though shall not mow your lawn on Sunday” and there were even protests – signs and all – when the local Meijer store decided to be open on Sundays. And when a Catholic Church decided to be built, the protesters even showed up for that. Of course the teenagers all pretended to be just as moral as their parents but were getting drunk , high, or off getting pregnant.
There were other rampant hypocrisies – mostly greed, competition, and cruelty – that put me off. It was history and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos that made me leave Christianity: how could I question the devotion of an Ancient Greek, or Roman, or Egyptian? What made “my” religion superior than their “pagan” one.
But even after being an atheist for over 35 years, I still find an emotional bond with Christianity – mostly the message of Jesus. Heck, put me in front of the tv watching Ben Hur and when he meets Jesus…
“Enter through the narrow gaze (sic).” Mt. 7:13a
Agree 100%. In fact, I find it hard to rationalize any world view other than libertarianism, when starting from Christianity. The Bible is full of examples of this (e.g. the Israelites had a decentralized government under judges, but “wanted a king” and were explicitly warned of the consequences of this by God), not to mention a ton of emphasis on free will and personal responsibility.
Oh, and this new site is awesome! I don’t even need to skip the articles. Thanks Mrs. Candy.
I don’t exactly know where to start in replying to this. As a Christian libertarian, this is front of mind on a regular basis, so I could go in a thousand different directions. Without writing an article in this comment (I may do a Matthew 17/Romans 13 write-up in the near future), I’ll make a few unsupported points.
First, I have a great respect for the Catholic intellectual tradition, and I say this as a denominationally unhomed Protestant. Most of the modern American (read: Evangelical) church doesn’t even have the background of knowledge necessary to have a superficial discussion on theological views of government, let alone a worthwhile one. I completely incriminate myself in this as well. I’m not nearly as well read as I should be.
Second, my wife made a great point a few years back… God doesn’t call us to convert people. He calls us to witness. If that doesn’t describe the NAP, I don’t know what does.
Finally, people tend to screw up the balance of inward-focus and outward-focus prescribed in the Bible. We are to focus inward to find our shortcomings and need for growth. We are to focus outward to identify others’ needs and suffering. As selfish humans, we tend to flip the script, focusing inwardly on our needs and suffering and focusing outwardly on others’ shortcomings and need for growth.
href=”https://calstudentstore.berkeley.edu/catalogsearch/result/?q=grandmother” target=”_blank” >Testing
Fuck
Test