I could have told this idiot that Libertarians and most of the Christian
right don't get along and he could have saved some money on research.
David
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas
which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas
which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.*--Thomas
**Jeff**erson*
On 11/11/2013 2:30 PM, [email protected] wrote:
There is a fundamental fallacy in the following article, namely, that
Theism
supports a common morality. This is false on the face of it. The morality
of Islam is drastically different than is the case for not only
Christianity and
Judaism, but also very non-theistic Buddhism and most forms of Hinduism.
Otherwise the gist of the article is very much on target.
BR
-----------------------------
Christian Post
Do Libertarians Need God? Apologist Says Theism Necessary for
Freedom, Human Rights
Tyler O'Neil <http://www.christianpost.com/author/tyler-oneil/> , CP
Reporter
November 8, 2013
WASHINGTON -- The ideas behind individual freedom, personal
responsibility, and basic human rights require something more than
materialism, a Christian scholar argued.
"The easiest way to avoid sawing off the branch you sit on as a
libertarian is to be a theist," Jay Richards, distinguished fellow at
the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics
<http://tifwe.org/about-us/people/jay-w-richards/> and author of the
book /Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not
the Problem
<http://www.amazon.com/Money-Greed-God-Capitalism-Solution/dp/0061900575>,/ told
an audience of about 80 people at Ebenezer's Coffeehouse near Capitol
Hill on Thursday.
Richards argued that the basic truths behind the Declaration of
Independence and the political theory of libertarianism require a
theistic worldview. Materialism, by contrast, fails to provide the
necessary foundation for freedom, responsibility, reason, and moral
truth, he contends. These four bedrock beliefs -- that human beings
have free will and are responsible for their actions, that they can
reason and come to a knowledge of truth, and that there is objective
morality in the world -- are fundamental to a libertarian
understanding, he claimed.
"Theism doesn't mean you believe God has a white beard," Richards
quipped. Rather, it designates belief in "a self-existent,
transcendent, good, purposeful, and free agent created the universe
and everything other than God." Christians are theists, but Richards
did not argue that you have to be Christian to believe in individual
rights.
The scholar defined materialism as the belief that there is no God and
everything is matter in motion with no purpose. He quoted Karl Sagan,
who argued that "the cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will
be." On these grounds, individual rights and limited government do not
make sense, Richards claimed.
To prove this, the scholar quoted actual materialists who doubted the
fundamental tenets of freedom.
He started with the atheist B. F. Skinner, who wrote that "autonomous
man has been constructed from our ignorance...and as our understanding
increases, the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes." Skinner
claimed that there is no free will or morality, but all human actions
are determined by natural causes.
Richards also quoted the outspoken atheist Bertrand Russell. "When a
man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we
refuse to face the fact that his annoying behavior is the result of
antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you
beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he
cannot be held responsible by any stretch of the imagination," Russell
wrote, claiming that man has no responsibility for his actions.
To stress his point further, Richards even quoted Charles Darwin, who
doubted man's ability to reason since he thought humans descended from
the lower animals. "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the
convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of
the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy," Darwin
wrote. "Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind?"
Logically, Richards explained, if humans evolved through natural
selection, our minds adapted not to know the truth, but to keep us
alive. [WTH? Knowledge of truth, certainly in most cases, contributes
to survival in important ways BR ] He quoted Patricia Churchland,
explaining that when it comes to natural selection choosing the
reasons for adaptations, "truth, whatever that is, definitely takes
the hindmost," compared to survival and reproduction.
Richards also quoted self-proclaimed atheist Alex Rosenberg, who
declared that "the notion that thoughts are about stuff is illusory."
The scholar explained that Rosenberg would "say with a straight face
that he wrote a book that isn't about anything, just a result of
chemical reactions."
Richards suggested that a theistic worldview provides better ground
for the principles of libertarianism, the Declaration of Independence,
and basic sanity. "Not everyone has perfect access to natural law, but
it still lets people understand that murder is wrong," he explained.
This view of Natural Law, rooted in Christian thinkers like Thomas
Aquinas, forms a better defense for the individual rights we take for
granted in America, the scholar argued.
According to the Public Religion Research Institute's 2013 American
Values Survey
<http://publicreligion.org/2013/10/the-relationship-between-libertarians-the-tea-party-and-the-christian-right/>,
78 percent of self-identified "Libertarians" do not identify with the
Christian Right.
"But there is a difference between Christian and Christian Right," a
Christian conflicted with the libertarian label who asked not to be
identified told The Christian Post on Friday. "Many people, especially
young people, are embracing libertarian principles such as economic
freedom and personal responsibility, but are hesitant to label
themselves libertarians because of some of the negative stigmas attached."
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