religion and libertarianism are incompatible

[Advocate]

The rational and the anti-rational are always incompatible, regardless of what they're about. They literally pull in opposite directions..

Government must be both efficient and unobtrusive to be legitimate. A legitimate government, or society, must value every individual's best interests, not special interests, not even the majority. Reciprocity is the foundation of civilization. Because the kernel of libertarianism is always efficiency and/or unobtrusiveness, and civilization is universally beneficial, it is inherently rational.

The kernel of all versions of religion is dogma, an instance of faith. Faith is belief without appeal to evidence, the polar opposite of knowledge, and is therefore inherently irrational.

[henry quirk]

Deism & natural rights libertarianism get along just fine.

[Consul]

The rational and the anti-rational are always incompatible, regardless of what they're about. They literally pull in opposite directions..

Government must be both efficient and unobtrusive to be legitimate. A legitimate government, or society, must value every individual's best interests, not special interests, not even the majority. Reciprocity is the foundation of civilization. Because the kernel of libertarianism is always efficiency and/or unobtrusiveness, and civilization is universally beneficial, it is inherently rational.

The kernel of all versions of religion is dogma, an instance of faith. Faith is belief without appeal to evidence, the polar opposite of knowledge, and is therefore inherently irrational.

Libertarians value religious freedom and reject state religion, but they needn't be anti-religious—and right-libertarians (conservative libertarians) such as Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe actually aren't. They even have actively sought cooperation with the religious right.

William Craig has written a book titled Reasonable Faith. Most theistic philosophers and theologians reject the view that religious faith is blind faith, and that "rational theism" is a contradiction in terms. For there is a distinction between faith-based revealed religion and reason-based natural religion. So the rationalist stance of libertarianism (and liberalism in general) isn't incompatible in principle with theism (or deism).

"In contemporary philosophy…both “natural religion” and “natural theology” typically refer to the project of using all of the cognitive faculties that are “natural” to human beings—reason, sense-perception, introspection—to investigate religious or theological matters. Natural religion or theology, on the present understanding, is not limited to empirical inquiry into nature, and it is not wedded to a pantheistic result. It does, however, avoid appeals to special non-natural faculties (ESP, telepathy, mystical experience) or supernatural sources of information (sacred texts, revealed theology, creedal authorities, direct supernatural communication). In general, natural religion or theology (hereafter “natural theology”) aims to adhere to the same standards of rational investigation as other philosophical and scientific enterprises, and is subject to the same methods of evaluation and critique. Natural theology is typically contrasted with “revealed theology”, where the latter explicitly appeals to special revelations such as miracles, scriptures, and divinely-superintended commentaries and creedal formulations. Philosophers and religious thinkers across almost every epoch and tradition (Near Eastern, African, Asian, and European) have engaged the project of natural theology, either as proponents or critics."

Natural Theology and Natural Religion: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-theology/
——————
"Is libertarianism atheistic? Libertarianism has no conceptual connection to atheism or theism. Libertarianism is compatible with a belief in divinity, but it does not rest upon, require, or imply any such belief. Libertarianism has little more to say about religion than it has to say about chemistry. That said, there is evidence that libertarians tend to reject supernatural beliefs. Liberty Magazine, a small libertarian magazine, polls its readers every 10 years. The 2008 survey indicated that only 36.5% of its readers believed in a god. In contrast, Gallup polls regularly find that over 90% of Democrats, Republicans, and independents believe in a god. Reason, a more popular libertarian magazine, is avowedly atheistic. Its motto is “free minds and free markets.” If libertarians are disproportionately atheistic, there is no clear reason why. One possibility is that libertarians tend to be more philosophical than others—they are more likely than conservatives or the Left to engage with philosophy or think like philosophers. Philosophers, in turn, strongly tend to be atheists. (A recent poll showed that only about 3 in 20 academic philosophers believe in a god.)"

(Brennan, Jason. Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press 2012. pp. 50-1)

[Iwannaplato]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_libertarianism
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/107/3213 ... in-russia/

[Iwannaplato]

The rational and the anti-rational are always incompatible, regardless of what they're about. They literally pull in opposite directions..

Government must be both efficient and unobtrusive to be legitimate.

The is a combination of non-rational desires and preferences and, I assume, rational thinking based on these values. While not a mixture of the anti-rational and the rational, it's a mix of the non-rational and the rational.

A legitimate government, or society, must value every individual's best interests, not special interests, not even the majority.

Same as the above.

Reciprocity is the foundation of civilization. Because the kernel of libertarianism is always efficiency and/or unobtrusiveness, and civilization is universally beneficial, it is inherently rational.

Same as the above.

The kernel of all versions of religion is dogma, an instance of faith. Faith is belief without appeal to evidence, the polar opposite of knowledge, and is therefore inherently irrational.

We all believe in things[/quote]Faith is generally viewed as a non-rational something or other. Since it is contrasted with belief, at least often, it is something other.

But our values are also coming without evidence. They are simply what we value.

What government is unobrusive? re:

Because the kernel of libertarianism is always efficiency and/or unobtrusiveness,

Governments have power. They obtrude and impose. What government has ever not been obtrusive? If there is no government that has not been obtrusive, then there is faith that this would be a good thing, since we have no evidence of this being good and it would be an act of faith to consider it good and/or possible. If there is such a government, then we can focus on that one for discussion.

[Immanuel Can]

Deism & natural rights libertarianism get along just fine.

More than that, even. We could keep going.

Libertarian rights are impossible in a deterministic world. Human rights and morality are indefensible in a survival-of-the-fittest world. If there's no God, then there's no chance of freedom: everything is just the automatic, mindless playing out of physical forces. And in such a world, argumentation such as we are doing is also impossible. People can't "change" their "minds." They have neither a real "mind," nor the power to "change" anything that wasn't fated to end up that way from the inception of the universe.

[iambiguous]

Deism & natural rights libertarianism get along just fine.

More than that, even. We could keep going.

Libertarian rights are impossible in a deterministic world. Human rights and morality are indefensible in a survival-of-the-fittest world. If there's no God, then there's no chance of freedom: everything is just the automatic, mindless playing out of physical forces. And in such a world, argumentation such as we are doing is also impossible. People can't "change" their "minds." They have neither a real "mind," nor the power to "change" anything that wasn't fated to end up that way from the inception of the universe.

What on Earth is IC blabbering about here, henry?

All this "philosophical" speculation doesn't change the fact that, given free will, you must either accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior or "on the other side" you will spend all of eternity in Hell.

With me.

Start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

Then get back to us.

Seriously though, you and IC here remind me somewhat of Satyr and MagsJ over at ILP. Satyr is a flagrant white supremist...a racist. And a flagrant sexist. Yet MagsJ, a black woman, seems to let that slide because they share many of the same conservative political prejudices.

Though one possible explanation for this is that, well, nothing any of us post here is not beyond our control?