Merlin: Craig:But just quickly, and this'll have you shaking your head, in so far as this plate tectonics disagrees with the Biblical record, I see no reason to believe it. That says it all.
Craig:But just quickly, and this'll have you shaking your head, in so far as this plate tectonics disagrees with the Biblical record, I see no reason to believe it.
That says it all.
Yep. Denying the possibility of directly comprehending the physical world with one's own powers of reason and observation inevitably leads to a paralysis in the ability to formulate theories of the operation of the natural world.
Clayton -
Hey Merlin,
(I dug your tv show, btw!)
Are these questions addressed to me? Whatever. I'll answer 'em anyway.
1. Yes. Mosaic law doesn't seem to put them in the same category, it does put them in the same category. They are both lawless acts.
2. hmm, Gen. 17:6. "I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations." True enuf. But your question would seem to suggest that the existence of States is evil, and that God is therefore evil for suggesting it!
But, aside from that, I think a better question would be, does God advocate the existence of States? The answer is yes. An even better question, however, would be, does the State have a right to make statute law, fiat law, or is the State bound by something over it to simply administer those laws given it from above?
This, in fact, is the answer to someone else's point - might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone - that the State, under Christianity, has an all-encompassing focus, and that Christianity requires a big State. This is incorrect. The State, under Christianity, has such a limited role it bares no resemblance to what we see in the world now. It's role is only 1 thing: the administration of the sword, ie: justice. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less. It has, in other words, a limited jurisdiction. I've pointed this out before, and so have others like Gary North & Rushdoony. Others like Hans Sennholz held it also. (I'd like to do some further study into whether Henry Hazlitt held to this too - I could be wasting my time - there may not be any info out there to suggest one way or the other, I dunno. It probably isn't important anyway, but people like to have some names they can throw around to back up their own assertions, and Henry Haxzlitt's not a bad name to toss up, so I'll see. His quote from Francis Bacon in his 'Economics in One Lesson' was irrelevant to the argument, but he stuck it in there anyway, almost like a personal testimony.) Heck, even guys like Murray Rothbard and, perhaps, HL Mencken, certainly no friends of orthodoxy, knew that was the case even tho' they disagreed with the governing assumptions of those who did!
In other words, let's kill this idea off now. The State's role is the administration of justice, nothing else, according to Biblical Law. No-one cares whether you disagree with Christianity now, but everyone should just drop off the idea that Christianity means a big State, statism, marxism, whatever-ism.
"The opposite to law is not grace, it is lawlessness." Dr. RJ Rushdoony, "Institutes of Biblical Law"
Craig: Hey Merlin, (I dug your tv show, btw!) Are these questions addressed to me? Whatever. I'll answer 'em anyway. 1. Yes. Mosaic law doesn't seem to put them in the same category, it does put them in the same category. They are both lawless acts. 2. hmm, Gen. 17:6. "I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations." True enuf. But your question would seem to suggest that the existence of States is evil, and that God is therefore evil for suggesting it! But, aside from that, I think a better question would be, does God advocate the existence of States? The answer is yes. An even better question, however, would be, does the State have a right to make statute law, fiat law, or is the State bound by something over it to simply administer those laws given it from above? This, in fact, is the answer to someone else's point - might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone - that the State, under Christianity, has an all-encompassing focus, and that Christianity requires a big State. This is incorrect. The State, under Christianity, has such a limited role it bares no resemblance to what we see in the world now. It's role is only 1 thing: the administration of the sword, ie: justice. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less. It has, in other words, a limited jurisdiction. I've pointed this out before, and so have others like Gary North & Rushdoony. Others like Hans Sennholz held it also. (I'd like to do some further study into whether Henry Hazlitt held to this too - I could be wasting my time - there may not be any info out there to suggest one way or the other, I dunno. It probably isn't important anyway, but people like to have some names they can throw around to back up their own assertions, and Henry Haxzlitt's not a bad name to toss up, so I'll see. His quote from Francis Bacon in his 'Economics in One Lesson' was irrelevant to the argument, but he stuck it in there anyway, almost like a personal testimony.) Heck, even guys like Murray Rothbard and, perhaps, HL Mencken, certainly no friends of orthodoxy, knew that was the case even tho' they disagreed with the governing assumptions of those who did! In other words, let's kill this idea off now. The State's role is the administration of justice, nothing else, according to Biblical Law. No-one cares whether you disagree with Christianity now, but everyone should just drop off the idea that Christianity means a big State, statism, marxism, whatever-ism.
Hans Hoppe defines the State, in the tradition of Max Weber, as follows: "[the State] must be able to insist that all conflicts among the inhabitants of a given territory be brought to him for ultimate decision-making or be subject to his final review. In particular, this agent must be able to insist that all conflicts involving himself be adjudicated by him or his agent. And implied in the power to exclude all others from acting as ultimate judge, as the second defining characteristic of a state, is the agents power to tax: to unilaterally determine the price that justice seekers must pay for his services." State = coercion. Coercion = sin. The State is sin. If you have something else in mind, it is not a State but some sort of voluntary association that provides services that are presently monopolized by the State.
Hey Clayton,
I don't have time to go thru' all this, but just a few quick pointers:
You mention disagreeing with biologists...umm, which ones? Not that it was relevant to the argument that Marx & Engels recieved 'scientific' justification for their nonsense from Darwin's nonsense, but there are numberless biologists out there who disagree with the evolutionary hypothesis.
A decentralized process??? Huh? I thought the current theory, unless it's changed in the last 5 minutes, was that all was one until the Big Bang, which would, in fact, and I just realized this now! thanx for that, Clayton!, give justification to Marx & Engels as opposed to Mises & Hayek! But you did do a good smother: 'Marx was a quack' (value-judgement) 'and Engels wasn't even a scholar' (which obviously precludes him from having anything worthwhile tosay, I take it?) So you don't care what Marx & Engels thought. But hang on, that was the argument in toto! If you don't care about it, what are you commenting on it for? What's doing there?
Your assertion that Christianity puts the State forward as the ultimate arbiter of all things or something has been answered elsewhere on this list, so I'll let that pass.
You think Cornelius Van Til confused knowing and persuading. I think you mean DR Cornelius Van Til. This man was, after all, a scholar, and therefore worthy of respect, remember? Umm, I have to bring you to task here when you say that all you have to go on are your sense perceptions. Umm, this just doesn't stand up to philosophical scrutiny. I think you're smarter than that, or at least , in Christian charity, I presume so. Empiricism died a quick death when it was brought to its logical conclusion that we don't experience causation - we draw the conclusion in our own minds that A caused B. If a tree falls in the forest, but there's no-one there to experience it, has it really happened? How do we know that our senses are reliable? Is the mind really just a blank slate, with all these 'experiences' hitting it, sort of hodge-podge-like, or does the mind take part in the knowing process itself? At what point do 'sense perceptions' become 'knowledge', and how do you know in the first place? These are the kinds of silly questions that philosophers go on with, but they are pertinent to the point you raised. In fact, they aren't really useless questions at all when you realize that western philosophy gave up trying to answer the big questions of epistemology & metaphysics ages ago becoz they couldn't - they had no answers. These days, philosophers are tied up in ideas like 'What is language?' Really interesting stuff (not!)
Does this mean that we discount reason? Does it sound like I do? I can, after all, write an intelligble sentence, using corect speling and grama, so it would appear that, either my use of reason presupposes the falsity of my Christian commitment, or that it shows the truth thereof. I think we both know where we both stand here. If you've read Van Til, you'd be aware of his analogy of the buzz-saw. That's how I see non-Christian sense perceptions, memory, and (most importantly) reasoning capacity. If you disagree with that, and, assuming you know the analogy of the buzz-saw, I assume you do, then we'll have something further to talk about.
But,, in closing, remember what started all this: the assertion that religion & Capitalism are opposites or some such nonsense. While it would be easy to agree on the grounds of what some people, as opposed to other people, have done with religion in the past, a quick read of Gary North's 'Moses & Pharaoh' would suggest that they go pretty well together. So the questions boil down to: From which philosophy/religion does Capitalism naturally flow? And, Is it possible to be consistently Capitalist if one does not hold to that religion/philosophy?
Long time no see!
Ii have no real argument with your required 'voluntary association'. I would simply define THAT as being the State. After all, people can, voluntarily choose to go out from the jurisdiction of one State to another. I can leave Oz to go to Camelot if I choose, and therefore my 'association' with Oz is 'voluntary', but while I am in Oz, I am subject to the laws of that land, for better or worse.
But why would you define Coercion as sin?? That presupposes (there's that Van Tilian word again!) that there is some kind of universal standard of sin, and of coercion, which, as an anarchist, you cannot have. So your assertion that Coercion = sin is meaningless.
Anyway, I've had enuf of this for one day...it's 2pm Saturday here now, and I've done nothing around the house yet! I have to say that the manner in which the discussion here has been conducted has been, for the most part, congenial, in keeping with Mises' doctrine of ethics - "be really excellent to each other." Where it hasn't, I accept full responsibilty.
I don't understand how the big bang supports Marx and Engels at the expense of Hayek and Mises?
“Elections are Futures Markets in Stolen Property.” - H. L. Mencken
Havvy : It is of my belief that while a separation of the mind and the body would be completely and utterly awesome, it is not a probable event. For then, you must explain why is it that injury to the brain can lead to injury of the mind. The mind is an emergent property of the brain. Find me a contradiction of this, and I'll change my beliefs. Otherwise, the topic has swayed away from economics completely.
It is of my belief that while a separation of the mind and the body would be completely and utterly awesome, it is not a probable event. For then, you must explain why is it that injury to the brain can lead to injury of the mind. The mind is an emergent property of the brain.
Find me a contradiction of this, and I'll change my beliefs. Otherwise, the topic has swayed away from economics completely.
ClaytonB:The State, under Christianity, has such a limited role it bares no resemblance to what we see in the world now. It's role is only 1 thing: the administration of the sword, ie: justice. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less.
Christianity has no such formal political doctrine, while its dogma, and doctrines can be used in order to support various systems of government, it does not provide such an over-arching plan with regards to the state.
ClaytonB:The State's role is the administration of justice, nothing else, according to Biblical Law.
Biblical Law was the law of Israel, but Israel's divine function has been accomplished, and now it is no more in the strictest sense. Thus the "Law" as understood in this sentence is no longer of used, and is, for the lack of a better term, obsolete.
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
This is what happens when people have an unstated agenda....oh, btw, and I know it's difficult with these lists/forums as I've done it myself here, the points you're objecting to weren't made by Clayton B, but by me.
laminustacitus:Christianity has no such formal political doctrine, while its dogma, and doctrines can be used in order to support various systems of government, it does not provide such an over-arching plan with regards to the state.
There's no justification provided for this assertion. It's just a 'gimme' apparently. The reason for this, tho', can be seen from the following statement....
laminustacitus:Biblical Law was the law of Israel, but Israel's divine function has been accomplished, and now it is no more in the strictest sense. Thus the "Law" as understood in this sentence is no longer of used, and is, for the lack of a better term, obsolete.
Once again, the unstated presupposition of this statement is that the Old Testament, specifically the Law as given to Moses, has no validity. Our dispensationalist has a problem here, however: how does he justify his statement? The Bible itself no-where draws the line in the sand in the same way our questioner does. Further, it opens the door to any wacko socio-political philosophy to claim justificaton from the Bible - usually a good tool to use when trying to hoodwink people that don't know any better in order to gain power & control. Denying the Law allows us to set up our own law in its place, something Christianity denies to us. I think Gen 3:5 sums that up nicely.
If our dispensationalist can provide some justification for his/her assertions, then good - just bring it. The only trouble is, it faces the same problem that the Anarchists face: the assertion that freedom is good, with no universal justification for it, aside from Mises' "be really excellent to each other", the only difference is it replaces Mises with Jesus, and gets treated with the same disdain that Anarchist ethics is by the general populace.
Like Gary North says, "You can't beat something with nothing."
Capital Pumper: Here is the bullshit that you just pulled: Weaseled in the atheism = faith myth Implicitly lied about Darwin being an atheist Equivocated evolution with atheism Invoked the atheism ----> communism non-sequitur I'm glad to see these banal straw man still up and running. It's just on the reasons I stopped watching debates on religion.
Here is the bullshit that you just pulled:
Weaseled in the atheism = faith myth
Implicitly lied about Darwin being an atheist
Equivocated evolution with atheism
Invoked the atheism ----> communism non-sequitur
I'm glad to see these banal straw man still up and running. It's just on the reasons I stopped watching debates on religion.
I just found this! It was posted yesterday, by someone calling themselves 'Capital Pumper'. I'm sure name that makes sense to him/her, but, yeah whatever....
Apparently I pulled BS. I've never tried that before, but 'Capital Pumper' seems to know about it. Sounds kinda painful, but, yeah whatever....
I weasled in the atheism = faith myth. No arguments there, but I didn't weasel it in - it's out there, in the open, Dude! It takes a great deal of faith to be an atheist from my perspective. You only have to look at what Doug Wilson did to Chris Hitchens to figure that! So go figure, huh? (oh, btw, you can find that stuff on YT, or if you're really a glutton for punishment, you can buy the thing on dvd from American Vision and other places. I don't know if the atheists are happy about that as I have never seen or heard of it being sold by them. Seems only Christians are confident enuf to put it out there.)
I implicitly lied about Darwin being an atheist. I never asserted this, either openly or otherwise. What Darwin was, aside from a BS artist, is entirely irrelevant! I don't care! It doesn't matter. Cop the tip: it's not what Darwin was that is the issue here, but what Marx & Engels did with Darwin's BS that matters.
I equivocated evolution with atheism. No drama's there. I did. So what? I didn't know it was possible to be one without being the other as well, whether that's modern or ancient evolution or atheism. Whether that's right or wrong I dunno. Bottom line is, our 'Capital Pumper' did a hit-&-run attack, without stopping to offer his/her poor victim assistance to know the relationship between them correctly, or even if there is any. So his/her point can be disregarded as lacking evidence.
Finally, I also invoked the atheism ----> communism non-sequitur. Did I? I would have thought that the reverse was true, which is what I have been saying all along! Strangely enuf, our 'Capital Pumper' failed to stop for long enuf, once again, to explain how I engaged in non-sequitur-ism. Now I could be wrong about atheism & communism, and the implicit links between them, but 'Capital Pumper' obviously doesnt care enuf about his 'Capital'ism to try and educate me! He would rather be an atheist than a Capitalist, I take it therefore.
Which leads me on to his/her final point:
Capital Pumper:I'm glad to see these banal straw man still up and running. It's just on the reasons I stopped watching debates on religion.
His/her final closing remark is more illustrative of his/her own assumptions than they are any refutation of anything I've said. To label something a straw man argument, you must first demonstrate that it is, something 'Capital Pumper' couldn't be bothered to do. He/she is therefore, in Aussie parlance, 'just tossing it up', and as such, what he/she says can be safely disregarded as irrelevant. His/her final statement that 'it's just one of the reasons I stopped watching debates on religion' begs the question finally....what are you doing here, then???
Oh, hang on, it appears that our protagonist had a brain explosion a bit later on while responding to somebody else, and left in a mad huff, so, aside from the entertainment value he/she has provided me with here, in the context of the overall debate, his/her points raised above are irrelevant as well. Go figure, huh?
ClaytonB:Why else should religion receive any more focus than, say, shuffle-board? Religion may be mumbo-jumbo, but so are all human actions... religion is not especially mumbo-jumbo, it's just one among the infinite varieties of mumbo-jumbo we can engage in.
The problem with your statement is that people don't fly planes into skyscrapers, execute apostates or caution against the use of condoms based on shuffle-board-related mumbo-jumbo. They do so, however, based on religion.
While that technically doesn't make religion more or less true (though it definitely makes it less believable to me), it definitely makes it especially warranting ridicule, contempt and opposition, as compared to most other mumbo-jumbo people might engage in.
laminustacitus: ClaytonB:The State, under Christianity, has such a limited role it bares no resemblance to what we see in the world now. It's role is only 1 thing: the administration of the sword, ie: justice. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less. Christianity has no such formal political doctrine, while its dogma, and doctrines can be used in order to support various systems of government, it does not provide such an over-arching plan with regards to the state. ClaytonB:The State's role is the administration of justice, nothing else, according to Biblical Law. Biblical Law was the law of Israel, but Israel's divine function has been accomplished, and now it is no more in the strictest sense. Thus the "Law" as understood in this sentence is no longer of used, and is, for the lack of a better term, obsolete.
Why did you misattribute these quotes to me??!?
assimilateur: ClaytonB:Why else should religion receive any more focus than, say, shuffle-board? Religion may be mumbo-jumbo, but so are all human actions... religion is not especially mumbo-jumbo, it's just one among the infinite varieties of mumbo-jumbo we can engage in. The problem with your statement is that people don't fly planes into skyscrapers, execute apostates or caution against the use of condoms based on shuffle-board-related mumbo-jumbo. They do so, however, based on religion.
They also do so on the basis of political indoctrination. Humans can be emotionally manipulated, that's all that it means.
Well, you're welcome to denigrate the practice of some or all (what you call) religions to any degree you like, I think it is a mistake to fail to understand the positive role which religion evolved to fulfill within human society.
ClaytonB:They also do so on the basis of political indoctrination.
I won't deny that, nor will I deny that religion has positive effects on some people, and that it plays an important role in society. You are also free to disagree with the wisdom of opposing religion, but your earlier comment on singling out religion being supposedly a "Freudian slip" by antitheists stems either from a grave misunderstanding or was an offensive trivialization.
Dondoolee: Merlin: This is going to be such a delightful thread. I though about posting only to get e-mail notifications of the flame-war that will ensue. Have fun! We should play falme war bingo, Example: Godwin's law would be B1.
Merlin: This is going to be such a delightful thread. I though about posting only to get e-mail notifications of the flame-war that will ensue. Have fun!
This is going to be such a delightful thread. I though about posting only to get e-mail notifications of the flame-war that will ensue. Have fun!
We should play falme war bingo, Example: Godwin's law would be B1.
Oh, man! I can't believe you guys are sitting this one out! My rhetorical bloodlust is screaming! I can see it now:
"Well, actually you're both full of crap..."
krazy kaju:You cannot be absolutely certain that anything besides you exists.
And you really can't even be certain of that. Makes the whole lot of folks speaking in absolutes seem like total toolbags. I'd like for them to keep it up though, it makes it easier for me to know who to avoid.
Merlin:They are. I’ve never seen a tolerant religion. Please do correct me if you know of any counterexamples.
The ones with no dogma, and no centralized, hierarchical structure, and who don't try to convert, and who don't have a concept of "pious vs infidels"...
Of course, without that stuff, religion is just spirituality, or a philosophy.
Hmm, maybe Buddhism or Taoism? They sort of blur the line there.
cryptocode:You could, of course, define the word religion to mean only beliefs based on faith. But then you need to provide another word for the remaining religions.
How about "Empirical Transcendentalist"?
Justin Spahr-Summers:Life and reality are neither logical nor illogical; they are simply given. But logic is the only tool available to man for the comprehension of both."
I would also like to include meditation and psychedelics.
ClaytonB:These do me absolutely no good as they are immanent, second-hand accounts of transcendental experience.
Don't believe in germs, or the roundness of the Earth, either, huh?
ClaytonB:An account of a transcendental experience is not itself a transcendental experience.
Well put. Nurse, 1000 uG Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, stat!
zefreak: cryptocode: There have been thousands of reported out-of-body and near-death experiences. Etc. There are physiological explanations for these experiences that do not require the presumption of a supernatural deity. See the work of Thomas Metzinger (or even Penn and Teller or John Stossel)
cryptocode: There have been thousands of reported out-of-body and near-death experiences. Etc.
There have been thousands of reported out-of-body and near-death experiences. Etc.
There are physiological explanations for these experiences that do not require the presumption of a supernatural deity. See the work of Thomas Metzinger (or even Penn and Teller or John Stossel)
And refer to Rick Strassman for some from the other side of the ideological fence.
baxter: There are also thousands of reported LSD trips, fever-induced deliria, and tumor-induced seizures. I'm sorry I can't see visions of God through having medically identifiable neurological failures.
There are also thousands of reported LSD trips, fever-induced deliria, and tumor-induced seizures.
I'm sorry I can't see visions of God through having medically identifiable neurological failures.
How can you be a credible judge if they are failures or not. The majority doesn't make the rules.
zefreak: Sounds like egoism dressed up in metaphysics. If its just a system of ethics (man should improve himself through education and experimentation) then how is it a religion? Unless it postulates some teleological goal or end that man must work towards, some state that fulfills his spiritual nature. In which case it is new-age spiritualism for egoists.
Sounds like egoism dressed up in metaphysics. If its just a system of ethics (man should improve himself through education and experimentation) then how is it a religion? Unless it postulates some teleological goal or end that man must work towards, some state that fulfills his spiritual nature. In which case it is new-age spiritualism for egoists.
The idea of an egoistic (dogmatic) religion. Now that's an oxymoronic thought.
Although, egoism does slide quite nicely into transcendental philosophy.
After we gotten "back of" the material , and then gotten "back of" the ethereal, the only thing that remains is to get "back of" the ego, working towards its dissolution as a "spook", ending up returning to the state of "creative nothing".
Austro-Devil: Isn't the more important question why the most prominent atheists haven't become anarchists? Are there any at all (certainly not the four horsemen - Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens)? Dawkins is a particularly depressing case. He has repeatedly stated that he thinks laissez-faire (or even as close as we got during the Thatcher years) is "apalling." He has actually drawn upon evolutionary theory showing that co-operation is often a good strategy in order to make this case. So he must believe co-operation is widespread. Accordingly one would assume he would be able to conclude that a more liberal system could function well, perhaps better. On the contrary, because he understands how people will endogenously co-operate, he thinks a system of endogenous co-operation is bad and a system of exogenous coercion is good. So what can we conclude from this: apparently Dawkins thinks laissez-faire capitalism means a system where everyone is forced not to co-operate!
Isn't the more important question why the most prominent atheists haven't become anarchists? Are there any at all (certainly not the four horsemen - Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens)?
Dawkins is a particularly depressing case. He has repeatedly stated that he thinks laissez-faire (or even as close as we got during the Thatcher years) is "apalling." He has actually drawn upon evolutionary theory showing that co-operation is often a good strategy in order to make this case. So he must believe co-operation is widespread. Accordingly one would assume he would be able to conclude that a more liberal system could function well, perhaps better. On the contrary, because he understands how people will endogenously co-operate, he thinks a system of endogenous co-operation is bad and a system of exogenous coercion is good. So what can we conclude from this: apparently Dawkins thinks laissez-faire capitalism means a system where everyone is forced not to co-operate!
Because they are still religious. They are humanist, as opposed to deist, but it is essentially the same.
Jackson LaRose:Because they are still religious. They are humanist, as opposed to deist, but it is essentially the same.
Can you explain your reasoning for calling people who don't believe in any higher power religious?
Are you, perhaps, using a more metaphorical definition of the word "religious", meaning something along the lines of "dogmatic" or "zealous"?
assimilateur: Jackson LaRose:Because they are still religious. They are humanist, as opposed to deist, but it is essentially the same. Can you explain your reasoning for calling people who don't believe in any higher power religious? Are you, perhaps, using a more metaphorical definition of the word "religious", meaning something along the lines of "dogmatic" or "zealous"?
Why soytently!
They beleive in the existense of a big bad bogey man called Mankind (aka the greater good), which the individual must submit himself to, and become the servant of. Incedentally, all humanists believe this, regardless of their flavor (Communists, Parlimentary Liberals, Socialists, Humanist Libertarians, National Socialists etc.) .
Your definition of humanism is surprising to say the least (I naively [in that I have not given this much thought, so far] consider myself a humanist but I'd never call for people to be subjected to a greater good, even if we called it mankind), but even if taken at face value, it does little to convince me of the religious nature of humanism. That's mainly because this greater good is a concept, as opposed to a supernatural being, and it was my understanding that you couldn't have have religion without such a thing.
assimilateur:That's mainly because this greater good is a concept, as opposed to a supernatural being, and it was my understanding that you couldn't have have religion without such a thing.
I would ask, how do you define a supernatural being? I would call it "a non-corporeal entity beleived to exist external to the mind". By my definition, I could consider lots of things as supernatural. Mankind, God, the state of Ohio, etc.
Also, you need to consider your definition of "Religion", I think of it as "a heirarchical system based on observance of a supernatural being within a dogmatic framework" so let's apply this to my examples:
God - The Catholic church - The Bible (among many others)
Ohio - The state government of Ohio - The state constitution of Ohio
Mankind - Liberalism - The Human Contract, Bill of Rights (among many others)
you dig?
Stirner wasn't the only Egoist! Jackson LaRose, are you perhaps a dualist?
Your view of liberalism is as bad as your view of libertarianism.
zefreak: Stirner wasn't the only Egoist! Jackson LaRose, are you perhaps a dualist?
?
Angurse: Your view of liberalism is as bad as your view of libertarianism.
Why?
Jackson LaRose:Why?
Its false. (collectivise)
Jackson LaRose: zefreak: Stirner wasn't the only Egoist! Jackson LaRose, are you perhaps a dualist? ?
Lazy post, I know.
Stirner not being the only egoist was in response to your post regarding the supposed incompatibility of spiritualism and egoism.
The question regarding dualism is unrelated to the former, and simply in response to a post or two in this thread.
Sorry for the confusion!
Jackson LaRose:They beleive in the existense of a big bad bogey man called Mankind (aka the greater good), which the individual must submit himself to, and become the servant of. Incedentally, all humanists believe this, regardless of their flavor (Communists, Parlimentary Liberals, Socialists, Humanist Libertarians, National Socialists etc.)
Now HERE is someone who sees the issue clearly, even if, judging by his posts, and his tag, he is diametrically opposed to historic Christianity - you, unlike all the other atheist contenders here, have seen the dialectical tension inherent in atheist socio-political theory. I'm personally more a fan of the Marquis and Sartre as opposed to whats-his-name Crowley, but there you go - to each his own.
I was really interested earlier in this list to see the definition of Libertarian ethics as given by Mises in Human Action...something that can & should be reduced to 'Be really excellent to each other', sort of like Ethics 101 as taught by Forrest Gump. Mises should have stuck to economics!
Angurse:Its false.
How?
Angurse:(collectivise)
and Huh?
zefreak:Stirner not being the only egoist was in response to your post regarding the supposed incompatibility of spiritualism and egoism.
I asserted that they were compatible, neigh, complimentary.
zefreak:The question regarding dualism is unrelated to the former, and simply in response to a post or two in this thread.
Well, I don't claim to know the truth, but I personally lean towards non-dualism.
Jackson LaRose: krazy kaju:You cannot be absolutely certain that anything besides you exists. And you really can't even be certain of that. Makes the whole lot of folks speaking in absolutes seem like total toolbags. I'd like for them to keep it up though, it makes it easier for me to know who to avoid.
"Existence", in my opinion, is a red herring when dealing with fundamental questions. All the thoughts and memories that I have are just ways of organizing the my perceptions. Whether those perceptions correspond to "something real outside myself" is relatively unimportant because, either way, I could never tell the difference between a perfect simulation of a non-existent universe which is in every way like this universe... and this universe. That is, if I am, in fact, a brain in a vat immersed in a sufficiently realistic simulation of the universe, I will never be able to tell that the universe is not, in fact, real, but only a simulation being executed in some other, more fundamental "reality". However, since the "brain in a vat" hypothesis is less probable than the "reality is as it appears" hypothesis, I see no need to agonize over the possibility that I am actually a brain in a vat. I rank ontology a distant second to epistemology.
Jackson LaRose:you dig?
In short, I decidedly disagree. Your definition of religion strikes me as so ridiculously wide as to be irrelevant.
That said, I will not discuss what is a religion and what isn't; the classical definition of religion is sufficient for my use.
Craig: Now HERE is someone who sees the issue clearly, even if, judging by his posts, and his tag, he is diametrically opposed to historic Christianity - you, unlike all the other atheist contenders here, have seen the dialectical tension inherent in atheist socio-political theory. I'm personally more a fan of the Marquis and Sartre as opposed to whats-his-name Crowley, but there you go - to each his own.
Thanks, but I can't really take credit for this deduction. It was merely a lame regurgitation of Stirner.
Are you afraid to type Aleister Crowley's whole name? Don't worry, I don't think big J would mind too much.