"What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe."
I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian - CNN.com:
"...What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe. I don't know exactly how we got here, and I don't think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we'll get more, but I'm not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I'm not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof...
And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.
President Obama sure looks and acts way smarter than me, but no one is 2 to the 300 millionth power times smarter than me. No one is even 2 to the 300 millionth times smarter than a squirrel...
It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
People try to argue that government isn't really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment -- suggesting on CNN.com that someone not pay his or her taxes is probably a federal offense, and I'm a nut, but I'm not crazy.). When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force -- literally, not figuratively.
I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.
How did we get here and how do we save everyone? I don't know, but I'm doing the best I can..."
Poor guy is confusing atheism with agnosticism. Apart from that he makes some sense.
ReplyDeleteNot really, as there are various distinctions and definitions of atheism v agnosticism [implicit/explicit, positive/negative, weak/strong, etc.] He is atheist, by definition, because he lacks belief. His atheism is also clearly informed by his his agnosticism. He's commented on his personal views on the distinction several times, here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkAGExZCII and here - http://youtu.be/CTWlQaZ0DWo
ReplyDeleteThanks, that's interesting. He's obviously gone through this question countless times and has staked out his ground very clearly. Having said that, I don't agree with him that almost everybody is agnostic, at least in their claims.
ReplyDeleteIt seems ridiculous to think that fundamentalist religionists would by-and-large declare that they don't know if God exists. As far as I can tell, they claim at least, to know, and you don't have to be a fundamentalist to take this position ( I have moments when i KNOW to the core of my being that there is a higher intelligence inherent in nature and that is good enough to be called God, or Tao, or whatever, to me). Anyway, some of the time lumping myself into this group, I would call these people theists.
On the other side, there seems to be a lot of people who claim to know there is no god. Dawkins and his ilk spring to mind, (and I have heard Dawkins on one of his polemical docos declare this knowledge outright). I would call these folk atheists.
Then there are the people that make no claim on the knowledge of god, agnostics. As Penn says himself in the beginning of the post, " If I don't know, I don't believe" putting the epistemological question in the primary position.
Further, I find it telling (no pun intended) that the literal definition of atheism has no component referring to belief. So an atheist is simply "without god", whereas as an agnostic is "without knowledge". With this in mind, and please permit me this whimsy, consider that an agnostic may well be benefitting,or suffering from the existence of a god s/he knows not about but is open to the possibility of, whereas an atheist is without god, as s/he knows this to be the truth, no question about it. Anyway, thanks for provoking thought. I love your blog!
No worries, and thanks for the comments. Interesting stuff!
ReplyDelete