A Libertarian View on Religion

  Recently, a religious person asked me if I was happy about being an atheist.  I wasn't expecting such a question, and mumbled something along the lines of "I guess so".  But upon a moment's reflection, I realized that there's a problem not just with the answer, but with the question.  Why should there be any significant emotional content in being an atheist?

Assuming that one is not simply being contradictory or rebellious for its own sake, atheism is merely a logical conclusion based upon available evidence (or lack of evidence).  So why should I be particularly happy about being atheist anymore than I should be happy about the sun rising every morning, or that letting go of an object above ground level causes it to fall to the ground?  Atheism is just a rational conclusion, and it is probably best not to invest too much emotion into it.  There's no particular point in being smugly confident about being an atheist for example, or to be overly pessimistic about a lack of an afterlife.  If you're too emotional about atheism, then you're probably believing in it for the wrong reasons, and should re-think why you are an atheist.

In a related point, there is the question of how libertarians "ought" to treat religion.  From a strictly technical standpoint, libertarians should be probably be neutral about religion, as long as religion is not an excuse to initiate force or fraud against other people.  In short, libertarianism is *merely* a political philosophy, and has little or nothing to say about anything that is not political.  A person should thus be free to believe in any nonsense they want to believe in, as long as they are not aggressing against other people.

But if there is no God and no afterlife, aren't religious people perpetuating a fraud against other people?  Not necessarily.  While there are no doubt some people who are hypocrites or outright liars, and merely use religion as a means of controlling and manipulating other people, many religious people truly believe in the tenets of their religion, and thus cannot be said to be initiating fraud against others.  You can't be engaging in fraud if you believe it yourself.

Nonetheless, even though libertarianism doesn't specifically preclude religious beliefs, there may still be a problem with having religious convictions.  Libertarianism is essentially just a basic principle, the non-aggression principle, followed through to its logical implications and conclusions.  Religious convictions are essentially beliefs held for decidedly non-logical reasons.  Thus, while being an atheist doesn't require emotional content, being religious certainly does require an emotional investment on the part of the religious person, and a decided lack of reason and logic to continue to hold religious beliefs.

The mind tends to work hard to justify emotional beliefs, resulting in such things as alleged logic of Intelligent Design, and its supposed superiority over evolutionary theory. And if you can believe in one impossible thing, then why not two, or even, like Alice in Wonderland, six impossible things before breakfast? 

The libertarian who holds illogical religious beliefs is thus at greater risk for distorting libertarian views to justify an illogical implication or conclusion.  For example, libertarians who believe in immigration restrictions.  Admittedly, religious belief is not the only illogical view that puts one at risk for distorting libertarianism.  People who believe in the supernatural, UFO's, or conspiracy theories are also exhibiting illogical or irrational tendencies. 

Religious people are still in the great majority of the mainstream, however, and religion still strongly influences our society.  If you think about it, aren't devout Christians as much a threat, if not a greater threat, to our Western intellectual values and the Classical Liberal tradtion than are believers of other religions, like Muslims?  Christians are in a much better position to distort and undermine the culture of science and free inquiry than any Muslim could be. Perhaps Christian Conservatives and liberal hippies are both on the wrong side of the Culture War.

A change of perspective in politics

  Ever since I discovered the simplicity of the libertarian non-aggression principle, I've been forced to reconsider everything political in terms of the principle.   However, getting other people to see things from my perspective, however simple it seems to me, has been a difficult task. I can't pretend that things are really the way they seemed to be before discovering libertarianism, and I don't know if I should be more angry at the politicians and power-mongers who continue to foster the illusions for their own purposes and goals, or the large majority of mainstream people who buy into the illusions, or at least, pretend to go along with the illusions.

Part of the reason that governments have so much power over ordinary people is the perceived legitimacy they possess, given to them by ordinary people.  This legitimacy will last as long as most people continue to believe that governments have some valid, moral authority to initiate force and fraud against people, and no longer than that.

Without that perceived legitimacy, governments and their agents would be recognized as the criminals that they really are. At best, they're terrorists who believe in some just or unjust cause.  At worst, they're just thieves, murderers, con men, and mobsters on a larger scale than most thieves, murderers, con men, and mobsters.

What?  You don't think this?  You think government is a force for good?  Well, consider this:

Who banned DDT so that we have to deal with the return of blood-sucking bedbugs?
Who removed phosphates from laundry detergent, making it harder to keep clothes clean?
Who forced television broadcasters to stop using analog transmissions and send digital broadcast signals instead, forcing consumers to get a digital converter or a newer, digital television?
Who forced manufacturers to stop making high-flow showerheads and high-capacity flush toilets, creating less satisfaction and more plumbing problems for consumers? 
Who tried to ban incandescent light bulbs and force everyone to convert to compact flourescent light bulbs, and thus reduce lighting quality and increase the risk of mercury poisoning?
Who restricted the producers of the flu vaccine (which has to be created anew every year to keep up with the continual modification of the flu virus), and thus created shortages of the vaccine and increased the chances of people dying from the flu?


Not enough for you?  There's plenty more:

Who creates almost all monopolies, especially the monopolies for your utility services: water/sewage, electricity, natural gas, garbage services, and cable television services?
Who controls the money supply, and ensures that we have a continual monetary inflation every year?
Who goes to war, with all the ensuing death and destruction that wars cause?

Or consider these simple facts:

Who makes you pay to drive a vehicle (driver's license)
Who makes you pay to go to work and earn a living (income taxes)?
Who makes you pay to buy goods and services (sales taxes)?
Who makes you pay to own land and property (property taxes)?
Who decides how you are allowed to use your property?

The answer to the above questions, and many other, similar questions should be obvious, and if that isn't enough to make you mad and wonder why so many people put up with it, then I'm not sure that I understand you or how you think.

The evils of government are simple and obvious, no conspiracy thinking is necessary, and it is high time that ordinary people stopped granting legitimacy to the government. We should stop pretending that governments are basically good, and started recognizing that governments create more problems than they solve.  Government isn't even a "necessary evil", just an evil.

Once this happens, then the human race will be ready to progress to the next major step in our evolution and destiny. Or, to put it in a less grandiose way, more people will have more choices and opportunities for controlling their own lives and happiness.