“Parenthetically, I am getting tired of the offhanded smearing of religion that has long been endemic to the libertarian movement. Religion is generally dismissed as imbecilic at best, inherently evil at worst. The greatest and most creative minds in the history of mankind have been deeply and profoundly religious, most of them Christian.”
— Murray Rothbard
Note: Rothbard is of course writing from a Eurocentric perspective I don’t endorse. After all, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus contributed hugely to the sciences too. And agnostics and skeptics.
“Religion is generally dismissed as imbecilic at best, inherently evil at worst”.
That`s my silent impression as well. But I only express it loudly if I`m confronted by a religious person who indicates me that this “prejudice” is right. I apply methodological individualism to religious people as well. Their are great religious minds, but also mass murderers. Same with atheists.
I like this Mises quote:
“We liberals do not assert that God or Nature meant all men to be free, because we are not instructed in the designs of God and of Nature, and we avoid, on principle, drawing God and Nature into a dispute over mundane questions.”
This misses the point though. The accomplishments these men made were not because of their belief in god, but because of their utilization of logic and reason to solve problems. It is the embrace of science that has driven progress. He commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy by linking their belief in a self-contradictory being with their earthly and scientific discoveries. Truth be told, the main stream libertarian movement is largly funded by christians. So this seems like a straw man, sites like Lew Rockwell’s tend to shun Atheists or anyone else who is critical of the dogmas of religion.
Hi –
My impression is that Lew publishes quite a range of material except openly atheistic stuff and that’s probably because most other libertarian sites are anti-religious, especially left-libs.
The objectivists have their own circle where they are free to bash religion.
I don’t think Rothbard is committing the post-hoc fallacy. He’s correctly pointing out that many of the greatest minds in literature, music, art, and science were religious, not atheistic.
Most of these scientists’ belief ran side by side with their reasoning ability and didn’t contradict it. Look at Newton or Pascal or Leibniz…
Even Einstein was a deist not an atheist.
Ramanujan the mathematicians was a devout believer.
Contemporary history writing is also wrong to dismiss the pre-16th c renaissance(s) of the Catholic church in which priests were prominent.
The Carolingian renaissance, for one.
At the very least, all this shows that religious belief is not incompatible with the highest quality of intelligence and creative ability.
People here are misled into thinking otherwise because the religion practiced by so many is anti-intellectual…
But that is a problem of culture, not of religious belief, per se.
I beleive Lew banishes openly atheist writing because he receives alot of money from christians. You wouldnt want to upset the gift horse. Religion and science are opposite. Religion depends on anti-logic. If you begin to ask very simple questions, the idea of the christian god becomes evidently rediculous. Religion is not reason, it is faith, which is to abandon reason. Any advancements, like I said before were due to the embrace of science, and sound methodology for understanding reality. Science does not answer everything, but it is a methodology through which we can begin to answer questions, and derive new questions. Truth will never be discovered through praying to god or believing that your priest has a connection to a self-contradictory deity.
Hi Marc.
1. I don’t know what money Lew receives from where. But I’m sure his Christian beliefs are genuine, since he could just as well get that money, and more, from atheists. It is more likely to be the truth that he receives money from people who think like him and show their support. That’s normal.
Atheists likewise receive their money from atheists.
1. Religion and science are not “opposite” – whatever opposite means, no more than art and science. Is an apple opposite a pear or a tomato?
They are different..but not lacking shared qualities.
At the highest level, they even share insights.
They have different roles, criteria, and parameters. Religion, in some respects,
was an early form of science…
2. For the rest of your arguments, read C. P. Snow, Thomas Kuhn, and a few others, they’re a good starting point. We’ll argue after that.
I’m sorry not to reply at greater length.
No time to reinvent the wheel here.
Will post links later.
“The accomplishments these men made were not because of their belief in god, but because of their utilization of logic and reason to solve problems…”
Logic and reason only exist if ultimate truth exists and ultimate truth only exists if there is a Truth-source apart from ourselves.
Yes…atheists never push their line of questioning far enough, do they?
Agnosticism is a different thing. I respect agnostics and consider myself one in many respects.
Religion is just as much an issue as capitalism is to an economy — i.e., it isn’t really. The real problem is certain individuals and groups that ruin the system.
Furthermore, it’s easy to discredit religion when the beliefs are interpreted literally, but that’s not the only way to view religion. I prefer Joseph Campbell’s mythological interpretation of religion, and when you understand it metaphorically, you realize that all religions are true one way or another.
Less importantly, rational believers and nonbelievers are all agnostics. Otherwise, they should study epistemology a bit more.
Yes. It’s not the religion, it’s the moral and intellectual level of the people. Just as it’s not capitalism or even socialism. It’s the people.
All rational individuals temper their beliefs with the view that they could be wrong.
All belief systems rest on some irrational or chaotic entry point which negates the system.
Everything really is interpretation.
Not dogma.
I am not surprised that the greatest minds in the *HISTORY* of mankind were ostensibly Christians. Historically, atheists were persecuted and ostracized for admitting their atheism. Not only that, new truths are constantly discovered. Throughout history, many great minds were quite ignorant of modern scientific theories. For example, Newton was around before Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace set forth explanations adopted by mainstream biology.
Moreover, the “great minds” of science were only great minds because they used thinking that is the polar opposite nature of religion faith. Let’s call a spade a spade and admit that Leviticus 20:13 states to murder homosexuals.
@Harley
You have a mistaken view of real religion. It’s not the dogma people think it is.
And intuition and belief don’t rest on lack of reasoning power. They are faculties in addition to reasoning. They transcend but don’t negate reason.
If religion is opposed to reason please explain why the greatest mathematical mind of the 20th century Ramanujan was religious and experienced visions?
Please explain why the Catholic church experienced a Renaissance of scientific inquiry long before the well known Renaissance?
History today is written in a very tendentious way.
I am not an advocate of blind faith or of any faith.
But there are verifiable psychological and energetic realities.
It is truly scientific to examine them and accept that somethings may NOT be amenable to the scientific experimentation needed to study objects outsider ourselves.
Religion,at least in the east, has nothing to to with such “studies” although it does build on them and is not hostile to them
The Vedic period was simultaneously a period of great religious and moral teachings and of scientific advances.
The two are no incompatible at all..that is a modern western notion.
I have not found it to be true.