09 Jun 2013

Religious Views Can’t Well Be Compartmentalized

Religious 32 Comments

There is an understandable strain in the classical liberal tradition stressing the importance of “religious tolerance.” I am most familiar with Ludwig von Mises’ position on this topic, who defended toleration out of the need for peace. According to Mises, religious wars were the most terrible, because there was no hope of settling the underlying conflict.

I see a related (and again perfectly understandable) vein in modern arguments among libertarians over atheism and theism (usually Christianity). Typically, the arguments go like this: Some atheist will wonder aloud how so many libertarians can believe in a God, in particular the God depicted in the Bible, and worries about the effect such evil and irrationality will have on our movement. Then some well-meaning atheist/agnostic will say, “Hey, as long as those guys aren’t initiating aggression against me, I don’t want to delve into their metaphysical views.”

I don’t think this really holds up well, though. For example, if a young man in Afghanistan truly believes God wants him to attack Western military outposts in his country, then appeals to human rights and international peace aren’t going to dissuade him–just like they don’t dissuade American Christians from going off to war in defense of what they think is right.

By the same token, I can definitely understand why an atheist libertarian would find it very disturbing to know that popular figures in his movement hold views that sound inconceivable to him. This isn’t simply a matter of, “Some of us like rap music,” these are the most important questions of our existence.

Having said all that, the reason I don’t argue this stuff on Facebook or in social settings is that such arguments are pointless, in my observation. This isn’t merely a religious thing on my part, either; I don’t even argue politics in person. At a recent debate at Columbia, a young man came up to me afterward and was trying to get me to agree we needed a strong State to keep multinational oil companies in check. I spent a few moments just explaining my postion, but eventually I said, “Look, you and I are coming from such different perspectives, there’s no way we’re going to change each other’s minds right now.”

But, I obviously write books and blog posts, and give public speeches, on my political views. And I am not shy about my religious views, I just think the most effective way to persuade others is by concentrating the discussion in my Sunday posts.

32 Responses to “Religious Views Can’t Well Be Compartmentalized”

  1. David Friedman says:

    “there’s no way we’re going to change each other’s minds right now.”

    My father’s advice, long ago, was that the purpose of an argument was not to persuade someone but to give him the ideas with which he might later persuade himself.

    • Ken Pruitt says:

      Did Milton Friedman seriously say that?

    • ThomasL says:

      Well said.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Your father and Rothbard were in very strong agreement on this point, although Rothbard argued the point from a slightly different angle:

      “In the first place, it is not true that advertising “creates” wants or demands on the part of the consumers. It certainly tries to persuade consumers to buy the product; but it cannot create wants or demands, because each person must himself adopt the ideas and values on which he acts – whether these ideas or values are sound or unsound.”

      Just like the free market ideas “marketed” by your dad first had to be adopted by others, through convincing themselves of the ideas before they positively spread those ideas, so too is it the case with marketing any ideas in general.

      IMO, this issue divides the population roughly into two groups, the passive mind, tabula rasa, Berkeley/Locke/Hume group, and the active mind, rationalist, Leibniz/Kant/Mises group. The former go about persuading people because the assume everyone has passive minds, while the latter go about presenting ideas because they assume everyone has active minds.

  2. Ken Pruitt says:

    Bob, I think it is important to mention that many of the so-called religious wars had far more to do with politics and Nationalism than it did Scripture. The same is true for today and the Taliban’s hatred for the Western Nations.

    Let’s not forget that Ayatollah Khomeni tried for 10 years to instigate an anti-western Jihad on the basis of the West’s liberal culture, and he justified these calls with the Qur’an and the Hadiths; his attempts completely failed, but now that they have political/nationalistic issues to gripe about… well, you get the picture.

  3. Joseph Fetz says:

    I think I know what specifically brought this post into being. If I am correct, then I was involved in that discussion.

    • Z says:

      Once again Fetz, I ask the question: Are you a member of the Austrian global elite?

      • Joseph Fetz says:

        No, there were a few FB discussions that came about due to a few libertarians posting an article by a man with whacky religious views (think Deuteronomy put into action). My position was that I can compartmentalize his religious views from those views that were in the article that was posted (the article was not itself religious), lest I fall into to the genetic fallacy.

        At least I think those were the discussions that prompted this post (though not necessarily my contributions). I could be wrong. I was being vague in order to try to get confirmation from Bob before I mention specifics.

        • Ken B says:

          “libertarians posting an article by a man with whacky religious views ”

          That sound you hear is me, biting my tongue.

  4. John Fairfull says:

    The flipside is that 95% of atheists I know are liberals or progressives. It’s been my experience that they have the worst political views and are the most averse to liberty. It’s great for me because I love to argue, but you have to win so many debates with a modern atheist progressive…it becomes tiresome. It’s also impossible to not get accused of hating blacks, gays and women at some point, which puts a strain on a friendship.

    • Z says:

      “It’s also impossible to not get accused of hating blacks, gays and women at some point, which puts a strain on a friendship.”

      Probably explains why I have mostly religious friends even though I am skeptical of religion.

  5. Tel says:

    I see a related (and again perfectly understandable) vein in modern arguments among libertarians over atheism and theism (usually Christianity). Typically, the arguments go like this: Some atheist will wonder aloud how so many libertarians can believe in a God, in particular the God depicted in the Bible, and worries about the effect such evil and irrationality will have on our movement.

    Liberty is by its nature a pluralist lifestyle. It is a requirement that libertarians regularly disagree with one another on most things for us to even deserve permission to use the word “liberty”. That said, there should be at least a small number of basic principles that we do agree on, and these go beyond religion. For example, someone brought up a Christian should be entitled to change his/her mind as an adult after having thought it over… and likewise for any religion. A religion that uses violence to prevent people leaving is no religion of liberty.

    Hey, as long as those guys aren’t initiating aggression against me, I don’t want to delve into their metaphysical views.

    That’s not just well meaning banter, that’s a formal offer of a truce. You don’t mess with me, and in return for that consideration, I’ll respect your beliefs. Your response to that, “what if someone breaks the truce” doesn’t prove there was anything inappropriate about offering a peaceful solution. If someone breaks the truce then the truce is broken, all bets are off, any response from there on in is fair game. What if someone breaks a contract? Does that mean contracts are bad? What if someone kicks in your front door? Does that mean we should never have a front door?

    • Tel says:

      I never liked those markup tags anyhow.

  6. steveZ says:

    “…arguments among libertarians over atheism and theism (usually Christianity). Typically, the arguments go like this: Some atheist will wonder aloud how so many libertarians can believe in a God”

    To me, it seems un-libertarian to worry about what other people believe. Unless it involves some sort of aggression towards you.

    I am very curious about your reaction, Dr. Murphy, or any other theist, to the man that “…truly believes God wants him to attack Western military outposts in his country…”.
    If he talked to you before hand, would you tell him: “if God says so, you better do it.” Or would you say: “no, of course god would never want you to to that, you’re not talking to God.”

  7. martin says:

    Here are some arguments presented by Dinesh D’Souza at FreedomFest that I find quite convincing (about conservatism vs libertarianism, islam, war…)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ze98wCHJII
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVkfdTUiurg

  8. martin says:

    (Dinesh D’Souza is arguing for ‘conservatism’ and against ‘libertarianism’)

  9. Ken B says:

    Well said Bob.

  10. RPLong says:

    I’ve never understood why some people have a beef with other people’s religious beliefs. I mean, I like to talk about it out of pure personal interest, but I don’t see religion as a threat except when it is actually used as one.

    I think the silent subtext of theism vs. atheism is the fact that a lot of atheists, like me, grew up in conservative places where we were regularly shamed. It would be a mistake to blame the private thoughts of all theists for the public stupidity of a few people they’ve never even met.

    • Z says:

      And of course public shaming goes both ways. Note the never ending allegations of racism or sexism or whatever if you don’t agree with msnbc on everything.

      • RPLong says:

        Certainly true, but if your suggestion is that the examples you cite are “atheists shaming theists,” I’d say that they are bad examples, because I know plenty of theists who agree with those positions.

        • Ken B says:

          I agree. It’s more an example of a stereotype at work. If you disagree with msnbc then you are a troglodyte hate monger, and therefore you are a fundamentalist. It’s just one particular kind of leftist attacking dissenters.

  11. Innocent says:

    This article is a kin to the ‘So when did you stop beating your wife’ argument. Lets go over some of the ‘non-religious’ totalitarian belief systems. Eugenics, Nazi’s, USSR, just to name a few.

    Religion is something that is deeply personal. I became religious at an early age due to experiences that I still to this day cannot explain without people going glazed in the eyes and shrug off as, well either delusions or other tripe, less flattering than delusions.

    Yet due to these experiences I cannot ever claim that these in no such thing as Deity. Yet the only evidence I have of these experiences is my own witness, my own testimony so to speak. Perhaps some day we will have technology adequate to explain what it is that I experienced. I do not know. Perhaps I am nothing more than delusional ( I accept that as a possibility ) but in the end I can do little more than suggest to those that are atheist that they are missing something that exists that goes beyond what I can explain in scientific terms.

    I actually really bites. I mean I would consider myself 100% rational in almost all other aspects of logic and science but for this one issue. Yet in this one I must be ‘irrational’ in concerns to things because I have experienced things that I cannot 100% explain through the use of science.

    However I do believe that it is a repeatable phenomenon.

    • Yosef says:

      Innocent, please try again with your claim about non-religious totalitarian systems. Nazis do not fit that bill (about 25% of SS officers were confessing Catholics, Nazi soldiers wore “Gott mit uns” on their belts, etc.). Eugenics is a system of non natural selection, which was advocated by both religious and non religious people, and so is not really non religious totalitarian belief.

  12. Ivan Jankovic says:

    Bob Murphy: ” these are the most important questions of our existence”

    These are the most important question of YOUR existence, not OUR. I am a libertarian and agnostic. For me, religious views are unimportant and irrelevant, just like rap music from your example. Some people think that’s important, that’s their problem; as long as they don’ initiate aggression against me I am fine with them.

    What about the Buddhists? They are all a bunch of ‘atheists’ according to the Christian teachings: they don’t believe in an almighty God creator of the Universe, they don’t think there is a Supreme Bing you should pray to, but only a vague possibility of personal enlightenment in one of the many lives you will live. And yet, they are the third largest religion in the world.

    So, the Western Christians and Muslims should reconcile themselves to a world in which for majority of people what appears to them as the “most important questions of our existence” is deeply irrelevant. I think that your personal theist bias makes you unable to see to what extent majority of libertarians are not bothered at all by your (or Ron Paul’s for that matter) religious views. They simply don’t care.

  13. Travis says:

    I can understand why some folks in the liberty movement might get tired of talking about religion and its place in libertarian thought. I’ve seen more than my fair share of fruitless exchanges on the subject. That said, I would like to think that most non-religious libertarians understand that one need not committ intellectual or moral suicide in order to be a religious libertarian. Some of the leading libertarian thinkers are religious, after all. Ron Paul, Tom Woods, and Andrew Napolitano are just a few devout Christians who have contributed a great deal to the cause of liberty.

    Of course, that’s not to say that libertarian atheists (or atheists in general) don’t have valid concerns. As an Orthodox Christian, I also see several intellectual and moral problems that are deeply ingrained in Western Christian thought. Even with those problems, I hope more non-religious people will see that any ideology or institution can be used to dehumanize other people and erupt into violence. It’s part of what we Christians call the fallen human nature. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to Christianity in North America in the coming years. Will Christians take Rob Bell’s lead and learn how to constructively engage their own traditions and the culture at large, or will fundamentalism cause the Light to be snuffed out as it has been in Europe?

  14. Nick says:

    Dr. Murphy is correct; to argue that one’s religious beliefs can be separated from how they view the rest of life is fallacious. Religious beliefs are at the foundation of worldview, and it is through our worldview that we filter our interpretation of all things. Everyone has religious beliefs (even if their belief is that the supernatural does not exist), and that belief affects how they interpret the world around them.

    More fundamentally, everyone necessarily operates on certain presuppositions. From the most ardent atheist to the most devout Christian, everyone is taking certain things as axiomatic. For this reason, empiricism and pure rationalism are self-defeating. How does one know (from observation) that it is correct to only accept the observable? What defines the laws of logic which allow us to adjudicate an argument, and on what (logical) grounds can that definition be accepted?

    To be honest with oneself, we must all admit that regardless of our religious views, everyone begins with a starting point of faith (or belief) in something which then affects how they interpret everything else; to deny this is cognitive dissonance, and without it no person could have any basis whatsoever for any action they take or thought they have. Acknowledging this fact should help people with different views on religion to come to a common understanding regarding the varying bases on which they believe things, and from there honest dialogue can then occur.

    Dr. Timothy Keller is one of the most brilliantly cogent and philosophical Christian theologians in the modern western world. I would encourage absolutely everyone who is interested in engaging this topic openly and honestly to watch this lecture he gave at a Veritas Forum event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiWeohEBdPo

    • Tel says:

      In that case empiricism would be a religious belief, but one the whole most people don’t see it that way. At any rate, I can’t see a reason to got to war over someone measuring in inches when they should be using metric.

  15. knoxharrington says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YLzlIsrU4o

    Patton Oswalt on the difference between acknowledging and respecting beliefs. I grow weary of people believing in god in the same way I am weary of people believing the government is your friend and is here to help.

    • Ken B says:

      The real difference is between respecting someone’s *right* to his belief, and the belief.

      • knoxharrington says:

        Absolutely. I respect Bob’s right to believe in god I just don’t respect the belief itself therefore I acknowledge that he believes in god I just don’t respect that belief. The “you have to respect his belief” is a line used to shut down debate and to make the person criticizing beliefs in the supernatural and paranormal seem like they are somehow violating a social norm.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22cYcsVPOok

  16. Matt G says:

    “Hey, as long as those guys aren’t initiating aggression against me, I don’t want to delve into their metaphysical views.”

    Sure, this doesn’t hold up, but I bet most thoughtful libertarians would say something slightly different, like “Hey, as long as those guys’ metaphysical views won’t incite them to initiate aggression against me, they are perfectly compatible with my political views.” Thus where most libertarians would have a problem with the religious beliefs of warmongering Christians, pacifist Christians are a-okay.

    “By the same token, I can definitely understand why an atheist libertarian would find it very disturbing to know that popular figures in his movement hold views that sound inconceivable to him.”

    As an atheist libertarian, I do find it a bit disturbing. I’m a libertarian because people like yourself have devoted much of your lives to studying, building upon, and communicating an intellectual edifice that stands up to any scrutiny I can throw at it. At some point I have to choose to believe that it is robust because it is true. It is disturbing that people who have had a significant impact on my beliefs also believe things that sound crazy to me.

    OTOH, I suppose you apply a different methodology to metaphysical questions than you do to economic and political ones. It also seems pretty common that iconoclastic thinkers of all stripes have one or two areas in which they go off the rails. Perhaps it’s because they are accustomed to being a radical in their area of expertise, and look for similar opportunities for radicalism wherever they engage.

    In any case, I would wager that the religious beliefs of you and others don’t cause discomfort in atheist libertarians because they might clash with with libertarianism, but rather because it casts doubt on the atheist libertarian’s own belief system. This makes a lot more sense than the notion that religious beliefs are perceived as a threat to the atheist per se, as being threatened by the beliefs of others is not a very libertarian stance (assuming a common basis of belief in nonaggression).

  17. matt says:

    ” Then some well-meaning atheist/agnostic will say, “Hey, as long as those guys aren’t initiating aggression against me, I don’t want to delve into their metaphysical views.”
    I don’t think this really holds up well, though. For example, if a young man in Afghanistan truly believes God wants him to attack Western military outposts in his country, then appeals to human rights and international peace aren’t going to dissuade him–just like they don’t dissuade American Christians from going off to war in defense of what they think is right” .

    Sounds a little like thought crime…

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