Conservative Politics and Liberty

The life of Man must be defined as unalienably self-sovereign.

In a recent article in American Thinker, Bruce Walker wrote this piece of politically conservative observation:

"Seventy-five years ago this month, one of the most insidious laws in human history came into effect in Nazi Germany. The innocent sounding name was The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring. It was the ghastly pinnacle of an unholy theory of human eugenics. Darwinism -- not the Theory of Evolution, per se, but the sinister notion that natural selection made God superfluous -- liberated man from his obligation to treat fellow men as special creatures in a divinely ordered universe."

While Walker is correct in calling the law "insidious," and "the ghastly pinnacle" of eugenics, he demonstrates what is wrong with conservative epistemology, namely, the inability to see that political and social values and the virtues required to attain them must be values and virtues proper to Man--not to a God who is unattainable in life.

Men are never "liberated" from their "obligation to treat fellow men" as endowed with self-sovereignty. Whether or not God is "superfluous" can never be allowed to be part of the equation. The most avid atheists are often the most avid defenders of human rights, and they see no "divine" order in the universe.

What they see is the equality of creatures born with the unalienable right to life and liberty. The necessity of saying "liberty" ought to be superfluous itself, since the right to life necessitates the liberty necessary to live life as the rational animal. It is entirely superfluous to say "and the pursuit of happiness," for the same rationale.
However, it has come in handy in certain arguments with people who forget that the right to pursue one's happiness necessitates the liberty to achieve it.

It ought to be enough to simply say, "Until a man violates the rights--equal to his own, of other men--he has the right to libertarian life." Libertarian in this sense does not include the right to violate the rights of other men, which are equal in value by virtue of their unalienablity by right of birth.

Libertarian means specifically the ability to act with all the unalienable rights of birth with which Man is endowed by the nature of his metaphysical existence. That existence is defined as "the rational animal."

It can only be when a man has violated the equal rights of others that justice may require forfeiture of his libertarianism for a time, e.g., jail or prison or probation. In some cases of gross violation justice has required he forfeit his very life.

America's Founders were mostly Deists, no matter which denomination they attended. It was politically incorrect for public leaders not to attend a regular denomination such as Baptist or Episcopal, but there were some like Thomas Paine who managed to evade without even that constraint on his freedom. He had to flee America for France, literally for his safety and probably his life, in order to remove that constraint, until President Jefferson invited him back with a guarantee of his safety.

It is important to note America's Deist beginings because those Deists were more dedicated to worshiping God than were most of the commoners who followed established denominations. There is one and only reason for being able to say this: the Deists themselves said their devotion to the virtue of Reason and to the Rule of Law was precisely because they believed it was God himself who had endowed Man with that virtue.

Then He stepped back and allowed the nature he had created to run its course. A form of Darwinism one to two centuries before Darwin was born was part of the metaphysics of Deism. They believed God was superfluous only because He was willing to let the Reason He had provided them rule the affairs of the Men He had created as rational creatures.

Libertarian action translates into the value of being both free of coercion from others, and is non-coercion of others, for the purpose of furthering the pursuit of human life as well as one's own, through the virtue of Reason.

Yet, "when one speaks of a man's right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others." Ayn Rand; The Virtue of Selfishness: The Objectivist Ethics

The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring was ghastly because it used the power of government to choose the criteria set by a leader with a criminal mind, criteria for the sacrifice of others. Clearly Hitler's was not "rational" self-interest. Rational self-interest cannot be coercive or it is self-defeating and therefor non-rational.

But conservatives do not see that such men--Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, Mugabe, Stalin, Pol Pot--care nothing about whether or not God is superfluous. The only thing such men have ever cared about is power, and that is the power to control.

If it is insidious to find God superfluous, then America's Deists were insidious. Since that is not a word that can be used to describe them, Mr. Walker uses a "package deal" consisting of tying together the concepts of Hitler's policies with a disregard for God, as if God was anywhere in Hitler's thoughts. Corrupting or ignoring a "divinely ordered universe" was never a consideration for Hitler.

If Hitler had a devout belief in God, he would have continued his policies, believing as do Islamicists that what they do is in the name of God.

Neither Hitler nor the world's current Islamicists believe they are liberated from any obligation to "treat fellow men as special creatures in a divinely ordered universe." As a matter of fact, Islamicists believe that to continue the "divinely ordered universe" of Allah it is moral to martyr one's self in the destruction of those who actually see Allah--but not necessarily the Judeo-Christian God--as superfluous.

A supernatural God is superfluous for anyone who calls him or herself a naturalist, because in the cosmic scheme of the laws of nature, "nature's god" did not create existence.

The only "sinister notion" in natural selection is in the motives of men who refuse to accept individual sovereignty as the right of every human being, the selection by nature's god of the species of Man to be the one to obtain the virtue of rationality.

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Accounts from Here and There

On Art

When discussing his use of symbolism, or rather the lack thereof, Ernest Hemingway once said of The Old Man and the Sea, “If I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.” David Barry david@vueweekly.com

On Art that is "Truer than True"

"It is a common experience to observe that a particular painting—for example, a still life of apples—makes its subject “more real than it is in reality.” The apples seem brighter and firmer, they seem to possess an almost self-assertive character, a kind of heightened reality which neither their real-life models nor any color photograph can match. Yet if one examines them closely, one sees that no real-life apple ever looked like that." “ Ayn Rand;

Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto

On Evolution as Opposition to Faith

"Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On The Origin Of Species." For some, this anniversary celebrates the high point of human liberation from stultifying religion and superstition, our freedom from past theological "delusions". For others, it is more complicated. The leading atheist Richard Dawkins, speaking of this God delusion, as he calls it, offers a succinct summary of Darwin's theory. But things aren't so simple. Scattered among the world's top scientists are those who do believe in a conscious intention behind nature's processes. I think of people such as Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, and Professor Bill Phillips, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. The presence of such people poses awkward questions for the view that evolutionary theory and a sophisticated scientific brain lead inexorably towards atheism. There must be more to the so-called "science versus God" story than this." [italics added] John Lennox http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/why-not-every-scientist-worships-at-darwins-feet/2008/08/17/1218911450452.html

Perhaps the answer to the problem that "there must be more," is that science is not necessarily the catylist that propells a person into atheism. There are evolutionary theists out there, people who have a "sophisticated scientific brain," yet who harbor supernatural conditions for whatever happened; and simply believe that what did happen is that it was God, but not as the word of Man as written in the Bible describes the word of God. Who knows what perverse reasons men may have had for telling lies about the revelations they had from God. Or perhaps it is simply that the revelations they had were not understood as God wished them to be understood--in the minds of those who believe, that is. And the evolutionary theists is a mind that has faith.

The other explanation is to remember that atheism existed long before the theory of evolution, even though Lucretious is supposed to have been the first expositor of that theory. Not every one knew of the things Lucretius said. His epic poem "On the Nature of Things" was not re-discovered for centuries after atomism lost its place as the "world view" to the world view of St. Augustine. Atheism can just as easily--and more rationally be explained--as a rejection of faith and an embracing of reason unmarred by any touch of supernaturalism.

Book offers a New Interpretation of Philosopher
W.V. Quine's Views of Naturalism.

Paul A. Gregory, associate professor of philosophy at Washington and Lee, has written a book titled Quine's Naturalism: Language, Theory, and the Knowing Subject (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy), which offers a new interpretation of philosopher W.V. Quine's views of naturalism.According to Gregory, "Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the 20th century and a major impetus for the recent resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. His views, however, have not been well understood."To help in the understanding of Quine's views on language, knowledge and reality, Gregory offers new views and interpretations on Quine's naturalism, while at the same time defending it. Gregory says, "The naturalism/antinaturalism debate can be advanced only by acknowledging and critiquing the substantial theoretical commitments implicit in the traditional view." http://www.rockbridgeweekly.com/rw_article.php?ndx=11687

"There is a new atheism afoot in the marketplace of ideas,

and it presents a far more potent challenge to the Christian worldview than the atheism of former times, R. Albert Mohler argues in a new book.In “Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheism” (Crossway), Mohler engages the central arguments of four contemporary atheists, whom he calls “The Four Horseman of the Atheist Apocalypse:” Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett, author Sam Harris and pundit Christopher Hitchens.Mohler, who serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, chose Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens because “they are four figures who have especially come to embody the New Atheist movement.”

"The New Atheism promotes the development of a purely secular society, Mohler argues, a secularism that views the death of all religions as the expected natural progression of Darwinian naturalism. “I believe what we see in the rise of the New Atheism is something of the endgame of secularism,” Mohler said. http://www.towersonline.net/story.php?grp=news&id=543

Why the Theists Have Reason to Dislike Reductionist Metaphysics--
And Why Both are Wrong

"Personally, I find great comfort in believing that the murderer who escapes justice in this life still faces it in the next. I have a reason to love my neighbor beyond what I hope to get out of it. I have a purpose that transcends the mere physical and chemical reactions that make up my bodily functions. So, yes, not only do I believe there is a creator, I WANT there to be one. Without a creator; without a metaphysical or transcendent reality we are nothing more than those same physical and chemical reactions. Everything that is must be and everything that happens must happen. Everything follows from cause to effect, which in turn becomes the cause of the next effect. Our lives are no more than one long chain of necessary and predictable chemical reaction; the output of each reaction becoming the catalyst for the next. Every particle moves according to known or knowable physical laws. If we could map the location, orientation, direction and speed of every particle we could predict with 100 percent accuracy everything that will ever happen as a natural consequence of everything that has already happened. There is no room for chance. No randomness. No free will. No “real” life at all." [italics added] Chris Bergman http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=109&SubSectionID=701&ArticleID=58772

And Another Reason Theism is Wrong--
Morality Cannot Exist Without God?

"This is a "popular level" version (i.e., written for normal people, [ ] of the sort of argument that C.S. Lewis urged in various books and essays: the phenomenon of morality provides reason for believing in God.

"Darwin’s account of the origins of human morality is at once elegant, ingenious, and, I shall argue, woefully inadequate. In particular, that account, on its standard interpretation, does not explain morality, but, rather, explains it away. We learn from Darwin not how there could be objective moral facts, but how we could have come to believe—-perhaps erroneously—-that there are.
"Further, the naturalist, who does not believe that there is such a person as God, is in principle committed to Darwinism, including a Darwinian account of the basic contours of human moral psychology. I’ll use the term "evolutionary naturalism" to refer to this combination of naturalism and Darwinism. And so the naturalist is saddled with a view that explains morality away. Whatever reason we have for believing in moral facts is also a reason for thinking naturalism is false." TheCitizen.com http://www.thecitizen.com/~citizen0/node/30963

And Then We Have Morality Without God

"Why should an Atheist be moral, without a god to make him to do so? You may as well ask why he should use his head for something besides a mobile hat rack. Morality is a built-in condition of humanity; the moral tendency exists in just about everyone, barring psychopaths.

"The only difference between people is how they codify and rationalise this morality, and attempt to apply it in rational terms to the way they live. As well as being emotionally-led creatures, we're also afflicted, as a species, with a curiosity which would put cats to shame. This is what, in my opinion, ultimately leads to us assigning causes to things, whether through frustration at not knowing, as with Theism; or through reasoned and rational methods, as with science. It is also the foundation of reasoning and rationality; it's a great deal easier to find out how things work if you use a consistent system of thought, whether intentionally or not."

[by] Mike, EvilTeuf http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/moralsource.htm

Capitalism, 100B.C.

"David Brooks, the moderately conservative (Canadian-born) columnist and essayist of The New York Times, sounded absolutely smitten. Writing from China on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, he marvelled at the "mass conformity" of the event. The intricate performances, he said, were an expression of collectivism at its 21st century best, a precision-choreographed, high-tech vision "of a harmonious society," staged with thousands of performers, "in the context of China's miraculous growth."
"The ceremony drew from China's long history," he enthused, "but surely the most striking features were the images of the Chinese performers moving as one - drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting in precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding."

"In the end, the defining factor here isn't individualism versus collectivism. We all work together and we all work alone. As an expression of voluntary choice, authentic collectivism occurs anywhere it is permitted - in an Israeli kibbutz, for example, or in an Amish community in Pennsylvania. The defining factor here is coercion.

"The relevant parable here was nicely recounted last year by author Hunter Lewis in his engaging little book, entitled Are the Rich Necessary? and subtitled Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values. Ancient Chinese annals, Mr. Lewis writes, record the controversial decision of a powerful emperor, Wudi (156-87 BC) to take a direct hand in running China's economy - by nationalizing key commodities (salt, iron and alcohol), by debasing the currency, by widespread expropriation of land.
Although highly imprudent to do so, one of Wudi's advisers, the legendary historian Sima Qian, published an assessment of the emperor's statist economic policies.
"What need is there for government directives?" Sima Qian wrote. "Each man has only to be left to utilize his own abilities and to exert his own strength to obtain what he wishes. Thus, when a commodity is very cheap, it invites a rise in price; when it is very expensive, it invites a reduction. When each person works away at his own occupation and delights in his own business, then - like water flowing downwards - goods will naturally flow forth ceaselessly day and night without having been summoned, and the people will produce commodities without having been asked. Does this not tally with reason? Is it not a natural result?" Report on Business.com Neil Reynolds http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080829.RREYNOLDS29/TPStory/Business

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Naturalist Resources--A Short List Part 2

Last week on Thursday I published Part 1 of a list of resources for naturalists who are getting their feet wet in the subject, or who need further explanation. This is not going to be a "regular" Thursday feature. You won't see it again for several weeks, if ever. But tomorrow's blog, like yesterday's is about "free will vs. naturalism." That is a subject laden with pitfalls and dark corners and hidden doors. It won't be ready until tomorrow. Today, the list, Part 2.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is always a good place for good information. Its first two paragraphys under the heading "Naturalism" make clear the nature of the beast:

"The term ‘naturalism’ has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed ‘naturalists’ from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the ‘human spirit’ (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).
"So understood, ‘naturalism’ is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject ‘supernatural’ entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the ‘human spirit’." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

The Secular Web is owned and operated by the Internet Infidels, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet.

An apparent sister site, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/naturalism/ begins with its own short comparison between "metaphysical" and "methodological" naturalism, then lists a number of articles, all very much worth reading, under each heading.

(You will notice that where many "metaphysical" naturalists deny the existence of a "soul," and of "free will," this website takes the opposite view. See The Academy's Definition of "Strong" Naturalism in the left column.)

In addition, The Secular Web has one page devoted simply to listing all the names of the authors who have contributed to their site. The list is long, and impressive. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/author.html They also have a Subject Index http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/index.html , and their own Library, which is another list http://www.infidels.org/library/

Freedom From Religion Foundation, http://www.ffrf.org/ , while not strictly a "naturalist" organization, has "more than 12,000 members, is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics). FFRF has been working since 1978 to promote freethought and to keep state and church separate.
"The Foundation promotes freedom from religion with a weekly national radio show, its newspaper Freethought Today, a freethought billboard campaign and other educational endeavors, including scholarships for freethinking students. In addition, the Foundation acts on countless violations of the separation of state and church, and has taken and won many significant complaints and important lawsuits to end state/church entanglements. No one has fought harder than FFRF to legally challenge the "faith-based initiative."

They have a billboard reading: "Keep Religion OUT of Politics." It is currently displayed in Denver and will remain there throughout the Democratic National Convention.

The Skeptics Dictionary http://www.skepdic.com/naturalism.html is like most other sites, attempting to explain the differences in the naturalistic points of view. It has a great number of live links to the various aspects of naturalism, then concludes that short section with this:

"The difference between mechanistic and teleological views may best be understood by considering a few examples," after which it lists the sex drive, bee pollination, pedophilia, What is the purpose of evil? teleology according to Spinoza, naturalistic worldview, and further reading.

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10713a.htm is a frequently used resource of mine. It is as objective as any reference, at least above the "blue line," where it merely defines the subject. Below the "blue line" is definitely the dogmatic version of the subject. But even having the dogma defined is often useful, and as dogma-defined goes, this Catholic reference is still objective, never preachy, merely saying what the Church says.

ALL ABOUT PHILOSOPHY.Org is obviously a theist organization, given that their only subtitle to "Naturalism" is "Improbable." http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/naturalism.htm But they do a good job of explaining the "defeator" arguments against naturalism (see this Academy's blog 8.11-8.16.08.)

It is definately good to understand the defeator arguments. As this blog explained in that week, you are an "uninformed" naturalist, according to Dr. Quentin Smith, if you don't know how to defeat the defeators. In a sidebar, All About lists other "world views" like atheism, secular humanism, and existentialism, among many. Interesting reading for anyone wanting to understand "the other side."

"Defense of Naturalism" by Keith Augustine, is his "Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of theUniversity of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofMaster of Arts 2001." http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/thesis.html So if you are up to a long academic paper, this one is for you. It is also available at The Secular Web, listed above.


"An Atheist Fairy Tale" http://bevets.com/evolution.htm is a well-put-together and interesting commentary on the connection between atheism and evolution, with many attributions, but it seems to have no author. But for the sake of the good tale, here are the links to it:
Contents:
Evolutionism and Atheism
Common Objections
What is the evidence?
Intelligent Design
Theory or Fact?
Scientists and Bias
Evolutionism and Scripture
Consequences
Are Creationists Honest?
Audio Video
Links
Works Cited
It ends with this quote: "Evolutionism needs atheism needs evolutionism needs atheism needs evolutionism.Garbage in: Garbage out."


Another good argument for the "other side" is the PDF The Logical Underpinnings of Intelligent Design.

The Center for Naturalism and Naturalism.Org have a Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/appliednaturalism/ If you feel like discussing the subject with an organization that has some of the best scientific minds behind it, this one is for you. There is no guarantee you will get answers from any of those scientific minds, but you could always address your questions to one of those parent websites. Or you could get into arguments with their members about whether or not humans have souls and free will.

"NATURALISM IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OFSCIENCE AND CRITICAL INQUIRY" by Steven D. Schafersman http://www.freeinquiry.com/naturalism.html was a "paper originally presented at the Conference on Naturalism, Theism and the Scientific Enterprise, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, February 20-23, 1997."

So, by clicking on that blue link to the conference, you automatically get ANOTHER resource. Don't you just love how the internet actually works?

"A Philosophical Premise of 'Naturalism'?" by Mark Isaak (another blue link) http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/naturalism.html is published by Talkdesign.Org, http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/ which "is a response to the "Intelligent Design" movement of creationism. It is dedicated to: Assessing the claims of the Intelligent Design movement from the perspective of mainstream science. Addressing the wider political, cultural, philosophical, moral, religious, and educational issues that have inspired the ID movement. Providing an archive of materials that critically examine the scientific claims of the ID movement. We feel that the "Intelligent Design" arguments require this kind of focused attention due to their widespread use in antievolutionary activity."

Isaak's paper says, "we will see that the complaint about naturalism is applied unfairly to discredit only those parts of science that naturalism's critics oppose on ideological grounds."

Another of my favorite references for many things aside from naturalism is The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/naturali.htm . I'm not certain, but I think there is an Objectivist or a neo-objectivist behind this resource.

Apex Naturalism http://apexnaturalism.org/ is an online magazine. On its About Page it says: "An apex is the top, peak or summit. Naturalism is a system of belief that proposes that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws. Thus Apex Naturalism means being dedicated to becoming the best Naturalist that we can be.
This inevitably means learning about ourselves, our naturalism and the world around us. This magazine is dedicated to that unending quest for wisdom and knowledge."

I just bookmarked that one for myself. It looks good.

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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
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This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®