Posted on 03/13/2005 9:49:16 AM PST by Lando Lincoln
Is the Judeo-Christian tradition trespassing on liberal-socialist territory?
In economics and political theory, free riders are people who benefit from actions of others, without doing anything to merit it. I asserted in The Moral Free Rider Problem that liberal-socialists are free riders on the social order of Western civilization, which they did not create and do not support.
Western civilization is founded upon the moral rules of conduct deriving from our Greek philosophical and Judeo-Christian religious traditions. Atheistic and agnostic liberal-socialists are moral free riders who benefit from living in a society ordered by the morality of spiritual religion, while sneering at spiritual religion and moral codes as simple-minded ignorance. At best, they do nothing to contribute to social order. Too many of them do everything in their power to discredit or to destroy the very source of social order. Without Judeo-Christian morality, they would be in the position of scientists and scholars in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia: working under orders for the collectivized National State.
To this, a reader retorted that it is conservatives and moralists who are taking the free ride. Liberals contend that all of what we consider to be modern society, with its vast improvements of living standards, is exclusively the product of the rational human mind, in a world of secular materialism and moral relativism. Progress toward human knowledge therefore is diverted by concerns about unreal things like God and moral virtues.
Liberal dogma comes from a very ancient philosophical position, first articulated in classical Greece. Plato, in the Theaetetus, quotes Protagoras as having said that man is the measure of all things, meaning that there are no such things as God, morality, or eternal truths. Each person is governed only by his pursuit of sensual pleasure and his avoidance of sensual pain. Each person makes his own standards, based solely upon the perceptions of his physical senses.
Plato, of course, takes the opposite position: the physical senses are no guides at all to truth, which exists in Ideal form, manifested only as indistinct shadows in our physical world.
Obviously, if Protagoras is our guide, the reader's retort is correct. Conservatives and moralists really would be taking a free ride on secular society and in so doing making life more difficult for everyone. Religion and morality, far from being a force for social good, would oppress human freedom and oppose scientific knowledge.
This is the message given to American students for the past century. As William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale described it, most textbooks espoused socialistic and secular doctrine, and most social sciences professors at Yale in 1951 were socialists and either agnostics or atheists. The same was true of other elite universities and had been so since the first decades of the 20th century. Professors in the social sciences don't hesitate to dismiss spiritual religion as ignorance and, in the physical sciences, to dismiss morality and religion as value judgments having no place in science.
Everything we know of history tells us that this is a false view. How then did religion and morality come to be identified with oppression and ignorance?
The first answer is the brutal Thirty Years War (1612 1648) that devastated Europe during Galileos and Newtons era, when rival Protestant and Catholic princes fought for political control of Western Europe. This mass slaughter and destruction led Voltaire, in his 1766 satire Candide, to attack Christianity as the enemy of the people and the senseless cause of European warfare and strife. The Thirty Years War, however, was only nominally about religious differences. Fundamentally it was a struggle for political power, as modern nation-states took shape.
French intellectuals nonetheless identified the Church with autocratic political rule and suffering of the masses during the Thirty Years War. Cardinal Richelieu served as French Minister of Foreign Affairs and War early in the 1600s, and Cardinal Mazarin, as first minister in the middle 1600s.
A present-day variation on this theme is the belief of some feminists that religion was fabricated by men to subjugate women.
The second factor was French Revolutionary philosophers assumption in the 18th and 19th centuries that they could discover secular and materialistic laws controlling social behavior and political activity that would be analogous to Newtons laws of gravity governing the motions of planets. Among them, Saint-Simon and Comte claimed to have discovered the Immutable Law of History that predicted inevitable historical Progress away from the age of spiritual religion and into the new scientific age of secularity, rationalism, and socialism, which Comte called The Religion of Humanity.
History tells a different story. The popular idea that religion prevented scientific inquiry is simply not correct. Ironically, the Catholic Church's preservation of learning after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was all that kept scientific inquiry alive.
The Renaissance, beginning centuries before the 18th century Enlightenment, was preeminently a period when all of the talents and energies of poets, architects, builders, sculptors, and painters were focused on glorifying God. It was the Renaissances flowering of new perspectives in art and literature that led to renewed interest in nature and the beginning of the physical sciences.
The most widely known and admired person in this humanist revival was Erasmus, a devout Catholic priest. One of his closest friends, humanist scholar Thomas More, died to defend his Catholic faith.
The greatest leaps of knowledge in mathematics and the physical sciences occurred in the 17th century, many decades before the revival of Greek sophists secular materialism by French Revolutionary philosophers. It is from this period that liberals build their religion vs. science case. Galileo is usually the only exhibit entered in evidence.
Despite the generally propagated myth, Galileo got into trouble with the Church, not because he advocated the theory that the earth revolves around the sun, but because he was a man with a colossal ego and a startling lack of judgment.
For a number of years the Church had raised no serious objections to Galileos heliocentric theory, so long as he expressed it as one of the several theories explaining movements of the planets and did not present it as the only true doctrine. But for Galileo this wasnt enough.
In 1623, Galileo's long-time personal friend Maffeo Barberini became Pope Urban VIII. Barberini had always championed Galileos right to express his theories and gave his blessings for Galileo to publish a discussion of the theories of planetary motion. Galileo then repaid his friends support by ridiculing him publicly.
Galileo published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. It is cast as a conversation among three gentlemen, one of whom is given the name Simplicio (or simpleton). The arguments, even the exact words, attributed to Simplicio were known to all as the arguments advanced by Galileos old friend Barberini. Galileo was, in effect, declaring to the world that the new Pope was a fool and that the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was ridiculous nonsense. He had punched the Church in the nose and dared the Church to hit back.
Unfortunately for him, Galileos ridicule came at a time when the Roman Catholic Church was under attack, and Europe was ablaze with the Thirty Years War between Protestant and Catholic states. His action was comparable to Frances diplomatic stab-in-the-back of the U.S. at the United Nations after Al Quedas 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center buildings.
Given the prevailing state of war and its struggle for survival, the Church was remarkably restrained in giving Galileo a choice between excommunication and cessation of further writing on the subject. Galileo accepted the ban on writing and remained a Catholic until his death.
As a final note, at the time, Galileo had no conclusive evidence to support the view that only the Copernican theory was correct. A rival theory by noted astronomer Tycho Brahe had as much evidence in its favor and was as accurate in its predictions as Galileos. We now know, in fact, that Galileos assertion that the planets travel in circular orbits was incorrect.
Note also that the greatest of all the 17th century mathematical geniuses was Isaac Newton, whose laws of motion and the equations for predicting gravitys effects on movements of heavenly bodies, not to mention invention of calculus and the physics of optics and light, were the foundations of modern science. Newton was a life-long, devout Christian who never questioned the existence of God. Nor was publication of his work proscribed by the Church.
Liberals can only make the case that believers in spiritual religion have argued against secular materialism, not that religion has suppressed scholarship or scientific investigation. Today the shoe is really on the other foot. It is liberals who attempt to suppress spiritual religion and personal morality.
A final point of considerable importance is liberal-socialisms antagonism toward private property and corporate enterprise. Think, for example, of the knee-jerk reaction from liberals that the Bush administration invaded Iraq solely to enrich corporations like Halliburton. It is impossible to reconcile this with my critics assertion that the great successes of modern economic and technical society are the product of liberal-socialist rationalism and its amorality.
Since the early 19th century, especially in Karl Marxs works at mid-century, liberals have preached that private property and Big Business are oppressors of the workers and are the chief bulwarks against perfection of human society in a socialist political state. Wars, crime, poverty, and other social ills are said to be the product of private business activity, whose profits represent the stolen part of labors full wages.
Moreover, liberal-socialist theoreticians like Max Weber and R. H. Tawney have linked the rise of capitalism (taking that term as a synonym for private property and corporate enterprise) to what they term the Protestant Ethic. This Christian ethic is criticized by liberals, because it is highly individualistic and thus at odds with socialist collectivism.
The facts, of course, are that the industrial revolution was just getting a full head of steam at the time that Saint-Simon and Comte were promulgating the secular religion of socialism. From that time forward, the living standards of the whole world, especially of the West, have risen far faster than ever before in history. And that improvement, until after World War II, was overwhelmingly the result of individualistic initiative by entrepreneurs in Christian societies. Far more than half the worlds industry and commerce in that period was accounted for by the two greatest Christian nations, England and the United States.
Contrary to my readers retort, demonstrating that secular materialism has benefited humanity, let alone that it is the sole source of scientific knowledge and economic well-being is an impossible task.
The bitter fruit of liberalism's secular materialism has been, not social harmony and prosperity, but the mass murders of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Russia, Hitler's National Socialist Germany, Mao's Red China, and Castro's Cuba. Without the moral restraints of our Judeo-Christian heritage, on rulers and ruled, there would be precious little science and improvement of living standards. The implosion of Soviet Russia and the slow withering of socialist France and Germany make this clear for all who will see.
Thomas E. Brewton had the extraordinary good fortune to study political philosophy under Eric Voegelin and Constitutional law under Walter Berns. His website is The View from 1776.
Michael,
I'm sorry that you are irritated by our belief in God and the author's pointing out the evidence that it is under governments that are trained and restrained by Christian/Judeo-Christian principles that mankind has prospered and the horrors that result in those nations whose leaders hate God. That evidence should be enough for any rational man or woman to pause and consider whether there might be causation, rather than simply correlation.
If you'll take a look at the commandments in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, the reason we are told to do them is to do well, to live long and well, to prosper, as well as to go to heaven. Some take these as promises of rewards. I see them as evidence of the way the world runs, the way we humans are built, since we are created in the Image of God. I think that's why you have an urge to do your "best to minimize" the harm you do and a need to avoid judging the failings of others. Why would you do that if there is no restraint outside of what you can get away with? Why not maximize the good you can do for yourself and only judge whether other people are in the way of your happiness? If there is no ultimate, unconditional "Truth" or God, then why not "Might makes right," rather than "Do unto others?"
If you don't believe in God and are not trying to rule and run over the rest of us, you aren't talented enough to take advantage of the rest of us. Or you have learned by trial and error that you have limits.
Where does the Natural Law originate? Why do all "know" these things?
It's because that's the way we were created.
There's actually a book on Natural Law titled, "What We Can't Not Know," by J. Budziszewski.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890626546/qid=1110755467/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-4364835-1109402
"They are "truly moral free riders" because they try to use morality, which at its core mandates a belief in a higher power, to persuade others to buy into their point of view."
They have actually reinvented morality to support to their immorality. To them, it is immoral of conservatives to "force" traditional morals on them. Yet they still have immunity from their new morality because it suits their agenda when they get California taxpayers to pay for embryonic stem cell research, thus "forcing" their (im)morality on us conservatives.
My conclusion: They must believe that by killing our own young we will obtain immortality through medical advances and never have to stand before God.
Morality is simply knowing what the results of our actions will be, prior to acting. If I go jump off a cliff, I know that gravity will help me down the mountain. In much the same way I know that murdering someone will invite their friends and relatives to kill me. All 'moral values" are based on that principle.
Religious people act morally out of the fear that God will punish them if they don't. Atheists act morally out of fear of what their fellow men will do to them if they don't. Truly moral people are moral because they know that behaving that way is the surest way to a satisfying life. They don't have to overcome temptation or fear, they simply are.
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Wherever the exercise of self-restraint begins, it has the inestimable value of forcing the recognition that we live within an order of limits. Our rights are not a poisonous brew destined to subvert any sense of difference between good and evil. We may not be able to define to our satisfaction where the line is to be drawn. But we can discern clearly its outer limits. The unambiguous recognition of such boundaries is an indispensable element in preserving the awareness of a moral order beyond our construction. Without that awareness we would eventually cease to regard respect for an order of mutual rights as itself something right.
An order of rights without right is simply that. Only if we recognize this do we have any chance of retaining contact with an order of right beyond rights. What we have a right to do may not in fact be right to do. The difference is crucial and it must be embedded in the law itself, because only then can we prevent the collapse of the morally right into the legally right.
Acknowledging the limits of the law is indispensable to preserving the recognition of a moral order beyond it. Conversely, relieving legality of the burden of moral rightness is also indispensable to its preservation. The legal and the moral must remain distinct if they are to perform their roles of supporting and facilitating one another
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Rights Without Right
Situational ethics.
How "far" we've come...
Jim Robs brother just died...go to thread.
I posted my condolences to him on that thread. Thanks.
I'm old enough to enjoy the discussion
Thank you, btw.
This is where I disagree. Many of the tenets of morality actually restrict us from behaving in ways that we might find more satisfying. Keeping promises when they are inconvenient, denying sexual gratification, honesty, etc. All of those require that we give up something that we might want at the moment. What tangible reward do I have for not sleeping with an available partner, especially if we are careful to avoid pregancy and STDs? None, on this Earth. So, if I were to go the way of "behaving that way is the surest way to a satisfying life," I might very well not be behaving morally (as defined by a society that believes in marriage and fidelity).
Morality is not the justification of what we want; it is the denial of what we want but what centuries of experience and tradition have told us we should not have...
HUH?? In what situation is slavery, genocide, rape and human sacrifice morally acceptable?
The only thing wrong Midianites did that I can see is that some of the guys in Moses' gang liked some of their women. Even if this was somehow wrong I can't think of any reason the little Midianite girls & boys deserved their fate.
qam1 wrote:
"How do you know abortion, slavery, pedophilia, genocide,human sacrifice are wrong when not only does the Bible not condemn them, it actually encourages them (See Hosea 13, Exodus 21, Numbers 31 and the whole book of Joshua for example)
Plus if not being religious makes you immoral how do you explain
1) Atheist/Agnostic are ~15% of the population yet make up just 0.2% of the prison population
2) From 1991 to 2001, The Number of the non-religious doubled in number while at the same time the number calling themselves Christians declined by 10% this decline in Christianity is especially seen in young people.
Yet the even though the younger generations are the most unchristian violent crime rate has declined through this period, as well as The pregnancy rate for unmarried women has continuously declined through the 1990s and the abortion rate dropped by about 25 percent for both married and unmarried women through the 1990s , The teen Pregnancy Rate Reached a Record Low, More Teenagers are saying no to sex and Drug use by teenagers continues to decline.
If lack of religion caused those things, Then why as there are more & more non-religious people are those things in decline instead of increasing
3) Born Again Christians are just as likely to divorce as are Non-Christians"
Two things; (1)know the enemy (2)pray for your enemies.
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