“For rational people there is always science which can (try to) explain human behavior. Do not forget sciences like evolutionary psychology.”

Like Skinner’s behaviouralism, which through it’s reductionist and positivistic conclusions did more to advance social engineering than other social sciences.

Diversity, trial and error, spontaneity, and yes, lack of reason and emotions are as much part of human history as are intelectuals, scientists, philosophers and and other intelectuals have been. The common man, not the “superhumans” are the basis of human evolution.Unless, what you want is a race of Dr. Spock clones. Ayn Rand, supposedly self-proclaimed “most rational person” committed pretty unrational acts and was responsible of a very “cult-like” following. So, emotions are part of being human and not just a “defect” you have to eliminate. We sometimes forget human “culture” in favour of human “civilization”. Religion is part of culture. Yes, we need more reason and less memorizing. Yes, formal education is terrible, world-wide but, “Reeducating” people? Doesn´t that sound a bit Orwellian? Sure, people should learn more about learning to think better, but aren´t you also setting yourself up to sell a definite ideological set (which is exactly what public and religious based school do). At any rate, what so bad about that? After all, the fact that you attended a Catholic High School doesn´t mean you won´t choose atheism? Besides, much of the history of human thought has been sponsored and has grown with religious institutions, so why discard it as something totally negative? (For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas and the role of Salamanca in the developement of Austrian Economics.) To say that people that believe in God are not smart, ignorant and unreasonable is akin to saying that atheists are all intelligent, cultivated and reasonable people, which is obviously not the case. (Granted, you did state this). Besides, what makes you think that religiously orientated schools won´t also step-up the quality of their education in order to “keep up” with non believers? What makes you think that these schools do not teach Darwin, Aristotles or Einstein? Are you worried about what makes all of us libertarians, or how we arrive to it? It´s impossible to know if people arrive to certain conclusions in the same manner that we might consider as “the best”. To be able to this is to fall into the social planning view that libertarians abhor. At any rate, it doesn´t manner how you get there, so long as you don´t try to force your ideas on others through coercion. Anyway, I don´t think that being or not being religious neccessarily precludes you from being libertarian or having any other particular ideological beliefs. We mustn´t forget that the goal is to arrive at a social arrangement where people can live their lives in the best way they deem fit, without using goverment as a means of imposing their own particular vision on others. It´s about the common man, not any particular group.

It really has been a crucial component of my thinking, whitout it, I would have been just as doomed like 99% of the population. I personnally have some problems with certain aspects of the Austrian economics. (Like mathematics, Austrian Economics is not “finished”) it has been underdeveloped for more than 70 years.

Although von Mises rejected mathematical analysis, this really is quiet regrettable. Because praxeology has so much more affinity with pure/fundamental(and I would like to stress the word pure, and by no means statistical) mathematics, then is does have with now common mainstream economic thinking.

Much of my time as young person(I am now 23) has been wasted by the educational system (in Belgium, which is -to my knowledge- already very “good” by European “standards” and outclasses the American one by a very -very large- margin (which has been totally poisoned by socialism). But even then, I am just an “accident”.

But being the young man I am today, I am very fortunate to have the mind and adapted views, ready to tackle the future problems which awaits my generation in Belgium. I am getting ready to rumble, I am getting stronger every day and the big collapse is going to come.

By the way, as a Belgian I am fortunate to understand German, read and write English and French. In a good education, languages are always a decisive advantage.

The vast majority of people aren’t even asking themselves the questions that need to be answered. There seems to exist a complete lack of understanding of how logical reasoning works.

For example, Austrian economics is based on one intuitive fundamental axiom and it’s conclusions are drawn from logical reasoning. But for some reason, the vast majority of people are somehow capable of agreeing with the starting assumption and yet disagreeing with the undeniable conclusions that are logically drawn from that assumption.
The merits of Austrian Economics have been known for well over half a century, yet virtually every single country in the world has a central bank, minimum wage laws, public schooling, government-run healthcare, etc, etc, etc, etc.

More than enough “real bright persons” have existed throughout history to show humanity the way, but humanity doesn’t want to listen. Humanity doesn’t even recognise that these “real bright persons” are intelligent.

In the realm of religious philosophy we often see a similar lack of logical thought. It doesn’t seem to occur to most religious people that their entire philosophy hinges on two contradictory assumptions. On the one hand they believe that humans have free will. On the other hand, they believe there exists an all-knowing, all-powerful being behind it all. These two beliefs are completely incompatible. Their “God” MUST know everything that will happen in the future. (Otherwise it is not a “God”) By logical extention, all events MUST be pre-determined and therefore, free will cannot exist. An obvious contradiction, yet the vast majority of religious people believe both starting assumptions to be simultaneously true.

Education is the only way to correct the course of society. People need to learn how the process of logical thought works. People need to learn to break everything down to fundamental principles and assumptions and work logically to conclusions. On top of that they need to understand that, if their starting assumptions are true, then any conclusions drawn from them MUST also be true.

For rational people there is always science which can (try to) explain human behavior. Do not forget sciences like evolutionary psychology.

I support your statement.

Using fundamental assumptions and logical thinking, I concluded that atheism is the principled position to adopt.
Using fundamental assumptions and logical thinking, I also concluded that libertarianism is the principled position to adopt.

The way I see it, libertarianism and atheism are completely compatible to any logical thinker.
In fact I’ll even go so far as to say that they MUST be the philosophical positions of anyone who derives their understanding of the world from a logical thinking process founded on fundamental assumptions. (Unfortunately people of this kind seem to be a rare breed)

The problem is that most atheists are atheists for the wrong reasons. And, as I’m discovering here on Mises.org, most libertarians are libertarians for the wrong reasons.
Any atheist who believes that such a thing as “evil” exists certainly did not become an athiest through logical thinking.
Similarly, any libertarian who believes libertarianism is the correct philosophy purely because it’s the will of “God” also didn’t arrive at their philosophy through logical thinking.

Atheism and libertarianism may SEEM incompatible to certain people but it is often these same people who have a poor concept of what logical thought is. In particular, I find it is either a general lack of appreciation for fundamental principles or a complete lack of knowledge of the existence of fundamental principles.

But then again, this is not surprising. From a young age our public schools teach us to “memorise” our way through life.
Here is a problem, here are the steps you need to take to solve the problem, now memorise that. Here is another problem, here are the steps you need to take to solve the problem, etc, etc, etc. After 10 to 12 years of public schooling everyone is an expert at memorising and replicating a process. But nobody understands a damn thing. The poor child who stops to ask “why?” is, of course, punished for “wasting time”. Sadly, the truth is often that the teachers themselves do not know the answer.

Wow I just realised that my attempt to refute the “atheism and libertarianism are incompatible” argument has turned into a rant. My apologies.

No system will work whitout a certain degree of respect for the other person. Respect for your fellow humans is not something which should be seen as an exclusive monopoly of Christian faith.

Such a claim should certainly be seen as absurd.

enjoyed reading your view point very interesting indeed mate!

“Following up on what Haas wrote, atheists deny what Christians call original sin, which is the idea that people are born with a tendency toward evil which requires a process of “domestication” through parenting, church and school. Without that domestication process, evil runs wild. Atheists tend to believe in human nature as a blank slate from birth; or the idea that people are born good. Evil enters only when people are mistreated, such as through improper potty training, or through capitalism and private property.”

I don´t really think that it´s that Christians believe that man is inherently bad. What I do think it means is that man, if not careful, is capable of commiting to bad things. The fact that man is born with original sin is not to condemn man as being “naturally” evil, but rather imperfect (as is the whole of his world). Man can better himself, then, through his relation with God. I´m Catholic, so there might be variance according to different persuasions. At any rate, at a more basic level…it´s really more an appeal to fundamental moral and ethical principles which can be arrived at through secular morality (objectivism, for example) even if you are an atheist…which, at the conclusion are very similiar variants of natural law.

Also, as far as the current discusion related to atheism and libertarianism, I’d like to recommend the second chapter of the first section of “The Menace of the Herd”, titled “Ochlocracy and Democratism”, you might find it useful.

No there is nothing incompatible with atheism and libertarianism. I wish more atheists were libertarian. Part of the problem may be historical. The modern socialist movement was started by atheists and so socialism has a first mover advantage.

Following up on what Haas wrote, atheists deny what Christians call original sin, which is the idea that people are born with a tendency toward evil which requires a process of “domestication” through parenting, church and school. Without that domestication process, evil runs wild. Atheists tend to believe in human nature as a blank slate from birth; or the idea that people are born good. Evil enters only when people are mistreated, such as through improper potty training, or through capitalism and private property. Socialism is more than an economic system. It is an explanation of the origins of evil and and remedy for that evil. Without Christian origional sin or socialism, atheists have a hard time explaining the origins of evil behavior in mankind. And that’s why I think atheists are attracted to socialism.

Now i know there are many atheist libertarians out there- but the problem is atheism goes hand in hand with statism- because once you take the idea of a “god” or organised religion out of people’s lives- the state becomes the so called “god” that fills the void- allowing a bigger state to be dominant over their lives…this is one of the underlying ideas of communism and is basically the same with socialism- and this is why you don’t get conservative atheists- all tend to be socialist…because they believe everything has to be changed and improved by human action or intervention by a government…Since government is the supreme organiser of society and not God.

I am an atheist (somehow agnostic would fit better, because i think, that some things can not be known) and a libertarian.

So what? Does anyone really think that libertarian philosophy and atheism is incompatible?