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July 8, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

33:31

1103 Religion and Government

Should libertarians be pro-religion, anti-religion or neutral?

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	Religion and Statism, an examination from Free Domain Radio, which you can find at freedomainradio.com.
	The problem.
	The evils of the state are well documented.
	200 million plus murders by governments in the 20th century alone.
	The question of religion and political freedom remains complex.
	Is religion anti-state, neutral, or pro-state?
	In other words, when seeking to resist the power of the state, should we embrace or reject religion?
	Or should we ignore it as a neutral factor like the weather?
	Well, let's take a look at the pro-religion argument.
	Religious faith acts as a brake at opposition to the expansion of secular state power, this argument goes.
	By creating an ethical system independent of merely secular authority, religion creates a form of conscience and moral accountability that exists outside politics.
	By creating a link between individual morality and divine instruction, religion helps bypass the secular allegiances of patriotism and state worship.
	This individual and personal allegiance to God and conscience is directly opposed to secular statism.
	Religion in Practice In this argument, of course, religion is an example of natural law, that rules in the world should follow ideal ethical absolutes.
	Statism, on the other hand, is an example of positive law, that rules in the world result directly from state commandments.
	If the government says X is illegal, then X is both illegal and immoral, and the only ethics is that which is passed in a valid form of the legislature by the state.
	Thus, religion places ethical standards above statist commandments, which can result in a conflict between the conscience of faith and the orders of secular leaders.
	This conflict between individual conscience and state laws is fertile ground for the growth and maintenance of political freedom.
	Motives Since a religious person's primary relationship is with God rather than a secular ruler, faith acts as a barrier to the expansion of political power.
	Therefore, secular rulers who wish to expand their power must attack religion.
	Now, since faith interferes with allegiance to the state, totalitarian regimes must eliminate it in order to establish ultimate control.
	And the examples, of course, are the communist dictatorships that were established or are still there in Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, and so on.
	Testability. Well, the thesis that religiosity acts as a powerful opposing force to statism is eminently testable.
	If this thesis is true, then the countries that are the most religious should be the most resistant to totalitarianism.
	The degree of state power within a country should be inversely proportional to the religiosity of that country.
	More religious equals more free politically.
	Religious texts and leaders and their followers should be consistently Antistatus.
	So these are the three major tasks that we're going to put this thesis through.
	So let's look at the first. Most religious equals least susceptible to totalitarianism?
	Well, let's look at the 20th century and the four most murderous totalitarian takeovers.
	Russia, China, Germany, and Italy.
	Russia was a communist, of course, 1917.
	China communist 1949.
	Germany 1930s fascist and Italy 1920s fascist under Hitler and Mussolini, respectively.
	If the above thesis is true, Then these countries should have been the least religious countries on average since they were taken over by totalitarian regimes and religiosity is considered to be a bulwark or opposition to the expansion of state power.
	Let's look at Russia.
	When the communists took over in 1917, Russia was by far one of the most religious countries in Europe.
	The Marxist ideology predicted that communism would take root in advanced industrial countries, not in largely agrarian pre-industrial countries.
	Of course Marx and Engels wrote that countries had to go through the capitalist stage of development before going to communism.
	They couldn't go from feudalism to communism directly, but this of course never happened.
	Now, rural and religious are positively, strongly correlated.
	Think of sort of the Midwest versus Manhattan, I guess.
	So the more rural a population, the more religious in general they will tend to be.
	And of course, Russia was barely scraping out of its feudalist period in the 19th century, late 19th century.
	So it was by far one of the most religious countries in Europe.
	And of course, one of the reasons that the communists attacked religion so fiercely in Russia was that religion was so powerful and thus represented a dangerous competitor to their own ideology.
	What about China? Well, the communist movement in China, much like the one in Russia, drew most of its support from rural peasantry, the most religious section of society.
	And here's a description of religiosity In China, before the Communist takeover, it says, So again,
	the most religious elements in society were the ones that the Communist movements drew the most support from.
	Prior to 1949, the peoples of China had practiced a diversity of religions which had their regional class and ethnic variants the government tolerated and in some instances encouraged religions and the link to this is at the bottom here.
	You can pause it if you want to have a look.
	What about Germany? Prior to World War II, about two-thirds of the German population was Protestant and the remainder Roman Catholic.
	Like Russia and China, Germany missed out on the largely secular Enlightenment, which occurred, you know, 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, was largely a secular phenomenon, and a lot of the Enlightenment philosophers were dais, or specifically anti-organized religion.
	And Germany, throughout this whole period, was subjected to incessant religious warfare as the home of Protestantism.
	And you had Lutheranism, Zwingalianism, Calvinism, all the other kinds of religions that were at each other's throats, slaughtering the population wildly.
	And so there was no particular place for the Enlightenment philosophy In Germany during that time period and so Germany retained a high degree of religiosity.
	There's an old phrase, I can't remember the German for it, but it's something like that a woman in Germany is happy with church, children and kitchen.
	That's sort of where it was.
	So it's still one of the most religious countries in Europe.
	You could argue that the most religious except for the one we'll get to next.
	And so here we see totalitarianism taking root in a highly religious culture.
	And there were some specifically positive correlations between religiosity, formal religiosity in the form of the papacy, and Nazism.
	So after the concordance between the Nazi regime and the Holy See had been concluded in the summer of 1933, Cardinal Fallhaber sent a handwritten note to Hitler stating, What the old parliaments and parties did not accomplish in sixty years, your statesmanlike foresight has achieved in six months.
	For Germany's prestige in East and West, this handshake with the papacy, the greatest moral power in the history of the world, is a feat of immeasurable blessing.
	So, they certainly got behind old mustachioed evil one.
	What about Italy? Well, of course, Italy succumbed to fascism under Mussolini in the 1920s.
	And Italy, of course, is the home of Catholicism and the papacy.
	In January 1923, Cardinal Gaspari, the Vatican Secretary of State, had the first of numerous secret interviews with Mussolini.
	During this meeting, the bargain between the Vatican and fascism, as yet weak, was struck.
	The Vatican pledged itself to support the new regime indirectly by paralyzing the Catholic Party, which had become as serious an obstacle to fascism as were the socialists.
	The Pope himself, on December 20, 1926, declared to all nations that Mussolini is the man sent by Providence.
	Now, if you're not religious, or not a Catholic, or not living in Italy in the 20s, then it's hard to understand what a powerful statement this is.
	That the Pope himself, who is the representative of God on this earth, and whose statements are infallible, is saying that Mussolini is sent by God to work his wonders and virtues on the world, and thus obedience to Mussolini would be obedience to the Pope, which is obedience to God.
	And it's hard to see how that acts as much of a break at all on totalitarianism.
	And fascism was the first and prime instance of a modern political religion, according to a Harvard article.
	And the fact that it took root in a highly religious country is, I don't think, accidental.
	Let's have a look at a couple of other examples.
	Spain and Greece were and remain highly religious countries.
	Both countries proved enormously susceptible to communism and fascism after the Second World War, in fact.
	Greece almost went completely communist, I think, in the 1950s.
	Religiosity remains very strong in South America, where endless experiments in totalitarian socialism and communism continue.
	Religion remains very strong in Africa, where murderous and totalitarian states remain the rule, and where, of course, millions of people have been infected by AIDS because of papal degrees against condoms.
	The Dark and Middle Ages. Well, the separation of church and state is a relatively modern concept, of course, did not arise from the church or for the state, for that matter, but rather from Enlightenment philosophers who were, say, astrologically secular.
	The church was at the height of its power during the Dark and Middle Ages.
	If religiosity opposes state power somehow, innately, then the state should have had the least power when religion, religiosity, had the most power.
	Of course, the state had enormous power in these periods.
	Think of the kings and the aristocrats.
	The feudal system and the serfs who were bound to the land, it was a crippling form of totalitarianism when the church had an enormous amount of dominance in society.
	Modern America, well, religiosity in American politics has grown considerably over the past few decades since the Falwell Robertson founding of the moral majority and so on.
	America was founded by thinkers who were mildly Christian, deist, or agnostic.
	And some, I think, were outright atheists.
	It's hard to find anyone who saw Ben Franklin docking the door of a church in his last few decades.
	So if this is the case, that religion opposes totalitarianism or state power, given that America was founded by very irreligious people and religiosity has grown in America, oh sorry, state schools also resulted from religious lobbying against alternate religions, America should have started off with a very large government, because it was irreligious people who founded it for the most part.
	And the size of government should be shrinking as religiosity increases, of course, quite the opposite.
	It's true, America started with a very small government, and over the past few decades in particular, as religiosity has increased, as political religiosity has increased, the size of the state has gone up exponentially.
	Islam. If religion opposes state power, then the most religious countries in the world should be those with the smallest governments and the greatest amount of political freedom.
	Many of the most religious countries in the modern world, of course, are Islamic, and I don't think we need to go any further with that.
	So, national religiosity.
	Again, we're just putting this thesis to the test.
	According to the theory that religiosity opposes state power, The least religious countries should also be the most tyrannical.
	So I went through, you can see the links on the bottom left, I went through and had a look at the least religious countries in order, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and France.
	Versus the most religious countries, Nigeria, Indonesia, India, Lebanon, and Mexico.
	And of course, if the thesis is that religion opposes statism, what I've done is compared the economic freedom index, which is a fairly well calibrated and objective metric for determining the economic freedom within a particular country.
	Let's have a look at how these countries compare in terms of religiosity versus economic freedom.
	So again, this will go out as a podcast.
	I apologize for making this, counting this off.
	But let's look at the most atheist countries.
	Sweden has a freedom index of 70.4%, Denmark 79.2%, Norway 69%, Finland 74.8%, France 65.4%.
	So the atheist average is 71.8% economic freedom.
	Let's have a look at the most religious countries.
	We have Nigeria at 55.5% economic freedom, Indonesia at 53.9%, India 54.2%, Lebanon 60.9%, Mexico 66.4%.
	And so the religious average of freedom is 58.2% for the top five most religious countries.
	And so it's about 23% more freedom for the most atheist countries, which is the opposite of, like, it's the opposite empirical result, of course, to the thesis that religiosity opposes state power.
	Here we can see that it's actually atheism that seems to, at least statistically, supports the limitations of state power, at least from an economic standpoint.
	These are the two averages.
	Hong Kong is the most free country economically in the world, 90.3% free, number one by far.
	What is the degree of religiosity?
	Well, of course, Hong Kong should be a highly religious culture if the thesis that religion supports political freedom is true.
	Well, only 43% of the population participate in some form of religious practice.
	In the US, there's various statistics, but it seems to hover around 60%.
	So it's considerably less religious, by almost a third, than the United States.
	And the two largest religions are Buddhism and Taoism, approximately 4% of the population are Roman Catholic, because some people will say, well, but it's Christianity that supports this, but the most free country, well, only 4% of the population are Roman Catholic, 5% are Protestant, so it's less than 10%, and 1% are Muslim.
	And the link there is below.
	Singapore is number two in terms of economic freedom at 87.4%.
	And we've got a Singapore census includes detailed data on religion and ethnicity.
	It's taken on a 10-year basis.
	Figures for religion in the year 2000 are Buddhism, 42.5%.
	The second greatest religion, or the second largest religion in Singapore is no religion.
	In fact, almost 15% of people say they have no religion.
	Christianity is 14.6%, Islam 13.9%, Taoism 8.5%, Hinduism 4%, other religions 1.6%.
	So again, we have...
	A country that has a huge degree of economic freedom, more so than England or Canada or the United States.
	And they have one of the largest atheist populations in the world.
	So that's just another instance where we can look at this thesis and say, well, there doesn't seem to be much support for it.
	And the link there is below.
	Let's have a look at some atheist texts.
	Are there any specifically atheist texts or atheistic texts which counsel obedience to the state?
	Well, see, atheism is a negative belief and thus does not counsel any positive actions.
	For instance, if I say to you, I don't believe in leprechauns, what does that say about my political opinions?
	Well, unless leprechauns are currently running the state, not too much.
	Atheism merely applies the scientific method to the question of the existence of gods and recognizes that they do not exist.
	Atheism, of course, is a form of rational skepticism which requires proof for assertions, which is surely anti-propaganda and, as a result, anti-state.
	Just atheism. Forget about welding it to other forms of belief like communism and so on, but just the atheism part.
	What about religious texts?
	Well... If religion is considered to be a bulwark against state power, then religious texts should contrain moral commandments to oppose state power.
	Ah, unfortunately this is not the case.
	We all know render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.
	So Martin Luther, the original one, wrote an interpretation of this problem in the Bible.
	One says, turn the other cheek versus an eye for an eye in terms of justice.
	And says, well, turn the other cheek is when the government wrongs you, and an eye for an eye is when the government applies justice.
	So you're supposed to submit to state power at all times, and yet the state is supposed to use violence to pursue justice and so on.
	You can never use violence against the state, and that, of course, has a lot to do with certain kinds of theological interpretations of things like the divine right of kings, of course, much as the Pope said that Mussolini was sent by God, kings or secular leaders in the Dark and Middle Ages through the Enlightenment, sorry, certainly through kings or secular leaders in the Dark and Middle Ages through the Kings were considered, and the aristocratic people, were considered to be put there by God, and obedience to them was the same as obedience to God.
	And there's more. So, for instance, in Romans 13, 1-4, Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.
	The authorities that exist have been established by God.
	Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
	For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.
	Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority?
	Then do what is right, and he will commend you.
	For he is God's servant to do you good.
	But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.
	He is God's servant, an agent of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
	Believers should cooperate with the authorities wherever possible.
	It's in the Bible. Titus 3.1.
	Remind your people to obey the government and its officers and always to be obedient and ready for any honest work.
	Jesus gave an example of citizenship in paying taxes.
	Matthew 17.27.
	But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line.
	Take the first fish you catch, open its mouth, and you will find a four drachma coin.
	Take it and give it to them for my tax." And there's lots more, but we can just sort of go with that.
	Religion and totalitarianism.
	Now, it is certainly true that totalitarian regimes often oppose and attack organized religion.
	Well, but all this means is that totalitarian regimes view organized religion as a competitor.
	This does not exactly speak well of religion.
	For instance, the Mafia does not view the United Way or another charity as a competitor.
	Rather, one criminal gang will view another criminal gang, including the police, as a competitor.
	When libertarians defend religion, they are in fact defending organized religion and usually a particular flavor of Christianity.
	Now, organized religion survives through the indoctrination of children.
	I've never met a religious person who does not instruct his children on the, quote, truths of his religion, which are mere personal bigotries.
	Children are taught to believe absurd, quote, truths by those in authority.
	Thus, religious moral authority is not personal or individual, but rather depends upon the irrational commandments of a man-made hierarchy.
	Because earlier we talked about how religion gave you a conscience with God and so on, but it's not true, of course, because religion is taught to children as if it is true, and it is a purely man-made invention and hierarchy that inflicts these lies on them.
	And this is exactly like the state.
	The irrational commandments of a man-made hierarchy, religion versus the state, is a false dichotomy.
	The two are the same. And, I mean, of course, as a scientific and rational philosopher, I really can't picture how freedom, truth, wisdom, and virtue is really advanced by lying to children.
	Moral commandments.
	See, whether you take your irrational ethic, ethical absolutes, from a priest or a politician makes no fundamental difference.
	Whether you're told by the clergy or by the government what is moral or immoral makes no fundamental difference at all.
	Religion does not instruct children on the rational examination of ethics or the empirical and critical examination of statements by those in authority.
	This leads the children to be more susceptible to man-made authority, since organized religion is merely a secular hierarchy of irrational indoctrination, just like the state.
	Atheism vs.
	Religion Atheism is, of course, disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
	The doctrine that there is no God or gods There's nothing about killing people.
	There's nothing about enslaving the proletariat or putting Solzhenitsyn in a gulag or killing religious people or anything like that.
	It is simply, there is no God.
	Atheism thus causes no deaths.
	Saying there is no God is not communist, it is not socialist, it is not totalitarian.
	Stalin was a communist, for sure, and he was apparently an atheist.
	And he also liked the color red.
	Does that mean that all those who like red support genocide?
	His atheism is irrelevant.
	Just by the by as well, it's also kind of hard to say that somebody like Stalin, who was raised by a highly religious father or family, and in a highly religious culture, who as a teenager was considering entering a seminary to become a priest, could ever end up really atheistic.
	Hitler as well was raised in a highly Catholic environment, renounced his faith, I believe.
	It's Catholic faith at the age of 12, but a Christian remained religious.
	These people who were beaten for religious reasons, who were punished endlessly for religious commandments, it's hard to say that they end up with a neutral form of religion.
	We could say that, for instance, you and I, probably not a lot of Zeus worshippers watching this or listening to this, That we have a pretty neutral view about the religion of Zeus or, I don't know, Set or something like that.
	But it's kind of hard to say that these people are not affected by religion or are true atheists because they were raised in such a violent and hideous religious environment.
	So I just want to sort of point that out.
	The atheism of Stalin is irrelevant, so I just want to sort of point that out.
	But then if you compare the definition, this is the formal definition of atheism from a dictionary, if you compare this definition to the myriest religious commandments to kill unbelievers that are in both the Old and the New Testament, it's kind of different, right?
	Now, let's take one last look at this argument.
	This is a point that I think is very important.
	So, religious apologists, the people who claim that religiosity opposes statism, often argue that communism attacks religion for ideological reasons.
	However, when an atheist quotes the appalling body count of religious warfare, he is told that these are statist activities, not religious activities.
	This is very important. For instance, when you bring up the genocides of the Crusades, the religious defense is that, ah, these murderers, you blame them on the government, not on religion.
	Religion was just a, I don't know, kind of ideological cover.
	So when communist leaders attack, apparently, it is based upon their atheistic ideology.
	However, when religious leaders attack, it is not based upon their religious ideology.
	This is a very important distinction.
	We'll do one more slide on this.
	There's a complete logical contradiction.
	If ideological justifications are used by governments for purely political reasons, as in the case of war, then ideology can be described as a mere cover for the lust for power or control over others.
	I'll say it's God, I'll say it's class, conflict, or whatever, just to get power.
	But this can't apply only to statism, but not Even if we accepted that atheism was a cause of genocide, which I don't think is true, but if we accept that it is, if the religion of religious warfare is irrelevant, then the atheism of communist warfare is also irrelevant.
	If the atheism of communist warfare is a relevant and motivating factor, then the same is true of religious warfare.
	And so even if we accept that atheism is a valid cause for warfare from the communists, which I don't think is true, it's communism and statism that they were following, but even if we accept it's true, then we can look at the murders committed by religious leaders who quote religious justifications.
	So, some religious wars throughout history.
	Albigensian Crusade, Algeria, Baha'is, Boxer Rebellion, Bosnias, Christian Romans, Croatia, early Christian doctrinal disputes, the English Civil War, the Holocaust, the Huguenot Wars, India, Suti and Thugs, Indo-Pakistani Partition, Iran, Islamic Republic, Iraq, Shiites, Jews, Jonestown, Lebanon, Martyrs Islamic Republic, Iraq, Shiites, Jews, Jonestown, Lebanon, Martyrs generally, Molokka Islands, Mongolia, Northern Ireland, Russian Pogroms, Bartholomew Massacre, Shang China, Shimbara Revolt in Japan, C-cup Rising in India, Spanish Inquisition, Taipan Rebellion, 30 Years War, Tudor England, Vietnam, Spanish Inquisition, Taipan
	Witch Hunts, Zosa, Arab Outbreak, Arab-Israeli Wars, Al-Qaeda, Crusades, Dutch Revolt, Nigeria, these are just a few smatterings that I could fit on the slides.
	There's many, many, many, many, many more.
	And there's the source of that.
	And here's some wars started in the 20th century by religious leaders.
	If you're going to say that Stalin was an atheist and Stalin started wars, which, I mean, you could argue, right, he was actually mostly responding to the invasions of Russia in the early part of his, I guess, when Lenin was in charge, the early part, he was invaded by, what, France and England and, I think, the United States.
	So if we look at the war started in the 20th century by religious leaders as opposed to communist leaders, well, all the leaders who started World War I were Christians, 20 million people killed.
	All the leaders who started World War II, of course, Russia was invaded by Hitler, who was a Christian, 55 million.
	Belgium, Congo, Free State, 3 million.
	Chinese Revolution, 2.4 million.
	This is the earlier one, not the one in 1949.
	Japanese-Manchurian War, 1.1 million killed.
	France-Vietnam War, 600,000.
	Partition of India and Pakistan, 1 million people killed.
	Iraq-Iran War, 2 Islamic countries, 1 million people killed.
	US and Korea, 4 million people.
	US-Vietnam, approximately 3 million.
	US invasion of Iraq. Of course, George Bush said that it was God who told him to invade half a million or more.
	Gulf War, 85,000.
	Russia-Japanese War. Biafran War.
	And there is lots more, which you can go through if you want, on the link below.
	So the body count from religious wars or wars started by religious leaders.
	This is a number that will cause your jaw to drop.
	I don't know whether it's valid or not.
	I don't know whether it's true or not.
	But this is the body count from religious wars or wars started by religious leaders throughout history.
	809,215,732.
	And there's the link. Maybe this number is way too big.
	Way, way, way too big.
	I mean, you could say, well, the population of the world was much smaller throughout history and blah, blah, blah.
	So maybe it's too high. Maybe we can drop it, though.
	Maybe drop it by 90%. I don't mind.
	We can drop it by 90%.
	We still end up with well over 80 million murders.
	80 million murders.
	That's over 13 holocausts.
	That's a lot of blood, right?
	What is the real conflict?
	The real conflict is not between religion and statism.
	The real conflict is between irrationality and rationality.
	The real conflict is between superstition and philosophy.
	The real conflict is between irrational ideologies and rational philosophy.
	Statism is an irrational ideology.
	Religion is an irrational ideology.
	The historical conflicts between religion and communism can thus be seen as directly equivalent to the historical conflicts between various violent bigotries.
	Both fall under the umbrella of irrational ideologies, and you don't fight irrationality with irrationality, unless you are, well, irrational.
	The choice and the solution.
	The choice between irrational ideologies is a false option.
	States and gods are both irrational and imaginary authorities invented by man.
	To subjugate the conscience of others.
	The commandments of a fictional deity are no more rational than the laws of a fictional state.
	Both are manipulatable abstractions invented to extract obedience from the coward and the credulous.
	Obedience to God is faith and piety.
	Obedience to government is patriotism and honor.
	Nonsense. What is the real choice?
	Why do we have to choose between one irrational ideology and another?
	Philosophy gives us the power to reason from first principles, subjugating ourselves to logic and evidence, not the irrational prejudices of others.
	Communism is not the opposite of religion any more than the bloods of the opposite of the Crips.
	Philosophy! Opposes both religion and statism since it places the power of thought and reasoning in the mind of the individual and thus rejects all irrational man-made hierarchies.
	Do not choose your slave master.
	Choose reason and freedom.
	Thank you so much for watching, as always, for more on the philosophy of personal and political liberty.
	Please visit freedomainradio.com.
	We've got free podcasts, books, articles, videos, and a thriving online community of thousands of people taking on the thrilling and terrifying challenge of pursuing philosophical freedom in their own lives.
	And have fun, as always, with the joy of freedom and thinking.

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