Ye Olde Libertarian Pub

[zoink]

try to drain the system faster?

Correct. I probably should not have said agorists plural. I have seen one person who I thought was an agorist mention this, and other people who may or may not be agorists advocating the strategy.

 

[MacFall]

Nilloc - referring back to our conversation on pages 30-31, would you consider yourself to believe in Biblical infallibility (which is distinct from inerrancy)?

From the Wikipedia: "The Bible is inerrant if and only if it makes no false or misleading statements on any topic whatsoever. The Bible is infallible if and only if it makes no false or misleading statements on any matter of faith and practice."

 

[Nilloc]

It’s funny you ask me about how I view the Bible, since right before reading your post I was sleeping and dreamed that I was explaining my understanding of the Bible to Stefan Molyneux. Seriously.

I’m afraid I can’t agree with biblical infallibility. Faith and practice I take to mean things about God and ethics. Since in my opinion there are places that say false things about God (especially the early parts of the Old Testament) and has contradictory morals, I can’t accept infallibility.

Lememe try and explain my view as concisely as possible. And for any third-party reader who takes issue with my view, while that is perfectly understandable, please refrain from arguing about it. I’ll answer questions, but I’m not gonna turn this into a debate on inspiration.

Let’s put aside the Old Testament for now, since it’s much more diverse and difficult to describe my theological beliefs surrounding it. As for the NT books, I view them as mostly historical documents; in the same way I would view, say, Josephus’s writings or other historians who were contemporary with the events they wrote about. I have no good reason for believing God somehow caused these books to be written. I believe that, for the most part, the four Gospels describe what Jesus really taught, said, and did. They’re not perfect, and I could name some places I doubt reflect what Jesus really thought, but I think they’re very trustworthy overall.

Paul and the other NT writers, while I have great respect for and I love reading they’re writings, I cannot view them on the same level as I do Jesus’s teachings. I am a Christian after all, not a Paulite (not even a Ron Paulite!). There are places where I think Paul contradicts Jesus on some things, others where he says things that are just factually incorrect (homosexuality being caused by idols, fallen angels sleeping with women), and still others where he teaches things I find morally wrong, either due to my understanding of Jesus’s ethics, or philosophy (slavery, sexism, government, death penalty). There’s no reason to think Paul turned into an infallible teacher after his conversion. Even in Galatians he says the risen Christ delivered to him the Gospel, not all-true theology. And if it seems like I’m picking on Paul, its only because his writings comprise such a large part of the NT and I find conservative Christians seem to quote him more often than Jesus.

Hope that makes sense. Btw, what caused you to think of our discussion thirty pages back?

 

[Lux Aeterna]

I've always seen it like this:

Jesus taught a simple lesson and made no effort to write it down. He clearly intended the message to ring true throughout eternity, and it goes without saying that He knew very well that people of many different languages and cultural backgrounds would hear or read about his message.

Also take into account how Christianity began. Christianity was preached by word of mouth before the Bible was compiled, and men were still saved nonetheless.

That strongly suggests that the precise verbiage used is not of great consequence. If there was no Bible, and men walked the Earth preaching about how Jesus was sacrificed on the cross for our sins as the apostles did, people would be still just as saved.

So I hold to the (possibly controversial) notion that the Bible need not be inerrant. The most important thing is Jesus' message, and everything else is collateral in nature. That is, other testimony may supplement, prove, or provide guidance, but Jesus' message is at the heart of everything. Jesus' message is primary authority while the statements of others, even the apostles, are secondary authority.

Edit: To simplify:

(1) People can be saved by the belief in Jesus irrespective of the Bible, as long as they were instructed in Jesus' teachings. This is proven by the fact that people were saved before the Bible was published, and illiterate people are saved through preaching even though they are incapable of reading the Bible.
(2) The aforementioned preaching depends on the teachings of Jesus. As Jesus said, the key element of salvation is faith in Him.
(3) Therefore, the teachings of Jesus are logically the only necessary element.
(4) Therefore, the rest of the Bible need not be inerrant for Jesus' message to be correct and effective.

 

[MacFall]

Nilloc: I discovered the term "Biblical infallibility" and wondered what you thought about it. I brought it up here because I wanted input from others (such as Lux Aeterna's post above), but not with the sort of drama that would have come if I'd put it in Singles, for example. Also because this is where we'd previously discussed the term "inerrancy", on which, by the way, I have since come to agree with you.

Lux Aeterna: I agree with your four points. Which I understand puts me at odds with much of mainstream Christianity (some of which holds that even a non-literal-six-day theory of origin completely undermines the gospel), but it is really not my goal to be in line with mainstream anything.

 

[Nilloc]

MacFall: I’m pretty well outside mainstream Christianity as it is. I hold to plenty of positions that would probably cause many here on CF to not consider me a Christian. Most Christians I know in real life are not as uptight and legalistic as I find they can be on here or as stereotyped in the media. I think most Christians are pretty moderate in their religious views, probably without realizing it. If you’d ask people at my church, they’d probably tell you that they’re (religious) conservatives, but I would consider them pretty moderate. So why I may technically disagree with official mainstream teachings, I think most others are to some degree as well.

Good call on not posting this on Singles, cause I have caused a lot of drama myself there when sharing my views.

I've also had some advancements in my study of economics, but I'll post on that later.

Lux Aeterna: I view Christianity as following Jesus’s teachings, which mostly comprise on loving your neighbor, treating others the way you want to be treated, helping the poor, etc. Given that, the idea of an inerrant/infallible/inspired source for doctrine is unnecessary. Jesus was about orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. There’s more I could say on this (much much more), but I’ll leave it at that for now.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

Lux Aeterna: I view Christianity as following Jesus’s teachings, which mostly comprise on loving your neighbor, treating others the way you want to be treated, helping the poor, etc. Given that, the idea of an inerrant/infallible/inspired source for doctrine is unnecessary. Jesus was about orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. There’s more I could say on this (much much more), but I’ll leave it at that for now.

Agreed! Want to talk about this some more at some point?

 

[Nilloc]

Agreed! Want to talk about this some more at some point?

Sure.

 

[Nilloc]

So, economics:

I had to take a break from Man, Economy, and State for a while. I really liked the first four chapters. It was slow reading, but I understood it. The fifth chapter starts talking about all that ERE crap and it started to lose me. I made it through the fifth chapter, barely, but then I hit chapter six and I had to stop. I'll come back to it in the near future, but I wasn't learning anything at that point and knew that my time would be best spent reading something else.

I read Robert Murphy's Lessons for the Young Economist and really enjoyed it. I learned so much, especially the last section about interventionism. I even told Bob Murphy on his Facebook how much I liked it and he even responded! Now I'm about half-way through Economics in One Lesson and it's even better than Murphy's book. Planning on reading all of the introductory material on Tom Wood's list before going back to MES (probably read Gary North's Mises on Money, too).

So basically, things are going really well and I find the more I read the more I love economics.

One last thing. I plan on attending a community college this fall and my parents, aware of my new found interest in economics, are encouraging me to take an economics class. I told them no because of the required math classes (I absolutely suck at math) and I'm just gonna assume the teacher is gonna be some extreme left-wing Marxist. Not that I have a problem hearing all sides, but I doubt such a person would give the free market a fair shot. I saw Gary North and Walter Block's debate on taking economics classes and North has some very good points. I have no plans to have a career related to economics at all, but I wondered what you guys thought.

 

[MacFall]

I took basic econ classes in college. My micro prof ended up asking me questions a lot of the time. The macro prof (a monetarist) and I debated a lot, but he was friendly and respectful about it.

Frankly, I didn't learn anything. But I do want to get an econ degree, so I'll be expecting a lot more of that.

 

[zoink]

I told them no because of the required math classes (I absolutely suck at math) and I'm just gonna assume the teacher is gonna be some extreme left-wing Marxist.4

I have a minor in econ (not that that means much). Math whys you'd be fine in an intro micro/macro class. I used some calculus when getting my minor at the 300-400 level but there were kids in the class who had never touched calculus before and they did fine, it just took them a little longer. Schools are different but generally I believe things only get math intensive later on and often not until grad work. That's why lots of kids just get a math degree then do econ in grad school.

The prof is probably not going to be a Marxist preaching LTV. True blue Marxists aren't all that common and you can usually figure out if their are Marxist profs before you start taking classes. More likely you'll encounter someone more in line with Keyens or the Chicago school.

I liked the econ courses I took and I'd rather fill a humanities credit with an econ class than some of the other options.

 

[Nilloc]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll still think over it cause I've already picked my classes for this fall, but I was thinking ahead. I was told in order to get an associate degree (which I could honestly care less about) I'd have to take basic math. If I do decide to go for an associate degree, I might as well take at least one econ class.

 

[Nilloc]

I had a bit of a “Mozart was a Red” experience tonight. My best friend put me in contact with a girl he met at school, cause she’s into politics, economics, and all that crap. He told me she’s really conservative, so I just figured she was your standard Neocon. We talked a bit on Facebook (three messages in and she already was trying to recruit me to campaign for some politician) and she seemed really nice. She knew from my cover photo that I was libertarian and she said that she knew we’d get along when she saw it. Pleasantly surprised, I looked closely at her interests and saw that she was a huge Ayn Rand fan (though she is a Christian).

After only talking for like two days she invites me to a party that took place this evening. She told me that she picked all the guests from her friends at Laissez-Faire Syndicate, their capitalist group at Ohio State University. So I went, hoping to maybe have some interesting conversations. I didn’t talk much (and boy was that awkward) but I felt like I had an experience similar to that of Keith Hackley in Rothbard’s play, thankfully without any confrontations.

They were all dedicated Objectivists. And not just Objectivists in the sense that they agree with the philosophy, but that they think Rand was a great person, a wonderful writer, and that Atlas Shrugged was the greatest novel ever written. To my shock, a number of them were actually going after libertarians. They talked about a time they debated a rabid Ron Paul supporter who wouldn’t work with them just because they disagreed with Ron Paul’s foreign policy! And while I sympathize with having to put up with the Paulbots (I like Ron Paul, but many of his worshipers can be annoying), I couldn’t believe that they didn’t agree with Paul on his foreign policy. Rand wasn’t an interventionist was she? I’m so confused. They even talked about how individualisms was good, and collectivism is bad, which then made me wonder how they can support such a blatantly collectivist notion as war.

That’s not even all of it. We watched a couple episodes of the Joss Whedon show Firefly, which I knew little about. Most there though were obsessed with this 14-episode show from 2003 and I couldn’t figure out why. As I watched it though, it became clear as to why they liked it so much. The story is about a group of smugglers, well, smuggling, breaking the law of the big government Alliance. Apparently the back-story is that the Alliance engaged in an aggressive war against the Galactic version of Galt’s Gulch, which my hosts made clear when discussing it.

They invited me to attend Laissez-Faire Syndicate meetings in the fall, and I might go (maybe they’ll actually talk to me this time). It was a weird experience meeting with such dedicated Randians. I know Rothbard worked with Rand before she threw him out and in theory I wouldn’t’ have a problem working with Objectivists, but dang they were obsessed with her. I almost wore my Enemy of the State shirt and am very glad now that I didn’t.

And can anybody explain why such dedicated Objectivists would be against a non-intervention foreign policy? It still bewilders me.

 

[zoink]

I know very little about modern objectivists, other then what I have read on the wiki page.

So I'll address two other important issues.

1) Is the girl cute?

We watched a couple episodes of the Joss Whedon show Firefly, which I knew little about. Most there though were obsessed with this 14-episode show from 2003 and I couldn’t figure out why. As I watched it though, it became clear as to why they liked it so much. The story is about a group of smugglers, well, smuggling, breaking the law of the big government Alliance. Apparently the back-story is that the Alliance engaged in an aggressive war against the Galactic version of Galt’s Gulch, which my hosts made clear when discussing it.

You haven't watched Firefly? You basically just committed internet blasphemy.

 

[Nilloc]

I know very little about modern objectivists, other then what I have read on the wiki page.

I don't know much about them either, but I'm certain that they're non-interventionists. Maybe MacFall will know.

So I'll address two other important issues.

1) Is the girl cute?

Very.

Here's a video she recently put up (this is the candidate she wants me to campign for when I get to college):

Women for Mandel: Zena - YouTube

She has a boyfriend though. He's actually getting a Phd in economics. I didn't get to talk to him much (or anyone else for that matter), but he was really nice.

You haven't watched Firefly? You basically just commuted internet blasphemy.

I really liked what I watched tonight. I'll definitely watch all of it in the near future.

 

[MacFall]

First, Firefly is probably my favorite cancelled TV show, and Serenity (the movie that sort of wraps up the River Tam story arc) is in my top 10 movies.

As for your confusion, Rand was not anti-interventionist when it came to societies that she saw as not having sufficiently developed property rights. She opposed World War II because it involved the killing of "civilized" civilians who were merely the victims of oppressive states. But she was all for intervention in the Middle East, because those people are all tribal savages and well they need some Western people to show them how capitalism is done.

Face
palm.

 

[zoink]

If Firefly is your favorite canceled show, what is/are your favorite shows currently running?

*********
​

I found this link with a bunch of quotes from Rand on foreign policy.

 

[SPB1987]

So, economics:

I had to take a break from Man, Economy, and State for a while. I really liked the first four chapters. It was slow reading, but I understood it. The fifth chapter starts talking about all that ERE crap and it started to lose me. I made it through the fifth chapter, barely, but then I hit chapter six and I had to stop. I'll come back to it in the near future, but I wasn't learning anything at that point and knew that my time would be best spent reading something else.

I read Robert Murphy's Lessons for the Young Economist and really enjoyed it. I learned so much, especially the last section about interventionism. I even told Bob Murphy on his Facebook how much I liked it and he even responded! Now I'm about half-way through Economics in One Lesson and it's even better than Murphy's book. Planning on reading all of the introductory material on Tom Wood's list before going back to MES (probably read Gary North's Mises on Money, too).

So basically, things are going really well and I find the more I read the more I love economics.

One last thing. I plan on attending a community college this fall and my parents, aware of my new found interest in economics, are encouraging me to take an economics class. I told them no because of the required math classes (I absolutely suck at math) and I'm just gonna assume the teacher is gonna be some extreme left-wing Marxist. Not that I have a problem hearing all sides, but I doubt such a person would give the free market a fair shot. I saw Gary North and Walter Block's debate on taking economics classes and North has some very good points. I have no plans to have a career related to economics at all, but I wondered what you guys thought.

Economics classes are actually pretty interesting. I just finished up a marketing class and now I am taking managerial economics and that class starts tomorrow.

 

[MacFall]

If Firefly is your favorite canceled show, what is/are your favorite shows currently running?

Doctor Who, Supernatural, and... well, those are about the only ones I currently like.

 

[Nilloc]

I had no idea about Rand. I guess I always assumed she was anti-war because of how often she's compared with libertarianism. What makes this even stranger is that the girl whose party I went to is an immigrant from Baghdad, Iraq. So did she like the fact that countless innocents were killed and much of her city reduced to rumble?