I decided to move some discussion from this post up to the top level here. Specifically, Watoosh wrote: "Well, if violence is defined as initiation of force (which, of course, presupposes certain property rights), then I think Rockwell is correct..." Well, if we define cats as elephants, then many people keep elephants in their house. More seriously, firstly, violence is not usually defined that way. It's defined as, you know, violence, so that, say, someone may respond violently or non-violently to someone who aggresses against them. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say, for instance, "He punched me, but I did not stoop to violence in response." And, secondly, the libertarian usage of "initiation of force" is very offbeat. If I wander onto someone's meadow, most people would not say I had "initiated force" -- I mean, sure, I used "force" against the earth to push off walking, but that's not force directed against...
Many of the hardcore atheists I know would not mourn the end of most human societies.
ReplyDeleteI went searching for sources, and found this page of Michael Blume: http://www.scilogs.com/nature-of-faith/may-atheism-succeed-demographically/
ReplyDeleteI still can not find any real life example mentioned of an atheist society that did not last more than a century.
What I do find is a mention that atheists are having fewer children. Which is a real issue.
Israel initially was a largely secular country with a very small minority of strong religious believers. The Orthodox Jews, however, demographically bloomed until secular Israelis were a much smaller percentage than before. Same thing happened in the state of Kerala in India.
Not something I would hold against them.
ReplyDeleteCareful, Gene: You of all people know that this is no argument against atheism - I mean the identification of "true" with "evolutionarily successful."
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct, Kevin: I am just noting that by the standard many (not all!) atheists themselves profess, atheism is a failure.
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