Libertarianism and Atheism

Do you find that many libertarians are atheists? Vice versa? From experience, it appears that most atheists are liberals. But for libertarians, they come from a wide array of religious to non religious, but don't impose their ideology on others.

ViennaSausage:

Do you find that many libertarians are atheists? Vice versa? From experience, it appears that most atheists are liberals. But for libertarians, they come from a wide array of religious to non religious, but don't impose their ideology on others.

There are a substantial number of atheists in the movement.  But most libertarians seem to be Christians of many varieties.  Even quite a few Catholics, which would seem quite an oddity, given that Catholics are generally social justice types.  Not any pre-millenialist/dispensationalist Christians, thankfully, we don't want them. :)  They all hang out with the neo-libs <i.e. Boortz>. :)

I describe myself as a nontheist, and find the libertarian/Austrian enviroment a perfect fit.

Not any pre-millenialist/dispensationalist Christians, thankfully, we don't want them. :)  They all hang out with the neo-libs <i.e. Boortz>. :)

I'm a premillenialist. Had to look it up to double check, though, because we don't use the term. There's only one kind of millenialist in my church. 

Gary North doesn't like us very much, because we don't share his vision of perfecting the world. Those of us who are libertarians are such because liberty is right, not because liberty is likely to flourish before Messiah comes. North calls us "pessimillenialists" for some reason.

But I think that the distribution of religion/atheism among libertarians roughly matches the population at large. Religion is mostly orthogonal to one's view of liberty. There might be fewer Muslims among us, and more atheists, than in the overall population. Just a guess.

--Len.

I'm actually an Ignostic, of which I also find the Libertarian enviroment a nice fit.  I more or less arrived at such after being throughly annoyed with trying to have intelligent conversations with (offline) Atheists w/ possible contradictions of Atheisism.  Needless to say, I'm not encouraged by almost oppressive to different opinions Dawkins as of late; despite his possible brilliance in other areas (i.e. originating the concept of 'meme'). 

Sadly, many of my friends (whom are Leftists & mostly Atheist, actually) keep throwing back my Ignostic status with either with "You sure you don't mean Agnostic?"  or "That doesn't make sense, since in philosophy class we blah blah blah..."

As for Christians, it doesn't surprise me due to some overlaping principles (the just cause war theory, for example).  Although, I'd imagine Mormons would be fairly tolerant of Libertarianism. 

Mark B.:

Even quite a few Catholics, which would seem quite an oddity, given that Catholics are generally social justice types.

 

Check out the talk by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn for some insights on Catholics and anarchism. He makes a good case that anarchism necessarily originated in the Catholic world and could not have originated anywhere else.

I used to be Christian, then became a staunch Randian atheist, and now I lean to deism.

Every libertarian I know "in real life" is a Christian, as I am. Although most of my Christian acquaintences outside my church are raving neocons/theocons, just about everyone in my church distrusts the Religious Right. I feel quite at home there. I think my pastor may even be an individualist anarchist of sorts from some conversations we have had, though he probably wouldn't accept the label.

Mark B.:

  Not any pre-millenialist/dispensationalist Christians, thankfully, we don't want them. :)  They all hang out with the neo-libs <i.e. Boortz>. :)

 

Along with Len I am also a pre-mil. Even though many happen to be neo-cons pre-mil lends itself to anarchism since it believes that no one is worthy to rule but Christ alone. The a-mils and especially the post-mills, such as Gary North, have a too higher view of the capacity of man to rule and thus lend themselves far more to statism than pre-mil. 

I've only met two of what I would consiter libertarians in real life. Neither of them I knew very well and we mainly just communicated via MySpace messages becuase I saw them posting on a friend's account. The subject of religion never came up but on their MySpace profiles one described himself as "Christian - other" and the other as "agnostic". Based on my experience on libertarian forums (Myspace Libertarian Group) and the libertarian (mainly anarcho-capitalist) people I'm suscribed to on YouTube a lot of them (or atleast the more proiminent ones) are athiests, agnostics, or skeptical of religion in general. I suspect this has to do with the fact that libertarians tend to be more skeptical of exsting institutions than that of the statist mainstream population.

From my experience also it seems like the majority of a good chunk of the people who later became libertarians used to be liberals (by the American definition of the term). This I find somewhat perplexing as I used to be a neo-conservative and I would assume that if you held onto the general phislophy that government is best which governs the least it would be less of a jump between conservatism and libertarianism than liberalism and libertarianism. Although this might be because liberals (traditionally it was conservatives who were anti-war but this stance has seemed to have shifted) and libertarians share a lot of the same anti-war rhetoric and were initially drawn into or exposed to the movement because of their initial agreement with that stance.

Personally I'm an atheist. I see why so many libertarians are Christians due to the doctrines of Jesus. But I can't understand why liberals are mostly atheists. I think most atheists tend to be humanist, and think that the welfare state is something good for humans. Any true humanist would realize how free market capitalism has improved the lot of mankind. Why liberals who are always touting evolution, which is a aggregate of random processes, that form a natural order or structure, but can't understand how capitalism works, I will never know. I think most liberals are atheist, and then discover Marx and assume he is right because he appeals to their religious ideology. Plus it is related to the disgust of a higher power who controls your life, and liberals just take this one step further and blame it on CEO's because most see them as having the control of god. And when you can't believe there is a god who controls everything, everything must be blamed on powerful and rich humans because they are real. Yet they never seem to blame the state, which they worship. Most people need something to blame. And liberals blame capitalism, because they don't believe in god

It is unfortunate but most atheists are statists, and usually of the "left" variety. I think this is partially due to the cliche way in which contemporary cultural politics is framed in public discourse. Since it is assumed that the "right" is for religious people, the secularist has more of a tendency to flock to the "left". Of course, I reject the notion that the "right" is necessarily any less statist then the "right", but that's beside the point. Furthermore, most atheists are still functioning with a religious mindset in that they have merely substituted other things as dieties (the state, the nation, the planet or environment, etc.). They seem to think that in the absence of such things or at least the absence of their use as a rationalization, there is no order or morality, much in the same way that some theists seem to think that in the absence of a deity there can be no order to the universe and no objective morality. Or, alternately, atheists often make the mistake of diving head first into moral relativism and nihilism in assuming that there is no objective morality and epistemological certainty in the absence of a diety. I think this erroneously concedes to the false premises of the theists. But in my view atheists should reject the state and other such worldly "geists" for some of the exact same reasons that they reject the concept of a god.

Fascinating argument.

I am glad to see that there are some pre-millenialists that are not raving neo-conservatives.  I tend to associate pre-millenialism/dispensationalism with the John Hagees of the world, and most churches in that sect are strongly supportive of neo-conservatism.  Evidently some are not.

I will watch that piece on Catholism.  I was raised United Methodist and have never really had much direct experience with the Catholic Church, other than seeing the pronoucements of the Catholic Clergy regarding politics.

I am what the Church could call a heretic.

 

I do consider myself a Catholic, but not a Roman Catholic - as I see the Church being compromised by the Great Satan (the state).  

Dear Mark B. Pre-millennial but non-dispensationalist here. My denomination is probably dominated by Republicans but we have a high independence quotient. There are other libertarians among us, but no anarchists to speak of. Perhaps the RP wave of the past year or so will make a difference (adding some anarcho-caps). I have been exploring libertarianism for the past four years or so, but the lights really came on when I discovered Murray Rothbard/LR.com/LVMI.

When asked, I usually will reply that I'm atheist.

If I have time for a discussion, I'll explain that my views are probably closer to deism than atheism, and probably closer to "polydeism" than deism. If I were to say that upfront, however, people would think I worship multiple Gods or something else entirely different from what I actually believe.

Brainpolice, I couldn't agree more.