- 15 Sep 2018 15:59
#14946558
Annatar, now I must be the one to apologise to you for the delayed response.
There is often a gap between intelligence and wisdom, I think. Intelligent people often fail to understand what is most important or evident.
I think that a lot of politicans do not consider whether or not they are good people and they do not fear God's judgement.
What they did not understand is that there cannot be a man made heaven on earth. The condition of our life on earth will never be perfect. I don't deny that it cannot be made as good as it can be but there are limits to what can be achieved. Far from being the opiate of the masses religion provides the existential foundation for life in such an imperfect world.
The Lord Almighty knows the truth.
I pray that we all have the correct opinion.
And this means that I must research seriously and without bias. I must start making better use of my free time to research these subjects.
Utlimately I do not think it is possible to fully comprehend the mysteries of the universe. We must be content to accept what is true without necessarily understanding it. I also think that we often understand far more than what we think we do. It is possible to understand without actually being able to articulate the subject we are trying to understand.
I suppose what is most important is that we believe in them. Atheists will deny the existence of them altogether. Although we may have a difference of opinion on finer details we can at least agree on the broader issue.
Like you I humbly submit to the Lord Almighty and seek guidance. Whoever can show me the best opinion is someone I will agree with.
I think most people believe in something deep down. Sadly conditioning and a misunderstanding of what it means to have a religion prevent people from pursuing it.
I think that atheists cannot posit the existence of God even from a classical philosopher's point of view. Or maybe it is that they do believe deep down but just deny it to themselves and in public?
Perhaps it is a question of moderation? And again the issue may not be so much matter but the refusal to worship God or to make a choice instead of God?
It is good that we understand each other.
Thank you. I will try and convince him to become a statist. I'm sure my formidable intellect will convince him.
Please forgive me for taking so long to respond.
Your argument seems to be that if man is free and left to his own devices he will live in a natural and correct way. What is there to prevent the prevalence of unnatural influences and immorality that can exist in liberal settings?
I do not understand this. Once Anarcho-Capitalism is established what is to prevent people from living ultra-liberal lifestyles? What does survivalism and the transfer of land have to do with stopping people living in such a liberal way? It is possible to survive while having multiple affairs and living an ultra-decadent lifestyle. Conditions just become more rugged.
You have not proven how survivalism is going to bring about a return to traditional lifestyles.
You use the example of homosexuals but homosexuals could still form their own private communities under these conditions, surely?
Is your argument therefore that homosexuality and transgenderism are only possible because they are protected by law?
I hardly think life is one big party for single mothers. Some responsibility rests on the men who abandon these women. I am not sure what would prevent it under Anarcho-Capitalist conditions.
We are not living in a traditional age. It is not possible to recreate the conditions of the Middle Ages or Early Modern Period in the 21st century. Implementing Anarcho-Capitalism will not produce a return to nature but possibly just more anarchism and more liberalism. Liberals will find ways to live their lifestyles in their own way. It will be possible because they have the freedom to do it.
But would there still be central laws to influence society? For example censorship, anti-blasphemy laws, laws against offensive displays in public?
Those systems existed in those periods in those societies.
My argument is that if we want to return to traditional ways of living it will be necessary to have some type of top down laws about what can be printed in the media for example. I am not sure if your position includes some type of place for censorship laws from the central government.
Then I do not know why you call it Anarcho-Capitalism because anarchy suggests complete lack of control. The system you propose sounds like a type of minarchist feudalism.
What will prevent feminists from forming their own private estates and establishing their own laws?
So it is acceptable for the wealthy to pursue such habits?
And poor drug addicts do not only survive with support from the state. They can turn to other means like criminality. Drug addiction is not state supervised or endorsed.
It is the responsibility of families and the church, yes. But where is it forbidden for the state to intervene where the family and church are absent or cannot provide for the poor and weak?
I would be interested in seeing examples where the Prophet Samuel warns against kings and states.
Do you have evidence that this type of governance is religiously mandated in this time?
There are situations when families cannot afford to support themselves even if every person in the family is able bodied and capable of work. Every person in the family can be labouring and toiling and the family will still be struggling through daily life.
annatar1914 wrote:Yes, it is quite striking, narrow, ignorant, and lacking in depth. But intelligent people can be guilty of that.
There is often a gap between intelligence and wisdom, I think. Intelligent people often fail to understand what is most important or evident.
annatar1914 wrote:Highlights the Christian anthropological truths about man. Man can be good, but is marred by evil unless assisted by God's grace helping them to live God's life within them.
I think that a lot of politicans do not consider whether or not they are good people and they do not fear God's judgement.
annatar1914 wrote:Very true, Marxism (if not Socialism itself) has for some become a religion, an opiate all it's own. To me, it is a Secular Christian Heresy, A godless attempt to seize the Kingdom of Heaven and fulfill it right here on Earth.
What they did not understand is that there cannot be a man made heaven on earth. The condition of our life on earth will never be perfect. I don't deny that it cannot be made as good as it can be but there are limits to what can be achieved. Far from being the opiate of the masses religion provides the existential foundation for life in such an imperfect world.
annatar1914 wrote:Oh, I think that you are entirely correct my friend, and armed with the proper attitude. In Orthodoxy, it seems that there is theological opinion about things that are not directly Trinitarian or Christological themselves, such as the issue about the ''Aerial Toll Houses'' and whether they exist or not for example. And chances are that because they don't directly relate to true Dogma, the matter will likely rest on that level of ''mere'' opinion. Some of these ''opinions'' are held by good people, and are probably edifying on some spiritual level. I figure we'll all find out sooner or later.
The Lord Almighty knows the truth.
I pray that we all have the correct opinion.
And this means that I must research seriously and without bias. I must start making better use of my free time to research these subjects.
annatar1914 wrote:So while i'm sure that it is absolutely of Faith that Heaven is a place, Hell is a place, and beings are ''there'' and not ''here'', and therefore occupy and take up space in some manner unknown to us, then I call it ''material'', as I have no idea how it can be otherwise. I will of course submit to the Fathers and Councils of the Orthodox Faith, of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, but i'll be like that peasant who sees wings on the six-winged and many eyed Angels and believes that is pretty much how they look when they deign to be seen that way by men.
I may be becoming increasingly ignorant for sure, but anything else increasingly reeks of dead Scholasticism and dry Philosophy to me. I'm a simple young child in Orthodoxy. How can there be Mind and Thought and Will, without extension and divisibility? I don't know, and I guess I'll have to be alright with not knowing just yet. I do think some mental constructs though, can be harmful if they scandalize others who cannot make distinctions between opinions taught by good people with authority(though they do have more credibility, if deigned a Saint, a Holy One of God), and Dogma.
Utlimately I do not think it is possible to fully comprehend the mysteries of the universe. We must be content to accept what is true without necessarily understanding it. I also think that we often understand far more than what we think we do. It is possible to understand without actually being able to articulate the subject we are trying to understand.
annatar1914 wrote:Again, you're right I think, there's a dichotomy, but I believe it's more a case of ''seen'' and sensed, and ''unseen'' and un-sensed, than it is of ''material'' and ''non-material''. Scholastics and Idealists literally posit beings that do not occupy space and have no form, are just thoughts and actions and wills, yet in some sense real and alive.
I suppose what is most important is that we believe in them. Atheists will deny the existence of them altogether. Although we may have a difference of opinion on finer details we can at least agree on the broader issue.
annatar1914 wrote:I have trouble with that, and if there's anyone that can correct me on it, I'd be happy to chat with them about it. It's not a huge issue, I still will always trust in God.
Like you I humbly submit to the Lord Almighty and seek guidance. Whoever can show me the best opinion is someone I will agree with.
annatar1914 wrote:I think it is the essence of Faith, absolutely. Because while there is nothing truly unreasonable in Christianity, once the basic truths are accepted, one has to still ''believe'', in order to ''understand'', to paraphrase Blessed Augustine.
I think most people believe in something deep down. Sadly conditioning and a misunderstanding of what it means to have a religion prevent people from pursuing it.
annatar1914 wrote:Sure. While it's always been possible to rationally infer a ''God'' on the part of clever philosophers, to posit a ''god'' who creates everything, sets everything into motion, maintains the cosmos in existence, etc... That ''God'' is not a God Who loves, is a Person (s) with Whom one can have a relationship, necessarily. This is why the ''God'' of the Medieval Scholastics seems so remote, because they cobbled together their Ideas drawn from the Greco-Roman thinkers and conformed Him to them, or tried to.
I think that atheists cannot posit the existence of God even from a classical philosopher's point of view. Or maybe it is that they do believe deep down but just deny it to themselves and in public?
annatar1914 wrote:Well, matter is good, not as good as ''spirit'' (which i'll call that energy from the unknown existence), but it is secondary to the love of God Himself in Three Persons. We are called to be drawn to Him and caught up into His life He lives within Himself, to be gods ourselves in a limited sense. But God in redeeming us will also redeem matter, and already has in a limited way which is for example why we can even portray Christ in Icons, etc...
That's pretty awesome! Pretty cool and even terrifying, but still really exalted and exalting.
Perhaps it is a question of moderation? And again the issue may not be so much matter but the refusal to worship God or to make a choice instead of God?
annatar1914 wrote:If you entirely hated matter and thought it was evil, i'd have that conversation with you. But I do not think that you are seeing it that way, my friend.
It is good that we understand each other.
annatar1914 wrote:Not sure you would be taking things off topic, I think the topic is broad enough, lol. Give it a shot:-)
Thank you. I will try and convince him to become a statist. I'm sure my formidable intellect will convince him.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:I am awaiting your response with all patience and eager anticipation.
Please forgive me for taking so long to respond.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:No, I would say the opposite. I could make a very good case that consumerism, massive corporations, and all manner of decadence would not be possible under stateless conditions.
Your argument seems to be that if man is free and left to his own devices he will live in a natural and correct way. What is there to prevent the prevalence of unnatural influences and immorality that can exist in liberal settings?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Nature is a constraint, which is what you are missing in a critique of Anarcho-Capitalism.
feminism and transgenderism do not thrive and cannot thrive under stateless conditions because such lifestyles do not aid in survival and the transfer of land.
I do not understand this. Once Anarcho-Capitalism is established what is to prevent people from living ultra-liberal lifestyles? What does survivalism and the transfer of land have to do with stopping people living in such a liberal way? It is possible to survive while having multiple affairs and living an ultra-decadent lifestyle. Conditions just become more rugged.
You have not proven how survivalism is going to bring about a return to traditional lifestyles.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:AnCaps advocate for the natural order being permitted to play out, homosexuals cannot produce heirs to tend their lands and to pass on property and they tend to die out, under AnCap conditions people can discriminate against such deviants and often form private communities that forbid their existence.
You use the example of homosexuals but homosexuals could still form their own private communities under these conditions, surely?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:The only reason that does not happen under liberal democracies is because democracies MUST enfranchise as many people as possible to grow the state's power. All social contracts tend towards communism for this reason, its the expansion of public control.
Is your argument therefore that homosexuality and transgenderism are only possible because they are protected by law?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:This is false, the reason people are "free" to pursue decadence is because its protected and even funded by the state. Single motherhood for example, when and why did it become endemic? It did so once the state subsidized it with welfare. The father was replaced by the state. In Ancap conditions, single-motherhood is a veritable death sentence, and so, marriage would be ubiquitous. This is a praxeologically predictable result.
I hardly think life is one big party for single mothers. Some responsibility rests on the men who abandon these women. I am not sure what would prevent it under Anarcho-Capitalist conditions.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:This assumes that all lifestyles are equally viable in a state of nature, when only traditional ones are. The ONLY reason egalitarianism can thrive is because the state protects it and funds it. There is no egalitarianism in nature, only traditionalism. This is the point.
We are not living in a traditional age. It is not possible to recreate the conditions of the Middle Ages or Early Modern Period in the 21st century. Implementing Anarcho-Capitalism will not produce a return to nature but possibly just more anarchism and more liberalism. Liberals will find ways to live their lifestyles in their own way. It will be possible because they have the freedom to do it.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:You misunderstand, the medieval ages has a plethora of privately retained duchies, fiefdoms, independent manors, etc., that subscribed to canon law and their own laws on their own property.
For instance, I am a Theonomist (basically the Christian version of Sharia) and such would be enforced in towns that covenant together on private property and in fealty to the Lord of the Manor.
Likewise, the minarchist monarchies of the middle-ages (which are my second favorite form of social order and closest to AnCap conditions) has a small government in the hands of a private family, and it all privately owned. A King in Baden did not have the resources or the need to police child-rearing in the Black Forest. The natural conditions of life without oversight and subsidy are what perpetuated traditionalism outside of his direct control.
Living under a minarchist monarch was closer to living without a state than anything we can currently comprehend.
But would there still be central laws to influence society? For example censorship, anti-blasphemy laws, laws against offensive displays in public?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:But beyond this, large swaths of both Feudal Japan and Medieval Europe were NOT under monarchs, many were under independent lords, which is exactly what anarcho-capitalism implies. Patriarchy and Fecudnity were matters of the natural order playing itself out. Likewise, such values were reinforced by traditions and especially the church, which keep in mind, was able to exert substantial influence and power without having to be a state over these peoples (a third-party monopolist of coercion), which was similar to the influence of the Japanese Emperor in the feudal era, he was ultimately symbolic, but revered with great zeal in a manner commensurate to the Latin pope. (such a system might be called Anarcho-Monarchism, which I include as variant of my own position).
Those systems existed in those periods in those societies.
My argument is that if we want to return to traditional ways of living it will be necessary to have some type of top down laws about what can be printed in the media for example. I am not sure if your position includes some type of place for censorship laws from the central government.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:I am only for absolute free-speech inasmuch as I oppose a state controlling private agents; however, if I want to kill people who live on my property for heresy as the terms of a covenant I have made with them voluntarily, that is and should be my natural right (besides the fact that God commands it).
Monarchs privately owned the state and continued to enforce the same canon-law that any faithful catholic landowner would on his own land over his own peasants. The entire feudal order is as close to my ideal social-order as you can imagine. It was a state of private-property absolutism.
Then I do not know why you call it Anarcho-Capitalism because anarchy suggests complete lack of control. The system you propose sounds like a type of minarchist feudalism.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Every feminist political accomplishment, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. required a state to accomplish such ends and none of these accomplishments existed de facto under conditions of a smaller state or no state.
So don't be silly.
What will prevent feminists from forming their own private estates and establishing their own laws?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:If they did, they would quickly die or fail. That is the point, degeneracy requires state protection to perpetuate. Its unnatural and abominable.
For instance, if there were not a state, drug addition would not be a problem. Why?
Because addicts would be dead, not protected and paid for. If you don't work, you don't eat.
Only the affluent would ever entertain such "habits."
So it is acceptable for the wealthy to pursue such habits?
And poor drug addicts do not only survive with support from the state. They can turn to other means like criminality. Drug addiction is not state supervised or endorsed.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:For instance, as a Christian, I actually oppose social security because Christ our Lord upheld the responsibility of the First Born to care for his parents in their old age in exchange for the double-portion of their inheritance. St. Paul likewise commands the family to take-care of the widows and only secondarily is the Church to do so. This is NOT the responsibility of a state. The Prophet Samuel even warns against kings and states, so why should we unequivocally embrace them? Sure, we as Christians are to be obedient to the state and are not forbidden from participation, and both kings and emperors are called to submit to Christ The King, but is that state-itself the ideal form according the Holy Scriptures? Absolutely not.
It is the responsibility of families and the church, yes. But where is it forbidden for the state to intervene where the family and church are absent or cannot provide for the poor and weak?
I would be interested in seeing examples where the Prophet Samuel warns against kings and states.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Free patriarchies (anarcho-capitalism) are this ideal, as it was under the time of the Judges and prior to the time that God instituted such under Adam and then the Patriarchs.
Do you have evidence that this type of governance is religiously mandated in this time?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:The weaker are the responsibility of Christian families and the church. That is what our Lord commands.
But those who refuse to work, refuse to do what is right. Let them not eat. Their own destruction is just.
There are situations when families cannot afford to support themselves even if every person in the family is able bodied and capable of work. Every person in the family can be labouring and toiling and the family will still be struggling through daily life.