There are some who subscribe to the view that faith and reason are diametrically opposed, mutually exclusive concepts. There is another view.
Paul defined faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I am not going to investigate the original Greek as it is this common English translation that many accept as the basis for their own understanding of faith. I am not concerned with what Paul actually thought about faith, or what those who have closed their minds to the subject think of faith, but whether there is a way of reconciling faith with reason persuasively. I think this quote is a good basis for such a discussion.
The terms “substance” and “evidence” should strike those of the initial view as properly associated with reason rather than faith. “Substance” very much implies the stuff of this world with which we interact in very familiar and ordinary ways. “Evidence” is a legalistic term that refers to a fact, the truth of which makes another fact more likely to be true. For example, the fact that I am married is evidence that I live with my wife. We could be separated but common experience suggests that most often married couples do live together and so, it is more reasonable to believe that since I am married, I live with my wife. It is a reputable presumption. If I have signed a separation agreement it becomes reasonable to suppose that I do not live with my wife.
Neither the fact that I am married, nor the fact that I have signed a separation agreement, will provide absolute proof that I live, or do not live, with my wife. Only if someone stakes out my house, or hires a private investigator, and applies the ensuing concrete observations to a criteria he establishes as constituting the condition “living with” will he be justified in concluding with reasonable certainty that we do, or do not live together. Any indirect evidence, circumstantial evidence, is only suggestive and not conclusive.
Paul’s wording refers to this. “The evidence of things not seen” could be rendered “facts which we perceive directly which suggest that other facts, which we do not perceive directly, are nonetheless true.” This is faith. We are driving along an unfamiliar highway winding through the mountains. We see a sign indicating that there is a sharp turn ahead with a reduced speed limit. What do we do?
One course of action would be to pull over, get out, carefully walk to the turn and look around to see if whoever erected the sign got it right, or even whether there is a road there at all rather than simply a cliff over which we would have driven to our doom. That is not reasonable. What is reasonable would be for us to act on faith. The sign, plus all we know about criminal negligence, personal injury claims, insurance premiums, etc., plus our previous driving experience, plus the previous driving experience of others, all give us ample evidence, albeit circumstantial, to reasonably conclude that the sign is correct and we can proceed safely to navigate the turn at the recommended speed (or even a little higher depending on our assessment of our own driving ability, the condition of our vehicle, the weather, etc.) We are not certain, based on our own personal knowledge, that it is safe to proceed but we proceed nonetheless. We have assessed the evidence of the unseen, made a reasonable judgment call to proceed, and hope that we are correct.
The point is that it would be ludicrous (i.e. incredibly unreasonable) for us to insist on direct personal knowledge of every relevant fact before making a decision. In other words, not to exercise faith, not to base decisions on the evidence of the unseen, would be unreasonable. Therefore, the exercise of faith is reasonable.
There do appear to be some who insist that if you have any reason whatsoever to believe something is true, you are not exercising faith. It is only baseless, unreasonable belief that satisfies them. I do not know what faith these people espouse but it is not that of Paul. If that is what those who take the view of which I initially spoke decry then let us all joint them. A faith that rejects reason is unreasonable. A view of rationality which rejects faith would produce psychosis.
It is the fatal conceit of statists that efficient central planning is possible with sufficient data. No matter how much data they collect it can never be more than a tiny fraction of the data held within the minds of individuals dispersed throughout society. The reason is because words are imperfect symbols and we always know much more than we can communicate to others.
Thus the most efficient way to make use of resources (capital) is to have no central planning at all but to allow each individual maximal freedom to pursue his rational self-interest. That is why a laissez-faire, free market capitalist political economy will always out-compete a more centrally planned one. It will always produce more wealth and consequently a better standard of life for its members.
Thus central planning is “fatal” to those on the margins who would have lived if there had been a little more food, a little better health care, etc. A compulsory census, more so what it represents, literally kills people. Central planners are at best well-intentioned but ignorant murderers.
Two excellent articles on the recent economic crisis and it’s real cause – government.
Laissez-faire economy? You’ve got to be kidding
The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Financial Crisis
DONT VOTE: Stop Playing the Game Canada – It’s Fixed!
This new website is designed to serve as a rallying point for those of us who are fed up with the lying hypocrites of every political persuasion and have resolved to deny them what they absolutely must have to survive – our votes.
DONT VOTE! It’s your duty as an honest, hard-working Canadian to stop supporting these scoundrels any longer.
DONT VOTE! Not because you don’t care, but because you care too much to waste your vote on thieves, bullies, and liars.
Interesting study shows that those who live past 100 years still have the genetic disposition for common afflictions but their genetic disposition for living trumps them.
Also interesting that now we hear about how we are living to age 80-85. What happened to all the malarkey about life expectancy being 72-75? The latter figure does not take account of the rapid pace of technological advances. Neither does the former, fully, for that matter. I maintain that those middle aged and younger are now effectively immortal as the pace of technology will keep them alive, through crude replace and repair, until about 2040-2050 when mind uploading, the digitization of all mental processes, will be achieved.
Study: Extreme Longevity May Be More Genes Than Lifestyle – Yahoo! News.
In this story the usually reasonable Lorrie Goldstein sets out a strong case for the benefit of having yet another TV news channel. Anyone who still believes the media is unbiased is incredibly naive – the CBC worst of all. For example, on the fundamental issue of big interventionist government vs small, pro free-market government, how could we even expect a media corporation where 100% of its employees are 100% dependent on a massive ($1 billion is still massive isn’t it?) tax-funded subsidy for their jobs to be unbiased?
So, until government gets out of the business of journalism and journalists discover the value of simply reporting honestly and as objectively as possible, the best option is for their to be competition between the snidely and dishonestly leftist media and the openly and honestly right-wing media.
So let the games begin. I look forward to a network where all the sacred cows of Canadian socialism are bashed with a dose of cold reality. The result should be plenty of beef for everyone.
Fox News? No. Fair debate? Yes: Goldstein | Lorrie Goldstein | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.
Everyone complains about the health care system in Canada. We even make fun of it. For example,
Subject: TWO DIFFERENT DOCTORS’ OFFICES
Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.
The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, Is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.
The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn’t reviewed for another week
And finally has his surgery scheduled for a month from then.
Why the different treatment for the two patients?
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The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.
The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.
Next time take me to a vet!
Truer words were never spoken but why the difference? Because the senior citizen (unless he’s a politician or a politician’s friend) is forced to rely on the public health care system while the dog benefits from an entirely private system.
Pit a public system vs. a private system and the private one will always provide better results for the same money or the same results for less money – usually both.
People are too content to criticize something but then sit back and accept it as if it just has to be that way, like the weather. Public systems are not artifacts of nature, they are relics of a failed philosophy. If we place any value in our own judgment we ought to act on it and not just complain.
In this report, Hawking says contact with aliens could be risky – CTV News Stephen Hawking is quoted as saying that there are “almost certainly” intelligent alien life forms and that they may be “nomads looking to conquer and colonize”.
First, there are several compelling reasons to believe that either we are alone, or nearly alone in the universe (see the rare earth hypothesis); or, if not alone, we are one of the most advanced civilizations as physicist John Barrow argues compellingly.
Then there is the matter of the incongruity between a civilization having the powerful advanced technology such an endeavour would require and yet not having advanced in ethics beyond such violent tendencies. Such a powerful yet violent species would surely have either blown itself up or be preoccupied with killing themselves to engage in the immense cooperative enterprise required to engage in conquest across the galaxy.
Then there is the contradiction between the immense knowledge such an endeavour would require and the sheer stupidity of wasting resources on conquest rather than “terra-forming” or other methods of employing resources closer to home and thus easier to access.
So either Hawking was misquoted or is willing to make sensationalized misstatements to sell books. We he probably, or ought to have, said is that dangerous extraterrestrials cannot be conclusively ruled out, but are exceedingly unlikely.
But that wouldn’t sell too many books, or newspapers.
In the 60s Roy Child wrote an open letter to Ayn Rand critiquing her support for the limited state. Rand held that all human interaction should be voluntary except that the right to use force in self-defence must be delegated to the state, whose only legitimate purpose is to exercise that right. This means maintaining a police agency, an army, and a judiciary and nothing more, save for a legislature and executive strictly limited to directing the functions of these three agencies.
Child’s critique essentially relied on the inconsistency in Rand’s absolute confidence in man’s reasoning power to enable him to acquire food, shelter, clothing as well as other necessities and desireables without the assistance of a coercive monopoly (the state), or resorting to the use of force or fraud himself; while, in effect, insisting that he would act irrationally when it came to defending his life and property. Child countered by expressing greater confidence in a free man’s rationality, pointing to the mutual benefits individuals, or their agents, would enjoy from cooperating in self-defence.
(My purpose here is not to repeat Child’s convincing argument but merely to allude to it to introduce my main point which will follow. Click the link above to read his letter.)
I can see no flaw in Child’s argument and am persuaded to support that political theory, a subset of libertarianism, know commonly as “anarcho-capitalism”.
“Anarchy” literally means “no rule” and this is misleading. Conventionally this term suggests a state of chaos, a wild west of lawless violence. No outcome could be further removed from that sought by those who would eliminate force from all human relationships.
Rather than no rule, we seek respect for our right to choose how, and by whom, we are ruled. Think of the term “ruled”. It refers to that set of rules which our interactions. Even if I rule, and I am ruled by, only myself, I am still ruled if I voluntarily subscribe to a set of rules to govern my actions – I am then a “self-ruler”. “To rule” and “to govern” are synonymous so I might also refer to myself as a self-governor.
The rule which anarcho-capitalists advocate as being the only proper one to apply to interpersonal interactions is that no one person may initiate violence against another. Thus we believe in rules and in being ruled, or, in other words, to being governed and thus, in government – self-government. This is hardly the same as supporting a chaotic, wild-west.
So if not the wild west, why not? What would a society of self-governors look like? If an announcement was made that the thieving, graft-ridden politicians had given up and in one-year’s time the state would be abolished what would you do?
Me? First, I would have a party to celebrate. Second, I would get in touch with others to either start or join a self-defence agency. The vast majority would want to belong to such an agency rather than go without any more protection than what they could provide for themselves. Many such agencies would arise and we would voluntarily subscribe to the agency we believed offered the best service for the lowest cost. In other words, there would be a market for collective self-defence services. If I became unhappy with the agency I chose, I could switch to another. Thus these agencies would be competing to offer better and better service at lower and lower cost in order to keep their customers happy. I would also want my agency to belong to some kind of professional association that would hold their member agencies to certain standards and arbitrate any inter-agency disputes. In a free market of collective self-defence agencies their customers would hold ultimate power.
Compare this to today’s world of governments. Right now one government enforces a monopoly over the use of force within a given geographic area. It uses force to compel you to obey many more rules than simply not to initiate the use of force against another and to rob you of half your income to sustain itself. In return it tells you it is doing all this in your best interests because, simpleton that you are, you would not otherwise build hospitals and schools and roads, etc. It also lets you mark an “X” beside someone’s name every few years and tells you that this means only the best and brightest are selected to serve you as your rulers. What a sham!
There are some really clueless people out there. Most of them do not vote, sleep in until noon, and think that Elvis is still alive and lives on a UFO with Michael Jackson. But I believe that most people who don’t vote, and this includes most young people, just don’t buy into the sham of the modern “democratic” state. They realize that their vote is meaningless because political power is brokered between elites willing to sell their souls to get it and keep it. As I said in another post, don’t vote, deny them what they need the most – your moral sanction, your willing compliance to their immoral game.
Lest one conclude that all this is the raving of an aging cynic, I assert my optimism that the modern state’s days are numbered. Technology is forcing a showdown that the state cannot win. Technology is empowering individuals to circumvent the state while it empowers the state to more effectively enforce its rule. Something has to give.
From many, including Frederick Hayek, comes the insight that the system that best utilizes information will ultimately out-compete the others. State agencies, to at least some degree, centralize decision making. Thus they can only utilize the information held by those central decision makers. Individuals, acting freely, each in his or her own self-interest, are able to utilize the immensely greater information contained in their respective brains. This gives me reason to be optimistic that ultimately technological progress, which is really the ability to utilize information, will empower the individual vis a vis the state and lead to the state’s demise in favour of a completely free society of self-governors.
A year from next Tuesday will be soon enough.
For anyone not as yet totally fed up with our electoral system here’s the only principled alternative to more of the graft, corruption and theft perpetrated by the NDP, Liberals, and Conservatives. For for any one of them and you will get just exactly what you deserve.
Atlantica Party – Elect Dan Wilson.
