John Locke is at once one of the strongest defenders of freedom and at the same time an unwitting enemy of that very freedom. His Essay Concerning The True Original Extent And End Of Civil Government expounds the foundation of capitalist property ownership, describes a theory of state that heavily influenced the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Basically, John Locke’s social contractarian theory of government supposes that men are born free into the state of Nature, and the only legitimate government is one consented to by the governed. When a government acts outside the boundary of consent, it is a war with the people and they have the right to overthrow the government.

Two major flaws to this theory are accepted and continued to this day. The first, that “Natural Rights” exist. Insofar as “rights” are the product of contracts, natural rights cannot exist outside of the social contract.

The second is his taking for granted the legitimacy of democracy. While expounding the legitimacy of individualist society, and defending the individual rights from impeachment, he suicidally accepts for granted that democracy will guarantee those rights.

Some could argue that democracy (i.e., majority rule) is no more legitimate than monarchy. What right does the monarch have to order me? None. And what right does the majority have to order me? None. In that respect, they are identical in their absence of legitimate authority. Not to mention that democracy tends to devolve inevitably into socialism or communism or some other form of collectivism.

He does address collectivism (”Liberalism” in modern America). In addressing the ability of democracy to legislate minutia:

Chap.IV. 22.

Nobody can give more power than he has himself.

In other words, “nobody can forfeit the rights of others because those rights do not belong to others to forfeit”.

Of course, he should have foreseen that democracy would arrogate to themselves all rights of all men to forfeit as they please. After all, Hobbes defense of totalitarianism (i.e., Leviathan) was published in 1651, 38 years before Locke’s Essay Concerning The True Original Extent And End Of Civil Government.

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A while ago I had a conversation with friend on the topic of abortion. My friend told me how he converted from anti-abortionist to pro-abortionist at about the same time he realized he was gay. He still believes that a unborn child is a human being, and he doesn’t “support” abortion, but does support the woman’s right to choose. (Let’s not go there.)

I was very interested in his conversion, and he explained that his whole outlook changed to become more Liberal. In the past he was staunchly against the welfare state, was strongly individualist, and opposed socialist wealth redistribution programs. Now he stands firmly for all of those things.

The catalyst?

“The Liberals support gay rights”.

The idea here is that Liberals support gay rights, and that was the one issue he felt was the most important. Now, personally, I would think, “fine, then support gay rights. It doesn’t mean you need to change all your positions to line up with the Liberal agenda”.

But to my very good hearted gay friend, that didn’t appear to be a viable option. He wanted to support the Liberal agenda “fully”, and this, to him, meant he needed to support the party line.

This phenomenon is actually just partisanship. We see it all the time in politics. I have an aunt who backs the Liberal Democratic agenda in all things, including abortion, when I know she personally thinks abortion is murder. But she refuses to vote that way, and she will even argue the party line. Why? Because she is a public teacher, and believes that the Democrats support public education more than Republicans.

It’s what I call, the Principle of Bedfellows. “The enemy of my friend is my enemy.”

It’s a concept that I believe stands in opposition to intellectual honesty and integrity. We should not be bound to agree to concepts we know to be false simply by virtue of our friends believing them to be true.

A common claim by fundamentalist atheists is that they are fighting in a noble struggle against anti-atheism, a struggle perpetuated by rabid “Christian Nationalists” who want to force atheists worship their god.

The claim, far from being credible, is much like the anti-Semitic claim that they are fighting Jewish financial domination.

The vast majority of Christians in America support the absolute separation of Church and State.

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I usually don’t spend my time responding to anonymous comments. I figure if somebody sincerely believes what they write, they can sign their name.

In this case, however, I want to respond because the discussion could be interesting. I don’t hold out much hope, from the hostility demonstrated, but who knows.

In response to my post about agnosticism, the commenter wrote:

Nice post, John Scott. Nice blog, also. You’re an absolute perfect example of why I find your juvenile, hypocritically selective, and intellectually dishonest position of agnosticism so ridiculous. Yeah, keep sitting up there on your imaginary moral highground, while dishonestly suspending what is absolutely impossible to suspend — a belief or lack of belief either way.

Ignore for the moment the name calling. This person has a point he wishes to make. It is that agnosticism is an impossible position to hold insofar as one will invariable believe that either god or gods exist, or he will believe that gods do not exist.

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I am an apastapuerist. I’m currently considering my options, and may decide to be a fundamentalist apastapuerist, or perhaps a militant apastapuerist, but for the moment I can say, without doubt, that I am an apastapuerist.

The word is macaronic and derives from the Latin “a” for “without”; the Latin “pasto” for “dough”; and the Latin “puer” for “boy”.

In other words, I do not believe in the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Now, you may think, “hell, neither do I, but I am not going to spend hundreds or thousands of hours of my life writing about it, getting together with other people who don’t believe in the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and attacking people who do happen to buy Pillsbury products”.

If that’s what you thought, then you you’re not alone. Many people see atheists in the same light. They don’t believe in god or gods or a combination or gods with goddesses. In fact, they don’t believe in goddesses, deities, Supreme Beings, or First Causes. And, if that was silly enough, they don’t believe in Zeus. Talk about negative energy.

But the difference is, they do feel the need to dwell on their disbelief.

Now why is it that I don’t (seriously) need to go around evangelizing my apastapuerism, but the atheists do feel the need to be evangelical with their atheism?

When you look at the psychology involved, and the sharp emotional energy they put into attacking people who do believe, one must come to the conclusion that atheism is a sort of psychosis or personality disorder.

Socially mature people understand and accept that people will have different perspectives, values and beliefs. A healthy mental state dictates, very simply, live and let live. One could say that that sentiment is the very foundation of peaceful society. After all, how many wars have started, how many genocides perpetrated, because one group of people disliked the beliefs of another group of people?

And yet, atheists not only recognize their intolerance, they celebrate it. They wallow in it. They beat it like a drum, and it’s not unlikely that they light bonfires to dance around while reciting their intolerance. “Faith Heads”, they scream, while prancing around naked in the light of the bonfire.

Science can neither confirm nor deny the existence of god. So why do atheists arbitrarily decide that gods do not exist?

Because, without making that arbitrary decision,  one cannot begin to attack the religious. Agnostics do not make that decision. We do not arrogate ourselves to a position that bypasses both science and epistemology and every credible theory of knowledge. We accept that we do not know. And we also accept that people should be free to believe what they want to as long as they do not impinge upon the the freedoms of others.

Atheism lacks intellectual credibility. So if an atheist can’t win an intellectual debate, why not just bypass debate and legislate atheism? Sounds like a plan. And indeed, it is one that Dawkins and other fundamentalist atheists have endorsed.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools.

In this petition, signed by Richard Dawkins, the atheists want faith schools - private religious schools - abolished, outlawed, and destroyed. The next petition, also signed by Richard Dawkins, wants the government in your home:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16.

As we have seen with fundamentalist atheists, their agenda is not one a reasonable person could support. Simply mentioning “god” could possibly be construed as indoctrinating your children with religion, and the atheists want armed officers of the law to treat that as child abuse.

(Credit where credit is due, although Richard Dawkins continued to support both petitions on his website, he did publicly recant support for one of the petitions. The petitions can be found on the website of the prime minister here, and here. It should also be noted that Dawkins recanted support only because he did favor the teaching of religious texts in critical light. He stands by his support for legislation which would take children away from religious parents.)

They call this “the new atheism”. I call it “old totalitarianism” adopted by new atheists.

The BBC likes to run “progressive” columns that promote the humanist perspective, on everything from evolution (humans are just like monkeys) to anti-war propaganda (people die, you know).

One column they ran recently was titled “Japan’s food crisis”. As a native of Tokyo, the headline honestly made me laugh. Ask Japanese about a food crisis and you’ll likely be met with a similar response.

The column spoke of - and I quote - Japanese “struggles to produce enough food to feed its own people”, and stated that Japan was 124th in Food Security.

Japan is facing a labor shortage. Nobody wants to work in farms, when they can work in comfy high-tech skyscrapers and enjoy a modern lifestyle. Farming and agriculture is seen as the epitome of bad fashion taste, and for the wealthy Japanese to sink to the level of farm work is a shame. Chinese immigrants can do that work.

The irony is that, while the BBC column was intended to be innuendo in support of population control, Japan recognizes a different kind of population problem - i.e., a population shortage. The wealthy Japanese are not producing enough people to sustain their booming economy, and the government has responded by bribing Japanese to procreate, as much as 100,000 yen per child.

And Japan isn’t alone. Several developed nations are now offering financial incentives to couples to procreate. Italy and Australia also offer rewards to couples who do their reproductive duty.

It would be nice, today, if we could finally tar and feather the population control proponents and put that hysteria to rest. With the technology we have today, the earth can support many, many more than the one billions that the pseudo-scientists claimed just a few decades ago.

Atheists like to discuss religious people. They like to portray them as bigots and intolerant, gun wielding tyrants. Of course, a staple of atheist discussions is how to avoid praying when friends get together and pray, such as before Thanksgiving dinner. They intended inference is that, is an atheist doesn’t pray, all hell will break lose and the Christians will behead the damn pagans for their failure to pray.

Interesting thought, but one without basis in reality. The vast majority of Christians, especially Protestants, value individualism and respect the rights of others to not believe or to believe differently from themselves.

The irony is in the intolerance and negativity of the modern atheists. The histrionic name-calling by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and atheists in general is in stark contrast to the tolerance and respect for others demonstrated by Alister McGrath and Christians in general.

As atheists go about attacking religion with name calling and their “Imagine no Religion” placards, one drives by a Churches and cannot help but notice the lack of negativity demonstrated by the religious people who are so utterly demonized by atheists.

Instead of focusing on the perceived faults of non-believers, Christians tend to focus on the virtues of belief. Love, faith, hope, etc. When was the last time you saw a Christian church displaying a placard saying “Atheists are evil” or “No Buddhism” or “End Hinduism”?

If atheism has any virtue, then atheists would be better served to focus on those positive attributes, instead of dwelling forever on the perceived negative attributes of religious persons.

It’s almost been 20 years since my mother gave me a gift - Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind.

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The Supreme Court today heard arguments on the legality of the detaining “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay with neither US constitutional rights to habeas corpus, nor Geneva Conventions POW rights.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, representing the administration, said foreigners captured and held outside the United States “have no constitutional rights to petition our courts for a writ of habeas corpus,” a judicial determination of the legality of detention.

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