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church
The head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, has moved away from his predecessor’s support for developing genetically modified food to alleviate hunger in poor countries. Instead, he argues that adoption of the “precautionary principle” is warranted:
“There are a lot of claims that are disputed (like) that GMOs never call [...]
“Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law (as well as the church) on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.”
- Historian Alan Bullock
Separation of Me and State by B.K. Merrick
Word. At least you can walk away from the church, and people do it every day:
The voluntary church, as illogical, absurd, and misguided as it can be, has murdered less people, and done far more good for individuals and families (including my own) than any involuntary government ever has or will. The church did not bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The church did not put ovens in Auschwitz. The church did not set up the “Gulag Archipelago.” The church did not produce tons of useless steel in China, leading to economic ruin and the deaths of millions. The church did not botch rescue operations for Hurricane Katrina. The church is not responsible for the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. The church doesn’t force me to contribute money. The church doesn’t create prisons and overcrowd them with non-criminals. The church doesn’t unwittingly send innocent men to Death Row. The church doesn’t confiscate weapons and set up threatening regulations, making it virtually impossible for innocent people to defend themselves. The church doesn’t electrocute people. The church doesn’t pull me over and threaten me when I drive slightly faster than someone, somewhere decided was acceptable. The church doesn’t come up with endless regulations from mindless bureaucrats that destroy the market, tradition, and all other sorts of voluntary associations. The church doesn’t push poor and powerless people (and it’s never the rich people with governmental connections) off of their land, claiming “eminent domain.” In short, the church doesn’t force me to do anything. I left my church and no one came after me. If I do everything I can to leave the government peacefully, and desire to live among my neighbors in the only land I have ever known and loved, the state will come after me and destroy much, if not all, of my life.
…You want to save us all from religion. Who will save us from yours? Your incomprehensible belief in the power of a benevolent government is nothing less fanciful than hope in Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, or even Santa Claus. I live in a theocracy of your making, a satanic cult that receives your continued support. Personally, I’d much rather go back to church.
Yes, the church has often allied with the state throughout the centuries; but so has industry, and libertarians, for the most part, are able to discern that peaceful, voluntary transactions are valuable, even if some of those transactions seem useless or disgusting. The voluntary church, even if you disagree with some or all of its teachings, has been similarly valuable to many; and on its own it has certainly never been responsible for a fraction of the horrors attributed to the state.
Posted in Anarchocapitalism, Blogging, Religion Tagged: church, voluntary, voluntaryism
In the news: “After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children. The 2,600-page report painted the most detailed and damning portrait yet of church-administered abuse in a country grown weary of revelations about child molestation by priests. The investigation [...]