[CNN] "I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian." - Penn Jillette

[WilliamC]

Many complex social problems cannot be solved by one person or group, that's why we need a free market.

As for the belief in a deity, I don't like getting in these conversations on this forum, but I know that their is no deities. I used to be an agnostic until I realized how illogical and inconsistent the idea of "Well, you can't prove or disprove it" sounds when compared to any other logical argument. There is no logical argument for the existence of any deity, nor any empirical evidence of any such supernatural beliefs.

Pretty much exactly how I feel but there is that incomplete knowledge thing that keeps me from going all out 100% atheist.

I mean I 'know' that my ability to reason, think, and comprehend is not perfect and that I will always have incomplete knowledge and an incomplete understanding of the Universe, that's self-evident.

So it is not quite right for me to state that I 'know' I am right and no creator exists, better to say that I 'know' it for myself but I must admit I don't have all the answers so there is a possibility I'm wrong.

So I'm still stuck at the agnostic/atheist border myself, even though internally there is nothing in me that believes.

 

[mczerone]

This. Until there's more of us that would resort to violence than them, pay your taxes. How many IRS agents are there again? Add to that the local, state, federal and other secret police forces and that's a pretty big number with the executive, legislature, courts and the majority of sheeple's support.

Not saying it's impossible, but that day is a long way off.

Resort to violence? I'd prefer to at least state it as "a necessary proportion of people that can adequately resist the state's threat of violence."

This may only be ten or twenty thousand people, organized en masse, that can't all be prosecuted for tax-evasion because the IRS administrative courts aren't capable of it. Repeat for a few years, and then grow. Eventually the entire idea of paying your taxes would be ludicrous.

Would the fed govt lash out as it withered? Most likely. But resistance, peaceful unless in defense of commensurate harm, could be as simple as marching on the capitol (state or federal) and demanding that they arrest you or drop the tax charges. Again en masse, but unrelated to those willing to be "violent", this would force the govt's hand into dropping much of its tyranny.

 

[DamianTV]

I think when people want to try to change labels that other people apply to themselves, like agnostic or athiest, they are trying to validate their own beliefs, which really has absolutely nothing to do with the other guys opinion of what is or isnt out there.

For me, I am sold on Atheism because of the Behavior of Religous Extremists.

(not everyone that is religious is extreme)

 

[libertyjam]

This isn't how this works.
If you're losing the argument in one thread, you don't get to come to another thread and mischaracterize everyone's statements all over again in a new one in the hopes that you'll do better with the same, sad, old argument.
You need to raise the bar beyond your Pavlovian response toward men in uniform if you want to get anywhere in your argument. And you need to do it in the relevant thread.

Just by remembering TR posts, the entirety of his posts is to post the exact opposite of any Liberty position or prevailing consensus. Most of his statements were simply absurd, he is either a troll, or a very good satirist, I cannot decide which.

 

[Fredom101]

Really good read. Thanks for posting!

 

[ClayTrainor]

Pretty much exactly how I feel but there is that incomplete knowledge thing that keeps me from going all out 100% atheist.

I mean I 'know' that my ability to reason, think, and comprehend is not perfect and that I will always have incomplete knowledge and an incomplete understanding of the Universe, that's self-evident.

So it is not quite right for me to state that I 'know' I am right and no creator exists, better to say that I 'know' it for myself but I must admit I don't have all the answers so there is a possibility I'm wrong.

So I'm still stuck at the agnostic/atheist border myself, even though internally there is nothing in me that believes.

I don't think Atheism and Agnosticism are mutually exclusive terms/positions. Atheism/Theism is with regards to belief (or lack thereof) and Agnosticism/Gnosticism is with regards to knowledge (or lack thereof).

 

[libertyjam]

I don't think Atheism and Agnosticism are mutually exclusive terms/positions. Atheism/Theism is with regards to belief (or lack thereof) and Agnosticism/Gnosticism is with regards to knowledge (or lack thereof).

Can you be an atheist-gnostic? Or a theist-agnostic?

 

[mczerone]

I don't think Atheism and Agnosticism are mutually exclusive terms/positions. Atheism/Theism is with regards to belief (or lack thereof) and Agnosticism/Gnosticism is with regards to knowledge (or lack thereof).

How can you separate "knowledge" from "faith"? Don't you have to have "faith" in your senses and reason to "know" anything? But isn't the act of having faith in any proposition admitting that you do not or cannot know the correct answer?

So true atheists have "faith" that there are no gods, and true religious people have "faith" that there is at least one. Agnostics are people without faith in either end of the spectrum.

Gnostic theists are those who personally have faith that they understand their deity; who have studied and meditated on what their "faith" requires of them. The "knowing" part of gnosticism isn't "knowledge of the fact of the existence of a deity", it's the personal knowledge of what that deity (in which you have faith) requires from you.

Therefore gnostic atheism isn't "knowing there are no gods", but instead the position of having faith that there are no gods, and studying and meditating on what that requires of you personally. Both types of gnosticism would require great study of philosophy and natural sciences, to truly understand the apparatus of the world and how we interact with it. Both require understanding the other, as well as themselves.

Agnostic atheism and agnostic theism exist only to the extent that people are living unexamined lives, and have mindlessly adopted a faith. Otherwise there is a central region that presupposes no faith or knowledge - and that is what the general populous refers to as "agnosticism", which, when used without hyphens, is mutually exclusive of atheism and theism.

 

[erowe1]

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

A person who says words like these has no business claiming, "I don't know. So I'm a libertarian."

His libertarianism is based on a his positive knowledge about what is right and what is wrong.

His atheism is as well, albeit a wrong claim in that case.

 

[Romulus]

I just want to say "Fuck you, Frank"

thats all.

 

[SimpleName]

Penn is pretty much in line with my philosophy both politically and personally. Very very close. He is a little too accepting of opposing ideologies, but not a big issue. Love the guy.

 

[Ricky201]

I love Penn as well. I also agree with him on personal and political beliefs. I'm glad discovery channel picked him and Teller up for another show.

 

[ClayTrainor]

Can you be an atheist-gnostic? Or a theist-agnostic?

I think so...

A Gnostic Atheist, lacks belief in a God, and also claims knowledge that there is objectively no God.

An Agnostic Atheist lacks belief in a God, but doesn't claim to know objectively that one doesn't exist.

An Agnostic Theist is someone who believes there is a God, but doesn't claim to know it as an objective truth.

A Gnostic Theist is someone who believes there is a God, and claims to know it as an objective truth.

 

[Sam I am]

There's no need to make blanket, collective accusations. If you're targeting a specific person, you can send him or her a PM.

I was not targeting a specific person, Which i would have hoped I made clear when i said

I'm not making a comment directed at you personally, but more about the forum as a whole.

I've been wanting to say something about how Penn doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would be totally comfortable here, and the post i quoted was the easiest thing to anchor that to

 

[ClayTrainor]

How can you separate "knowledge" from "faith"? Don't you have to have "faith" in your senses and reason to "know" anything? But isn't the act of having faith in any proposition admitting that you do not or cannot know the correct answer?

Confidence in the evidence of your senses, and the consistent behavior of matter and energy, is not faith as I understand it. I am using the word faith to imply a belief which is held in the absence of evidence, or a belief that is held regardless of evidence to the contrary.

So true atheists have "faith" that there are no gods, and true religious people have "faith" that there is at least one. Agnostics are people without faith in either end of the spectrum.

Do you make a distinction between reasonable certainty and faith?

 

[erowe1]

Confidence in the evidence of your senses, and the consistent behavior of matter and energy, is not faith as I understand it. I am using the word faith to imply a belief which is held in the absence of evidence, or a belief that is held regardless of evidence to the contrary.

But by your own definition of faith, a belief held in the absence of evidence, it must be the case that confidence in the evidence of your senses and the consistent behavior of matter and energy is faith. You can't use empirical evidence to support the belief that you can rely on your senses. That would be question begging. You have to give yourself over to that confidence in the absence of evidence.

 

[jmdrake]

Not to mention that I'd say nowhere near the majority on this forum are 911 truthers.

Every time there's been a poll on 9/11 a solid majority of people on this forum have picked 9/11 either being done by elements within the government or at the very least purposefully allowed. But so what? Gillette Penn doesn't seem to be such a douche that he couldn't hang around people who disagreed with him on some issue. If he was then why hasn't he left the U.S. yet where 75% of the people are Christians?

 

[jmdrake]

Penn isn't a truther. One of the episodes of Bullshit tackled numerous truther myths.

That episode of "Bullshit" was itself "bullshit". Penn didn't tackle any "myths". He got a firefighter who was at the scene of 9/11 to "prove" the government didn't know about 9/11. Really? How is a firefighter supposed to know what's going on in Washington? Penn's diatribe was just one stupid ad hominem placed on top of another. He didn't even address this:



Or this:

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-05/porter-goss-morning-911

Or this:



Or this:

[video=google;3979568779414136481]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3979568779414136481[/video]

 

[dejavu22]

A person who says words like these has no business claiming, "I don't know. So I'm a libertarian."

His libertarianism is based on a his positive knowledge about what is right and what is wrong.

His atheism is as well, albeit a wrong claim in that case.

Actually i am going to disagree with you that his libertarianism is necessarily based on positive knowledge of what is right and wrong by explaining to you how i came to my libertarian beliefs. The only thing i positively know is that I do not know everything, I can also say with a certain degree of certainty that no one knows everything. With this in mind I would rather be responsible for making my own decisions based upon incomplete information than to be stuck with a choice that someone else made with incomplete information. The reason i believe in libertarianism is that a decision based upon a specific situation rather than one based upon general demographics is more likely to be correct and if it is wrong I have no one to blame but myself.

Sorry if that was rambly but that is how my mind works on the subject.

Also i have a severe lack of faith in general. For this reason since i don't think it cannot be proven even though i feel i have no reason to believe in god i have no real desire to waste my time to prove it either way. I plan on "I don't know" being the answer i die saying on the subject.

 

[DamianTV]

Why are Religious Labels so important to you people?