Robert Tracinski - Is Religion Necessary for a Free Society?

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Let's uh, it's seven 30. We'll get started. Thank you for joining us today. Uh, I'm Scott Schiff hosting the Atlas society senior fellow Rob Tru. Zinsky answering is religion necessary for free society. Uh, I'd ask everyone to please share the room and, uh, please raise your hand if you wanna join the conversation. Um, provocative title, Rob is religion necessary for a free society. Speaker 1 00:00:27 Okay. So the answer is no next question. Speaker 1 00:00:40 Standard conservative argument. That's made that they say, well, the usual viewpoint is that, you know, uh, uh, secular liberalism is riding off of a, depending on a religious foundation that it rejects, right? So it's, you know, secular liberalism is essentially parasitic that what's required is the cultural conditions for a free society are created by religious belief. And this ties into the conservative view that therefore in order to have a free society, we have to be doing things to encourage a support and promote religious belief. So it's usually their way for saying, we, we need to be less free so that we can support and promote and have the government, uh, promoting religious belief in order so that we can, you know, we, we can save freedom and, you know, in the, in the hands of the sort of nationalist sort of, so Amari Patrick dine, you know, some of these current guys, some of this, this sort of nationalist conservative, it turns into sort of, we have to burn the village in order to save it argument. Speaker 1 00:01:41 You know, we need to, we need to have a monarchy or an established church in order to protect freedom. Well, once you've done that, you've, you know, there's not a whole lot of freedom left to protect, but it's worth taking on and taking you seriously, this argument about, do we need religion, uh, to be the foundation for free society. And, you know, there are, aside from the modern conservatives, there are statements you can find from the founding fathers. I'm gonna read returning to these later, but there are statements you can find from the American founders saying, you know, this will work for a moral, this, this, I think Adam said, this constitution, this system of government will work for a moral and religious people, but not for people who aren't that way. So they believed that religion was necessary. Now we're gonna talk a little bit later about what they actually meant by religion, but Justin, just take, I wanna take this on the first level of just historically what, what's the record historically in terms of, do you need religion for a free society? Speaker 1 00:02:38 Well, have highly religious societies generally been free historically, and the answer is no, you know, you could look to now people like the founders and they say, well, the founders said this and you know, America was religious and we were free society. But if you look at, you know, that's, that's more the exception than the rule. If you look at the history of highly religious societies, you know, for a thousand years after the, during, during, and, and after the collapse of the Roman empire for over a thousand years, we had societies that were highly religious, that were organized around religion as the central principle, far more so than today. And they were generally, they were, they were monarchical, they were a futile. They did not have, uh, anywhere near the degree of, of, of personal freedom and, and political freedom that we have today. Speaker 1 00:03:31 Uh, and you know, I, I, this is a boat of a content I have with conservative writers. So, uh, a couple years back, Jon O Goberg wrote a book, uh, on the enlightenment. And, uh, he tried to sort of rely on secular arguments, but towards the end, he brings back in the religious arguments and he says, well, you know, Christianity had a role in creating this, this miracle of the enlightenment in the, this huge amount of progress in human society says, you know, it, it took about 1600 years for it to happen, but one could argue that, you know, the fuse have been lit and the conditions have been created. And I thought, well, if it takes 1600 years for an idea introduced as the central organizing principle of a society, and it takes 1600 years for it to lead to a free society and to progress and all that sort of thing, maybe that's not what led to it. Speaker 1 00:04:20 Maybe there was something else introduced a lot more recently. Now we're gonna get to that, uh, before I'm done here. Um, so, and yeah, of course you could look around the world. Uh, you know, Iran is a highly religious society and is very unfree. Uh, you know, the Muslim world has a serious problem with the, the religious fanatics take over society and they make it into a, a hellscape that most into the most unfree societies we see in the world, or right now there's a whole war going on in Ukraine. Uh, that is partly because, uh, Vladimir Putin has this relationship with, uh, patriarch Kal, uh, the head of the, uh, the top guy in the Russian Orthodox church. And this doctrine of the new Rome that Moscow is the, um, uh, successor, the inheritor of the Roman empire. And specifically as a defender of Christianity as the promoter and defender of the Christian religion. Speaker 1 00:05:14 You know, now that the, after the, after the fall of the, of the Byzantine empire and the, the takeover of Constance and Opal by the, by the, by the Muslims, that banner went to the Russians and the, and Russia is the defender of Christianity. And that's part of what he's using as the basis for this Russian imperialism for, uh, invading and, and destroying, and, and this whole plan to, you know, capture creatively, create concentration camps for Ukrainians. So you have this example going on right now of a highly religious, uh, argument, at least, um, I'm not sure Russia is really all that religious right now, but, uh, it's kind of a Potemkin village kind of thing. They have a great show of being religious, but underneath not so much. Um, but you know, the religion is being used, is being used and has been used throughout, you know, the past throughout all of history, religion has been used to justify all sorts of different forms of tyranny. Speaker 1 00:06:10 So we have just on historical basis, a lot of reason to doubt this narrative that, oh, religion is really necessary for free society, because you've had that condition of a highly religious society and not had freedom a whole bunch of times. And it's been a longstanding trend throughout all of history. So let's look to the basic ideas that, uh, religion introduces and why they would be, what, what is the argument that the ideas of religion would be necessary for a free society? Well, the usual argument here is you need religion in order to have morality. And this is the, the argument that the founder fondly fathers gave is, you know, you need to have a people who are moral enough to basically to follow the principles of a free society, moral enough to restrain themselves from the urge to just simply grab whatever they can from their neighbors, uh, by looting them or to, um, uh, to, to be intolerant, force them, to do it violates and force them to go against their conscience. Speaker 1 00:07:15 Um, it, you know, it requires this sort of moral principle, this moral restraint. Uh, you have to have a regard that, yes, there's something more important that might urge the moment to impose the will impose my will or my feelings or the preferences of my group or tribe on other people. So, you know, the principle of individual rights, the principle of a free society is one of moral restraint in that sense. And so they said, well, you have to have some, uh, basis of morality for that. Now here's the thing that philosophically I find interesting about this arguments and I call it the, uh, the, the argument of a love. Uh, it's a phrase from NCHA, um, where he says talks about, uh, the idea of, uh, to love God, to love man, for God's sake. And this is the idea that, um, you know, you can't love your fellow man or, or cooperate with your fellow man, simply for the sake of your own of, of simply for your own sake or for the sake of your fellow man, simply out of respect for humanity, you have to have some larger, wider principle. Speaker 1 00:08:24 So you have to have, you have to do it for the sake of God and not for man, because man himself is so worthless and, and are basically endorsed this position, man himself is so weak and worthless and, and not worth restraining yourself forth, that you need to have some, uh, higher thing that you, that you have regard for in order to be able to love, to love your fellow man or to, to have respect for your fellow man. And that's sort of the idea here is that, you know, if you, the contradiction here is essentially you're being given a secular reason for having morality. You're saying we need morality so we can have a free society, so everybody could be better off, right? So the real argument is if we organize our society around, around, uh, this moral, a moral code that allows for individual rights and for freedom, everybody will be better off well, that's a totally secular argument. So if that's the reason that you need to have morality, why not just give that as the reason everybody should be moral. Everybody should have a regard for morality because we'll all be better off. If we follow these rules, that's a totally rational secular, uh, sensible way of making the argument. You could actually get people to sign up for it. And I argued, I'll argue later that we actually, that is actually how things generally work today. That's why people, uh, uh, follow so certain basic moral rules. Speaker 1 00:09:50 All right. So then, you know, there's this sort of contradiction of saying, well, we have this totally secular reason why we have to have morality so we can have a free society at every we better off, but therefore that means we need to have God. Well, you just gave a secular reason. You just showed that we don't need God at in there. And that I think is sort of the giveaway that the purpose of this argument is not to be able to allow us to have morality or to have a free society. It's that people want, want us, what they really do is they, they want us to believe in God, that's the fundamental conviction. And then they're looking around for, well, you have to believe in God, so you can have a free society, but it's not a free society. That's the goal. It's the belief in God. Speaker 1 00:10:29 That's the goal. Uh, the argument that you need it for free society is sort of an ad hoc thing that's come up with, uh, to, in order to get people, uh, push them towards the religious outlook of this. Philosophically, is that a free society? Depends not just on morality. It also depends very specifically on the idea of respect for other people's minds. It depends. It depends on the idea that you have to be other people through persuade through discussion through, by presenting evidence, his own, you know, free will and his own judgment, personal judgment, using his own rational faculty, to agree with your course of action and to agree to cooperate with you in whatever it is that you're trying to do. So it regard, it requires respect for reason. And there's where we have the real problem with this argument that we need religion as the basis of a free society. Speaker 1 00:11:31 Because the basic problem with religion is that religion is based on faith. It's based on belief, in the absence of evidence and the absence of rational argument. And of course, historically, this is why religiousness have been on because they always enshrine well, here's, here's a religious authority. Here's the person who has access to the truth through, you know, through revelation, through faith and that person, because he has access to the truth. And, and because he's this religious authority, he then gets to impose that on everybody else. And it's not your job to question or to, uh, um, uh, to, to gain say what these authorities say your job is to obey these authorities. And after all, if we let people believe whatever they want, then we're going to your, the religious, we're gonna have an irreligious society. We're going to have people doubting God, we're gonna be, uh, we're gonna be falling away from the true faith. Speaker 1 00:12:25 And that's going to, you know, that's going to destroy our religious beliefs. So we can't have that. If religion is essential principle of society, it becomes a faith based and therefore an authority based system and ends up being a system. All right. So here's the other thing is, so if this is all true philosophically, then what America, what about the founding fathers? What about what they said about religion? Well, I'm gonna very briefly go over this and we could talk about it more if somebody's interested. Um, if you actually look at, so one of the, the, the, the sources cited for this is Alexis is hopeful democracy in America, where he makes a big deal, because he's, for reasons of his own, for his own philosophical convictions, he very much promotes this idea that, you know, religion is an essential part, an important part of what keeps the American society together and what, what makes it possible for them to have free society. Speaker 1 00:13:23 But if you look at what he actually says about Americans' religious beliefs, there's a great passage where he says, you know, the preacher in America is constantly talking about the value of morality for your wellbeing in this life, not for your salvation in the next life. And it's actually, you know, you can't, they can't keep their eyes off of this world. And, you know, you get the impression that the purpose of religion and morality is entire entirely to get your hap to, to achieve your happiness here on earth. And, and, and the, you know, the, the afterlife, the next world doesn't matter at all to them. And that's absolutely true. He was what he was, uh, observing in America. I don't think he fully grasped this cause he didn't know the history of it, but what we, he was observing in America. This is circuit 1832, but this goes back, you know, a century in America is the influence of something called natural religion. Speaker 1 00:14:15 Natural religion was a highly enlightenment version of religion. That was the common religious view among the founding fathers, John, from John Adams to Thomas, just Thomas Jefferson. It was the most common religious view held by the founders. Um, actually there's a famous letter from Adams to Jefferson later on when they resumed their correspondence, uh, where he says, you know, this one, a quote, this often used by conservatives, where he says the real revolution was in the hearts and minds and the American people in their sense of their religious duties and obligations. So it sounds like, wow, the real Revolut American revolution was religious, but in that letter was to as being responsible for this revolution. In our sense of, in American sense of religion was a AHU. Now, Jonathan May, who was a highly influential Boston preacher in the middle of the 18th century, he was influential on Adams and on a lot of the other guys who were in Boston, who, uh, um, you know, here in Virginia, we really made the American revolution, but I hear they had something to do about do with it up in Boston, too. Speaker 1 00:15:22 So a bunch of those guys were influenced by Jonathan Mahu. Well, Jonathan Mahu was a, uh, an advocate, a defender, a a, um, propagator of this natural religion viewpoint and what makes natural religion natural. The natural part of it is that so natural religion is contrasted to revealed religion revealed religion is religion that comes to theology that comes to you on the basis of revelation on the basis of some of, of something that's written in the Bible or some prophet or somebody who has has this, you know, a, a goes out in this desert has a vision and tells you, this is, this is my vision of what God wants us to do. That's revealed religion. Natural religion is the idea that, well, maybe principles of theology and principles of morality can be derived from observation of the natural world. So you can see how totally enlightenment and really secularized this natural religion viewpoint is. Speaker 1 00:16:20 And they even had this idea that, uh, uh, somebody who refers to it, somebody referred to it as the sacralization of reason, the idea that well, and this Cubs really from John Locke, where he says, you know, God implanted us with the faculty of reason. Therefore he must have intended for us to use the faculty of reason in all issues, including religion and including understanding, you know, what, what, what, what our purpose is here on, on the earth. And so therefore all religious and moral principles could be derived from reason and observation of the world. Well, so, you know, the, the big showcase of Amer you know, America is the big showcase for why we need religion at the basis of a free society. And what you find is they were basically Unitarian Universalists. I mean, they were, they were sort of nominally religious, but with a highly secular outlook that was behind that, uh, a secular enlightenment influence outlook. Speaker 1 00:17:13 So that's my general statement is to why, uh, the case against the idea that we need religion as a basis for free society, because historically the actual basis for free society was a mostly secular quasi secular enlightenment based philosophy of individual rights and, and essentially an implicitly individualist philosophy. And so I think that the real successor to that is objectiveism objectiveism is a much fuller, uh, more worked out, more complete version of, and, and, and of course, a fully secular version of that, uh, natural religion pH at the basis of, uh, of, of, of, of a free society. Speaker 0 00:18:05 Good. Uh, I have some stuff I could explore too, but, uh, we have, uh, CAS founder, David Kelly here. It's great to have him. Uh, do you have a question for Rob? I don't know if you're able to unmute, you may need to leave and come back, but I'll start with mine. I mean, I, as you're saying this, it, it, it makes me, you know, so yes, these people, it's almost like it, it, a free society can come as one, religion is baiting out and before a, a new one kind of takes hold. And in this case it would even be socialism or Scott. Speaker 3 00:18:46 We can hear you. Can you hear Speaker 1 00:18:47 Him? Yeah, he sounds like I can hear, Speaker 0 00:18:50 Can you hear me? Sounds like, Speaker 1 00:18:51 Oh, you sounded like you were the bottom of a, well, you saw it better now. Speaker 0 00:18:55 <laugh> okay. Good. Well, um, yeah, so, you know, it, there's a, is, is it that it's, it's in between two religions, like Rome was, you know, the end of the gods and, and before Christianity led to a dark age and now Christianity's kind of fading out and having that kind of secular view, um, and, and, you know, before, and that's what leads to a free society. The enlightenment was kind of Christianity, but on the way out, Speaker 1 00:19:26 I, I wouldn't say the enlightenment was Christianity on the, well, I suppose you could say it was Christianity on the way out. I, I think the best way to understand the, the intellectual context for the enlightenment is the essence of the Renaissance was, it was partly, it was the rediscovery of, is the rediscover of classical philosophy and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the culture, all the cultural achievements of the, of the, of the Greeks and Romans of the classical world. But it was also an attempt to combine the two together to say, we're gonna have all this great stuff for the classical world and Christianity at the same time, we're gonna merge 'em together and combine them. Um, if now talking about a previous vacation, I'm trying to remember what war or, or disaster happened during this one, but in a previous vacation, I was in Florence. Speaker 1 00:20:11 And if you're ever in Florence, there's the, the main cathedral, the, the one with the dome by Bruski, uh, really the, the, the, the birth of the en of, of the Renaissance in Italy was the construction of that dome in 1421, but there's a tower next to it called Theto church. And the decorations were done by JTA the Ren or the 14th century, uh, artist, uh, artist. And there's a series of carved reliefs along the couple stories of it. And it's fascinating to me that what's, there is it's it's combination of Christian saints and then ancient Greek scientists and mathematicians, you all sort of mixed together. And it includes, you know, these release meant, meant to represent the, the Christian virtues, you know, faith hope and charity, as well as the, um, the, the Roman, the, the classical virtues. It's similar thing. There's a, one of the first things done by, um, who the guy did the birth of Venus painting, um, Botticelli in, and the museum in Florence. Speaker 1 00:21:18 There's this, uh, one of the first paintings done that they know was done by Boticelli was part of this seven panel, uh, painting. And the seven panels are the four classical virtues. Uh, was it courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance and faith hope at charity, the three Christian virtues. So there's this real attempt to say, okay, we're going to, you know, in, in the, in the ancient world, when Christianity took over, it destroyed, you know, what has half this to do with Jerusalem was the big rallying cry. Um, they, they said we're gonna destroy all classical learning, all, all classical civilization. We don't need it. We just need Christianity. The Renaissance was trying to say, no, how about, how about we can have both, well, what happened is by the time you get to the, to the, to the enlightenment, they're saying, well, maybe we don't really even need as much Christianity. Speaker 1 00:22:09 Maybe we can, you know, uh, combine Christianity with even larger amounts of secular knowledge. You know, very few of the, of the founding, very few of the enlightenment figures were outright atheists. Although there were a few, but they were people who, but they were, they were mixing Christianity with much, much larger doses of the classical outlook of, uh, uh, of, of knowledge, uh, of reason and observation and, uh, uh, of this worldly outlook, you know, the humanist outlook, the idea that the purpose of human life is the purpose of life is to enjoy human life here on earth, rather than to, um, you know, do God's will. So you get into heaven. So there is, it's just this increasing thing, uh, tendency. Now, the problem you have is that by the 19th century, you start to get fully secular, um, or, or these supposed seemingly fully secular replacements for religion. Speaker 1 00:23:11 They get, start to get the point where people throw out religion altogether and have fully secular ideologies, but there's fully secular ideologies are anti-human. They throw out the humanism along with that, and you get the, you know, you get Marxism and you get these totalitarian ideologies where the, I mean, the, the big, we think of Marx as the big villain, but the, I would say the big villain is August comp, the guy who coined the term altruism and who also created this sort of religion of humanity, I think he called it, which was this very, self-consciously a secular replacement for religion, which place society in the place of God. And, you know, society is the entity to which you would sacrifice everything. Society is the entity that rules everything. It is basically, it's a religion, a col, a religion based on collectivism. And that really is very early in the 19th century that ends up being. Speaker 1 00:24:03 So they, you know, they throw out everything that was good about natural religion and the enlightenment outlook, and they replace it with something that's seemingly secular, but is really just replacing God with society and, and enshrining collectivism. Uh, and that's the real problem. So we, we never had the trans you know, the natural transition should have been from enlightenment, natural religion ideas to a philosophy, you know, a proto objectiveist philosophy that would've been, uh, grounding all the principles saying, well, if all these principles you could, you could get all these moral principles from illustration and national world, but you don't really need God, uh, in the equation. You don't need him that concept to get there. You could just induce morality from observation of the world and, and the requirements and the needs of human life in this world. And that's what we should have had if we never got it. Instead, we got a, like I said, I re I've, I collected this replacement for religion. Speaker 0 00:25:05 I, uh, wanna invite, uh, David to ask a question if you want to, if you're able to unmute, but, uh, yes, Speaker 4 00:25:14 Actually, I, I would like to ask Rob, uh, question here, uh, Rob, you know, I, I follow what you're saying about the enlightenment and natural religion, and I agree totally. Um, and conservatives are, are, you know, just making up a lot of, uh, Speaker 4 00:25:38 Let's put it, uh, <affirmative> let, let's put it, uh, as, you know, tenuous interpretations of what the founding father said, but the fact is that on another front today, and, um, you look at the, our, our economy today in our society and people are doing incredible stuff in, in business technology. They are, uh, operating by reason, you know, at, at very high levels all the time. And yet many of them go to church on Sunday or Bible study in the south during the week. And I'm wondering what is, you know, they currently have at have internalized and ethic that is very similar to objectiveism, they're productive, they're rational. They're, um, the best of them have a lot of integrity in Dubai. They function, uh, and yet they are not, when they turn to the explicit issue of values, they feel they need the supernatural endorsement. And that's puzzled me for a long time, why that is. Um, and I'm, I'm just wondering if you have any comment on that, um, as a sociological, uh, issue. Speaker 1 00:27:04 Well, I, I don't, the sociological, I think, is not necessary. I think to some extent we could look view it as is an intellectual leap. They have to make. Now, there are two aspects to this. I, in my observation, there are two aspects to this. One is that a lot of people are, I mean, that's a Sunday school effect I call, which is a lot of people are actually drilled into their skulls at a very early age. You know, that's why youth bring the kids to Sunday school. Uh, when they're five years old, you know, you get the, to get them drilled into their head at a very early age that it's important to believe. And, you know, I, I, one of my closest friends growing up was from a highly religious family and, you know, had these little plaques on the wall, say this, I believe. Speaker 1 00:27:48 And it was clear. There was like this, he was a very smart guy, but there was, I think this area roped off in his mind when he had to follow, if he had to follow a train of thought that would lead him to doubt religion. He couldn't follow it because he'd have this, you know, the Sunday school effect he'd have this drum into his head from such an, an early age. It would be very, very difficult for him. It would actually require, you know, for me, who was raised at basically in a, in a non-religious, you know, without having a particular dogma sort of drilled into my head, it's very easy for me to say, oh, well, I can dispense with religion, which I did at a very young age. Uh, but it was easy. I didn't have it. Wasn't something I had to fight over, cuz I didn't have that resistance for somebody like that. Speaker 1 00:28:29 It would require a very extraordinary effort. And then the second part of that is if it then requires an extraordinary effort, you'd have to have really good arguments out there to show you, yes, this is okay. You can still have, you know, still be a good person, still have a decent society. If you don't need this religious belief. And we don't have, I mean, you know, objectiveism <laugh> has, has those arguments. I'm not sure we always present them as well as we should for that audience. But you know, if you're just in the culture in general, if you're not encountering outside of objectiveism, there's really nobody making that or, or not. There are very few people making that kind of argument in a really powerful and convincing way. So that even if you were inclined to say, maybe I should question it that what, yeah, the question is, well, what's the alternative as the foundation for morality as a foundation for being a decent person as the foundation for having a free society. Speaker 1 00:29:23 Well, you know, you can look at this, the secular left and they're not offering something that's really all that appealing. You know, they're just offering a new dogma, which has often some very, very bizarre things that they, of their own that they expect you to believe, uh, bizarre and often has very repugnant things that they expect you to believe. So I think it's a combination. The, the wider picture I would say is that secular morality is actually an enormous achievement. The idea of taking morality, which CA historically for thousands of years came up out of a reli, right. And saying that, no, we could separate it from that religious context. We could put it on a rational, scientific, philosophical foundation and we can work out how to do that and we can make it convincing and we can work out all the details. That's an enormous achievement that I think really nobody did it until about, you know, 60, 70 years ago, uh, depending on, on a little over 60 years ago, depending on when, you know, Brian Randall was working on Atlas shrug, nobody, really, man. I mean, there, there were precursors that you could look at, but nobody really managed to accomplish it for the last 60 years out of all human history. So no wonder people still have trouble with it, Speaker 0 00:30:37 But she thought we were freer before that. Speaker 1 00:30:42 What do you mean? Speaker 0 00:30:43 Well, I mean, she thought the 19th century was, uh, the, the time where we were freest. Speaker 1 00:30:50 Uh, well, I mean politically and economically. Yes. Uh, in terms of religious belief, you know, she actually, there was a case to make that you could say intellectually, we were freer before that. And I think it's because you had the enlighten influence of the enlightenment, but what happened with the enlightenment? So if you had this sort of, this, this, um, this natural religion view, which was common to the thinkers of the enlightenment, you had this attempt to sort of have, have something that is essentially a secular philosophy, by the way, I recommend, uh, I got turned onto all this, that he here to expand a little bit on the point about why people believe in God, uh, to expand on all this. I first heard about, uh, natural religion and especially about Jonathan Mahu from a friend of mine who wrote a book about it, uh, academic historian who wrote a book about Mahu. Uh, the book is called father of Liberty. Uh, author is Patrick Mullens. Um, you can look him up, but, um, uh, he wrote it's, it's a good, it's a really good book. It's very, it's an academic book, but very readable. And when he turned it onto to me, he did it by reference to Joel Austin, that if anybody, if people know who Joel, Austin, Austin, I Speaker 0 00:31:58 Like him. Speaker 1 00:32:00 Oh, he says, he, he is, uh, was it Lakewood Baptist church or something? It's, it's the largest, it's the most mega mega church in America. And he was one of the first big, the megachurch evangelist preachers, but he has this sort of prosperity gospel. Uh, you know, basically the purpose of religion is so you can be happy and successful. And he has a book called like living your best life now. And of course, you know, the, the Babylon B type, the Babylon B was basically founded to make fun of guys like this because it regards them as totally anti-Christian right. Uh, Christ, wasn't living his best life. Now he was living his worst life. Then, you know, he, he sacrificed himself in cross. So these people go, this is totally, you know, against the spirit of Christianity, but it's totally in the spirit. It's like, it's like the, it's the dumbs down unintelligent version, the non philosophical version of natural religion, you know, brought into the 21st century. Speaker 1 00:32:56 So, um, that, I think that's also one of the reasons why you had these people go to church on Sunday, but they go to church to hear Joe Laine, tell them about how well God wants you to be happy and be successful and, and, and have a great life. So <laugh>, yeah, they're getting, they're getting that, uh, that same thing. But I think what happened in the 19th century is for the most part, other than those leftovers, like Joel Ostein, who are, you know, it's a significant thing out there that, that, that sort of dumbs down non philosophical version of that. Um, but other than that, what happened is you had this thing that was sort of quasi secular, but also quasi-religious. And I think what happens in the 19th century is people either went full secular. And then of course, when they went full secular, they went collectivists and materialists and all that, or they went full religious and you had, you know, the people who are religious didn't stick as a general rule with that, um, the enlightenment approach, they had a backlash against the enlightenment, and it's not just con it's also, you know, the, the so scripture. Speaker 1 00:33:57 And there was this whole, uh, you know, by scripture alone, there was this whole rebellion against, I think somebody called it the God of the philosophers. There's a rebellion against the God of the philosophers that God, isn't something we go and religion, isn't something we should think about philosophically, it's something we should, uh, either explore through feelings through faith or through authority through, you know, reading the Bible or, or, or looking at, uh, following the religious authorities. And there was, you know, that's where the real sort of fundamentalist back to basics of version of Christianity. And, and that was really what became modern sort of conservative style of Christianity for the most part. Speaker 0 00:34:38 That's fair. Uh, and I wanna encourage everyone to share the room as well as raise your hand if you wanna participate. Um, I, I just, I think that to the extent that you're praising the early guys like Jefferson and Adams, or, you know, the deest or the natural religionists, you know, in, in that same spirit, I mean, I think that maybe Joel Ostein is a kind of continuation of that, that you can kind of say, oh, they're being hypocrites or not being true to it, but that's kind of the incremental step of, of getting more rational. And even if these people can't, you know, get rid of their religious part, if they're able to compartmentalize and be free in most things, I mean, is it worth the, all the effort to try to change them on those last few parts? Speaker 1 00:35:24 Well, I mean, a lot of those people, you're not going to change, so it's, it's fine. And now I accept Joel Ostein in that sort of prosperity gospel thing. As you know, it's not the word <laugh>, it's not the version of religion I'm worried about. Right. So I, I'm not gonna go out and go hammer and tongs against Joel Aine, except that, of course, I think he, he gives outlook a little bit of a bad name because he's such a, he's this kind of opportunistic guy, right? Uh, he's one of these guys who talks a lot about religion. He, he's easy to make fun of let's put it that way. But, uh, and, and he said, I think he's very much an intellectual lightweight. It's not a it's, it's like a leftover of a more substantial intellectual movement, but certainly I don't view Joel Ostein or guys with those kinds of views as the enemy, uh, culturally. Speaker 1 00:36:15 But the thing is that again, they are it's because they are the leftover influence of a more rational, more humanistic version of Christianity. But I think what's happened. We have to be, you know, taken into account that what's happened is that that version of Christianity has been sort of pushed back a little bit. It's no, it's no longer the, the, the sort of the wave of the future, the way it was and the enlightenment and the, you know, the people who have, who have retained their loyalty to religion, especially the conservative, the, the, the, you know, the cur the, the religious, right. The Christian conservatives are very much in favor of more of a, you know, let's go back to basics. So the old, that old time religion kind of approach to Christianity, Speaker 0 00:37:00 I mean, they may say that, but there aren't that many that wanna go to pre enlightenment, uh, standards. Speaker 1 00:37:07 Well, I mean, there's a growing movement there. If you talk about pre enlightenment, I mean, there is this sort of, you know, so one things that happened that first things is a good example of this. So first things was one of the leading Christian magazines on the, on the sort of Christian rights during the Reagan era. And, uh, the, a lot of the guys had new house, I think was the guy's name, who started it father, new house. They were Catholic conservatives who were also very classical liberal conservatives, right. They were very, uh, pro free market. They were, you know, very Reaganesque, uh, and, and really sort of like put meat on the bones of, of, of this idea that you have, uh, a Christianity that's compatible with free markets and free and, and classical liberalism in a free society. Well, what's happened to first things in the last 10 years, uh, after that, that old generation basically died off or, or, or retired is it got taken over by the nationalist conservatives who are very much enemy thinking, enemies of, uh, and openly declared enemies of liberalism and not just liberalism in that sloppy sense that we tend to use today where liberalism just means anybody on the left, most of whom are not liberals in any meaningful sense. Speaker 1 00:38:26 Uh, but they, when they say they're against liberalism, they mean liberalism are sense of the word, meaning advocacy of individualism and freedom, and specifically autonomy. The autonomy is their big enemy, and this is all very explicit and, and first things as one of the centers, uh, for this. So I think you see that change happening, especially, uh, in the last 10 years or so at a place like from being a classical liberal Reaganesque, uh, Catholicism, uh, uh, you know, a version of Catholicism that's classical liberal, and Reaganesque to a version of Catholicism, that's much more traditionalist, much more anti enlightenment, uh, uh, much more, uh, openly illiberal. So don't, don't, don't discount that too much. Speaker 0 00:39:14 Yeah. I think that definitely exists. I think there's a phenomenon of, uh, as they feel they're, you know, losing their, their grip on cultural power, they just kinda lash out. I think that's even part of what this move for abortion is. It's like, get us a win on something. Yep. And so, but, you know, and I don't know, I just, even with the Soha Amari, I mean, can we, is there any potential to try to steer him in a better direction to say it's not all the enlightenment, it's just, you know, Speaker 1 00:39:47 Well, I think with Sarah Amari, I think we should wait around for his next conversion to happen. <laugh> history of, uh, he was like a Marxist and then he was a, a neo-cons conservative. And then he was a, a Catholic, uh, anti, you know, nationalist, conservative, you know, happen in a couple of years. Uh, he, he sort of sticks. He sticks with an ideology for a couple, for three or three to five years, and then switches. This might be his final form, but you never know Speaker 0 00:40:17 That's fair. I, I, I mean, I could talk to you the whole time. I wanna open it up for, uh, people, if you wanna raise your hand and, uh, get involved with this. Um, you know, so I just, I think that you do see these periods. I mean, even from the reformation, there was the counter reformation, and there are little sparks of where it jumps up, but you're still looking at, uh, you know, three, 400 year trend of, of downward, uh, influence of traditional Juda of Christian religion. Speaker 1 00:40:53 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it goes from having a total monopoly a thousand years ago to having, you know, this sense of being embatled now, I, I think the, the thing that really can be concerned about, and I, I think in the long term, the thing to be more concerned about, uh, I think you're right to some extent that I, I, I mean, I'm, I've got my hair on fire about this illiberal version, this illiberal nationalist version of the right, partly cuz I think they're, they're basically they're wrecking the defense of a free society that they're, they're really sapping a strength at a time where we, we could use more allies, uh, they're taking them away. But the, in the, over the long term, I see the bigger threat is that the alternatives to a religious outlook, that, you know, the, what we need is a secular morality that will defend humanism that will defend, uh, individualism that will defend a free society. And that's the real thing to have our hair on fire over the long term is that we don't have that. I mean, we have that ideology, but it's not widespread enough that the dominant ideologies out there that all alternatives to religion are generally not adequate alternatives or are, you know, in a different direction. Speaker 0 00:42:11 Right. You alluded to that, you said that most people in the 19th century that went away from religion did so in a collectivist direction. Speaker 1 00:42:19 Oh. Or I don't know about, I, I have to look at most, uh, that require more scholarships to quantify it, but version that certainly by the early 20th century, we looked, you know, the red decade and the 20 that became sort of the elite Avantgarde, uh, modernist position was some form of scientific socialism or, uh, um, you know, a, a, uh, a sort of competent, you know, religion of humanity at this based on collectivism. Yeah. That, that became a, a very large, uh, had a very large impact. And that's, I think that's what we're still struggling with is that you have people, you know, theism, you know, uh, people have described this as a new religion and it absolutely has a lot of the characteristics of religion that people just took, you know, took Christianity, took the fundamentalist version of Christianity and secularized it and appropriated a lot of its characteristics just with new, you know, catechisms, uh, in place of the old ones. Speaker 0 00:43:22 Yeah, absolutely. I read recently that, um, I think Engel's original, uh, what became the communist manifesto was originally planned to be in the form of a confession of faith Speaker 1 00:43:37 Yeah. Which Speaker 0 00:43:38 They, they wanted to, you know, share their principles that way. And I mean, I think they kind of saw it as a religion. You, like you said, with comp for example. Yeah. I mean, they were trying to create that and it was even a, you know, a natural progression from this more benevolent 17th century, God of nature, religion of nature, Speaker 1 00:44:00 Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, I mean, iron and, uh, even had elements of that, that she brought in, she talked about this in, I think it's in her 25th anniversary instruction of the fountain head. She talked about how they're all your religion has basically had this monopoly on the spiritual aspect of man's life. So there are all sorts of concepts from religion that you, that she wanted to keep, um, that, you know, concepts of like worship and reverence and sacredness and things like that, that she said, these, you know, these revert valid and necessary, uh, um, valid and necessary parts of our spiritual lives have this religious overtone, but it's, it refers to something. We actually have a spiritual of, uh, not just saying, okay, you know, this is another way to dominate the individual w with, with rule by authority, but by saying no to, to liberate, but to have, uh, you know, a, a, a morality based on as opposed to the ones that are, you know, do borrowing all the dominant characteristics of religion as an authority based anti individual, uh, assistant built around submission essentially. Um, and, and giving it secular window addressing, Speaker 0 00:45:25 I think we might have touched on this before, if there's a place for, um, almost, uh, objectiveist rituals in, in building that kind of objective community, even in a secular Speaker 1 00:45:37 Way. Yeah. I, I think there's some, there's some ground some, although actually I've been trying, I've done a lot of thinking about what is it that would take the place of religion or religious worship in, uh, in a rational society objectiveism took over society, or even in, in, in the corners of it that we, that we, where we do have our little enclaves, what would you have in place of, you know, going to church on Sunday? And I think what we have in place of that is we have art. Uh, you have art now, some probably all of us have at one point been to an objective conference. So you also have you go hear somebody give a lecture on history or philosophy, that's the right, but also for this experience, for the uplift, you would want to go see art performed. And, and I think it's interesting that iron Rand actually introduces that in a way in, in, in, in Gulf Gulch, in Atlas, SHR, you know, what do, what do they, what do the people do there in when they're not working in the Gulch? Speaker 1 00:46:46 Well, they go and they hear, uh, of classical of music, uh, composed by Richard Hallie. Uh, and or they, you know, they have art. I think they, there's a mention of art being shown, or there's a play being put on, you know, they, they go, um, uh, experience something art. They, they use art as a way of bringing that spiritual experience, not necessarily from ritual. And it's not so much that you have a ritual, but rather that you have, um, you have be a substance and gives you that experience. So I think in, you know, in, in a fully rational and, uh, secular society, art would replace, uh, religion as the source of, of a spiritual experience that helps keep you grounded and keeps you connected to your, to your philosophy, to your values. David Scott, Speaker 4 00:47:46 If I could jump in, I, I just had a thought about Rob's. This is David. Uh, I, I thought about Rob's, uh, latter point in your question. Um, one, two things. One is that, um, I mean, as, as valuable as art is, uh, it's still a highly individual and, um, uh, activity of appreciation and, and people with the same Phils philosophy can easily differ on the forms of art that they find most inspiring. So I, I wouldn't put aside ritual. Um, over the years at the Atlas society, we have, uh, many people have suggest not many, but we've had a number of presentations about, um, what might be an objectiveness, um, kind of PR practice in terms of getting together. And so far, the only thing we found is conferences, which we don't do much money anymore. But the other thing, um, I wanted to ask is, um, years ago, I was wondering how many people, how many adherence of reject would it take to for that to be a familiar term and, you know, just an accepted if minority position and, uh, for example, like Buddhism in the us, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, there are many more Buddhists worldwide, but, um, in, there are something like, uh, uh, 376 million that I'm looking at a chart that I did, and this is outdated, but, um, you know, a third of a million, um, people who call themselves buds now that includes that's worldwide. Speaker 4 00:49:38 So, um, in America it would be under a hundred thousand. Yeah. What if objectiveism, is there a number, and this is something I've thought about over the years, is there a number that would, uh, be a, kind of a, a, uh, uh, an inflection point where objectiveism would become just, oh, I'm an objectiveist. Okay. Yeah, you've got values, you've got standards. I, you know, I'm, I'm a Christian or I'm a Catholic, or I'm a Jew or whatever, but, you know, I gotcha. You know, we're tolerance society, uh, as opposed to you are, you know, the devil incarnate because you don't believe in God, you know, all that stuff that we all hear way too many times. Yeah. Um, I would like to know your thoughts, Rob, on what it would take to make objectiveism including rituals, but also just sheer numbers, a, a recognized way of life, way of thought on a par with other major religions that are around today. Speaker 1 00:50:50 Yeah. That question. Um, I think I've thought of it in, well, first of all, a as to rituals, because it's such an individual's philosophy, I'm not sure you're going to get any one set of rituals, but of course we don't also, we also don't have that first traditional religion either. I mean, that's one of the things that's happened, especially in America, right? The breakup of the, of the Catholic church and it's its authority 500 years ago, 500, what, three or four, um, uh, led to, you know, this splintering of this enormous number of different sects. And everybody's a member of their own little small church that has its own theology and its own, uh, um, uh, its own rituals and its own. They do things differently. And you know, there's more songs than one church and there's fewer songs than another church or different kinds of songs. Speaker 1 00:51:36 That's already been highly fragmented. I think it's gonna be highly fragmented for objectives because we're individuals, right. Everybody's gonna seek out what they find most interesting. Um, but what I would say is it what the numbers are required to make it so that you could have this variety of different offerings in the objective space and have them be able to have an audience at a large national audience. Uh it's you know, as somebody who makes a living in this field, uh, more or less, uh, I can tell you, it it's a, you know, the small size of the movement makes it hard. You, you can't have somebody just start up a newsletter and be able to make a living, writing a newsletter about objective ideas. Um, it, it, it, it takes a lot of creativity and a lot of scrambling and, and ingenuity to do that. Speaker 1 00:52:23 Um, whereas a larger movement would be able to support, you know, somebody would have a, a YouTube channel or a television, a net, a, a cable TV channel or something that would be able to put out lots of content. And we have to be closer to the scale of possibly of a small religion or of one of these small sort of subcultures out there. I like to think of it in terms of somebody did a calculation, a number of years back about how many years it took for the number of Christians to double in the Roman empire. Basically, you know, how many years went by where the, uh, the do the doubling rate for the number of Christians. And it was like, you know, every 15 years they were doubling well, that that's, you know, when you think about what happens when you something doubles and it doubles again and it doubles again, and it doubles again, you suddenly have the, you know, suddenly within a, a couple of, not that many cycles of doubling, suddenly they take over the entire society, which is what they did. Speaker 1 00:53:25 Um, I think we need to double about times <laugh>, uh, I'm not sure we've, we, I don't, we've doubled in the last 60 years, right. We need to increase 200 somewhere between a hundred and, you know, 500,000 who would think of themselves as having some significant connection to objectiveism, uh, enough to, you know, to seek out objectiveness things, to be an audience, to be a market for it. Um, that I think would, would, but I think we need to double a number a couple more time, three or four more, three to five more times to get, to get close to that. And, but that would really, I mean, when you think about that, that's really what I think the goal is or what the, the hope is can do that artists and novelists. And, uh, now I think, you know, iron Rand didn't have an objectives audience to sell her novels to, she had the American audience, just, you know, people who didn't, who were not even aware of her ideas, but I do think you'd have more opportunities to have people who are the ideas who are spending full time working on them, training them, turning them into art or into ideas or into history or into, um, uh, into things that would have this intellectual, uh, on the country. Speaker 1 00:54:51 And I'm on a much larger scale than what we have now. Speaker 0 00:54:57 Maybe we should broaden it out to fans. Yeah. Um, well, this is, uh, I mean, this is like a whole new, uh, vein of bringing things up, but, uh, you know, I think, um, what is it that, uh, you know, I guess I'm, I'm just thinking about in terms of, uh, objectiveism being that next thing like you were talking about. And, um, you know, if it's not that you think we probably would be something more collectivist that gets turned to Speaker 1 00:55:42 We, we are already all the culture already is turning to, and already has been turning to the collectivist alternatives because we don't have, uh, basically we don't have a successor to the enlightenment, a successor to enlightenment ideology. I don't think it's, you know, we're all doomed if objectiveism, doesn't double three times in the next 20 years, uh, which is not going to happen anyway. Uh, you know, even in the most, my most optimistic moments, it's not going to happen. It's not that we're all toed it's that there are a lot of people who are groping and struggling toward this. And David mentioned the people who are, you know, very productive, very rational in a lot of ways in their life. And then they go to church on Sunday, or they tune into Joel Ostein on the TV or like that, um, there are, you know, there I, the, the great advantage we have is we're basically trying to sell people on a more consistent, uh, and more through a, a stronger foundation for the actual implicit CRE on which they're living for the way they act. Speaker 1 00:56:42 Most people actually live their lives. And we're basically the only ones who can say, all right, we have a full philosophical explanation for why you live that way and why that's the best way to live. And I, we can answer all the arguments and we ha we can show how this is, you know, fully based on, uh, uh, on basic philosophical ideas. So we have that offer, but we're offering it to people who already are implicitly to a large extent living on that. And that's why I think we're not doomed if objectiveism, doesn't take over right away, but we're always gonna be vulnerable. Our society is always gonna be vulnerable to those irrational and illiberal, um, uh, influences. I mean, ilial not just in the political sense of, you know, uh, leading to government regulations and controls or endangering free elections or something like that. Speaker 1 00:57:34 But also ilial culturally that, you know, the sort of dog me, the dogmatism, I dunno, people in watching what's been going on at the Washington post the last couple of days. Uh <laugh> they had, you know, some, uh, Dave, Dave weel who writes for the Washington post. Uh, who's, who's actually one of their more, and sort of a idiosyncratic guy, not really part of anybody's a joke that some other staff were at the Washington post decided was sexist. And she's been going on its tear for like three or three or four days now about how is it that the Washington post is permitting this, the Washington post, you know, leadership caved and they, they suspended Dave wiggle over this stupid retweet. You know, I thought it was the, the most, not retweets are not endorsements, but there we go. Um, and so, uh, it, it's this sort of internal office culture that comes straight from college campuses and straight from Twitter, right into the heart of the Washington post, since church lady type of person who says, oh, that's sexist. Speaker 1 00:58:38 I don't like what you're doing. They can, they can shut the whole organization down and, and they can, they can, uh, uh, they can basically bully everybody else. That's the ilial culture that we have. Uh, and of course, you know, in answer to that, we get to people who are the, the sort of the nationalist conservatives and the traditionalists who say, yes, we need that. But with religion <laugh>, uh, so what we're really looking to defend is not just politically liberalism, but free thought, you know, society of free thinking, people who are not in living in constant terror of somebody, uh, accusing them of violating some dogma. And I think, you know, like I said, I think that's the implicit American creed, but there's always gonna be threats to it until we have a firm and more, and, and more widely accepted philosophical foundation to say, yes, this is why, you know, we don't need these, these religious dog, these religious or qu, or, or their dog was, we don't need to have everybody, you know, following some faith that we, we have a foundation for saying, you know, an individual's foundation, uh, philosophically for the creed that people actually want to live on. Speaker 0 00:59:52 Well, that's great. Um, good way to end it. Um, I appreciate the topic tomorrow at 7:00 PM. Steven Hicks will be continuing his series, uh, John Locke and rational individualism. Uh, then Thursday back here on clubhouse at 4:00 PM. Eastern Jason Hill will be discussing iron Rand and civil disobedience, a critical assessment. Um, in the meantime, uh, we'll be on hiatus for a month. Speaker 1 01:00:18 Um, yeah, I'll see you on Speaker 0 01:00:20 A, enjoy your vacation. <laugh> Speaker 1 01:00:24 I, I, I absolutely need it. This has been a, a grueling couple of years. <laugh> Speaker 0 01:00:29 Well, I'm glad you're getting it. We look forward to your return. Um, in the meantime, I'm Scott Schiff and hope to see at the other events this week. Thanks to everyone who joined. Speaker 1 01:00:40 Thanks everyone. Take Speaker 0 01:00:41 Care.