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Episode-2445- 14 Myths and Misunderstood Topics — 3 Comments

  1. .. for the State, unlike all other persons and institutions in society, acquires its revenue, not by exchanges freely contracted, but by a system of unilateral coercion called “taxation.” – M. Rothbard

  2. Regarding gnostic and agnostic:

    Thomas Huxley pulled the Greek or near-Greek “agnostic” into the English language in 1869 to make a point about scientific knowledge versus religious knowledge. He thought that science probably could never succeed in proving or disproving the existence of a Supreme Being.

    Gnostic of course comes from the same Greek root, but has been in use in English since the 1500s, and though also an “academic” word, has always had a broader meaning (at least in common usage) than agnostic.

    It’s interesting that you bring up the issue of God and related higher concepts such as what really happens at death, as I belong to a religious movement that considers itself gnostic, particularly in the sense that these “higher” matters, traditionally thought to be out of our reach as “mere humans,” are in fact knowable.

    We face as our greatest problem, then, not the atheist (I am one), but agnostics who more or less firmly believe that this sort of knowledge is unreachable in any sort of scientific or practical way. I think it is, and I think it is very important that people at least believe that they can know these things up to the point where they can actually know these things for themselves, and with certainty.

    I think it is an underlying basic to all your arguments about being rational and trusting your own observations that people believe in their own ability to know things, up to and including “god.” This belief has always been under attack by those who wish to enslave us, and those attacks have only accelerated through the last century and into this one. It is almost becoming dangerous now to know, particularly if what you know is something that helps you stay free.