Thomasio

Of course I agree, I just believe, if you abolish the currently only institution that enforces the current law, you will not automatically get better laws. You will get a short moment of freedom during which money power will decide who owns what. Directly after that has been settled 100s of millions of poor people, who own no property nor have any money, starving and desparate for any kind of job, will get hired by those who managed to grab some property and have money leftover. This structure, of super rich individuals, having 100s of 1000s people under their control by the plain fact that without the rich on top they would be starving, gives these super rich ones the power to make the poor vote for whatever they want them to vote for and enforce whatever law they want them to enforce. The Catholic Church or better their strawmen surely will be among the top of the list, especially because all the believers will even volunteer to help them and that means, you'll get after a VERY SHORT period of your desired freedom a religious dictatorship. The only thing that might prevent that, would be someone like the Koch brothers getting hold of the nukes and THAT I believe would come out even worse.

Ermmmmm ...... is there anyone else to whom this doesn't make sense? To me it seems, a free society is actually free only to those with money and weapons power. Whoever can pay the most people to work for him can enforce whatever he likes. Therefore a religious organization, even if it isn't coercive can simply pay to get religious rulings, such as Sharia law enforced. Even if it isn't Islam, is there any doubt that the Catholic Church owns more than enough wealth, to pay for getting things their ways, especially since they could be sure, once they get things their ways they can squeeze their "investment" back out of the people. Does anyone honestly believe, the estimated $170 billion spent by the catholic church per year in the US alone, which is equal to what Apple or GM make worldwide, could be overcome by a bunch of poor people who just want to live in peace? Does anyone believe, once religions are no longer bound by a constitution that prevents them from political power, they wouldn't funnel their money power into gaining political power? TODAY churches have no coercive power, in a free society, be sure they would get just that.

.... which leads back to the question: In a free society, who gets to say whats right and wrong, who gets to make the laws and who pays for law enforcement? Who prevents religion from taking over the law making? Without a constitution that separates religion from state, and a state enforcing the constitution, in a mostly religious country, even a democratic voting on the law might get you to a religious law making.

For once, that's a quote I find actually useful. Pretty good question, anyone care to answer that? Can anyone imagine any private individual qualified to take control over the nukes without becoming a thread to the whole world and if yes, how would a free society make sure that one would actually get the control, rather than the richest bidder, which might be some religious organization? For the rest, I'm out. A state that shall pay it's debt so the free society doesn't have to start under a mountain of debt, but nobody knows how, a society that doesn't want to have law makers nor wants to pay for law enforcement, but still requires laws, a business structure that shall begin with the wealth status everybody gained under the current system, but is suppoed to be fair for everybody, seems to me that's all contradictions at the most basic level, which cannot be resolved, so there's no point in discussing it.

Really? That's a valuable answer? If selling 50,000 pounds of beef a month on the size of Connecticut shall reach 19 trillion on the size of the US, you'll have to wait a few millennia. In fact, Connecticut is roughly 1/2000 of the US and if you estimate a pound of beef at roughly $5, you'd get 50,000 pounds * 2000 size * $5 = $500 million a year or in other words, it takes 38,000 years to pay off 19 trillion or in again other words, at THAT rate, you won't even make enough money to pay 0.25% interest on 19 trillion debt. So again, how shall the debt be paid and who pays the rest, if all state property isn't enough? Again, if this is a sellout to the highest bidder, does that mean you literally want to hand over control over your country to the richest individuals? And still, how do you want to prevent religions from taking over by the plain force of their numbers, once their is no state anymore financing a making of laws and their enforcement?

I'm extremely glad, I got a brain myself and don't have to rely on conditionless submission to an unquestionable dictator. Even if it were true, who could possibly wish to live an eternity under dictatorship and imagine that would be "heaven"?

And just HOW should the state pay off its debt? Should the US print 19 trillion dollars, or tax 350 million Americans for $55,000 each? Should the state sell off state property to the highest bidder, privatizing absolutely everything? Army included? Making todays richest people literally the owners of the country including owning the forces to protect their absurd wealth? What if the money raised that way isn't enough to reach 19 trillion? Who will pay the rest? What if the money raised exceeds 19 trillion? Who will get the rest? Either way it doesn't explain which one is correct now. Do only individuals have the right to own property, or do organizations have that right as well? Either way, whether a religious organization can own a property or they put a strawman in front, who is going to prevent a religion from taking over the country? Who will prevent Sharia law from beheading anyone who doesn't join them? Will there be a law that still prevents religions from gaining power over a society and if so, who will make those laws, who will enforce those laws and who will pay for the enforcement?

Well, I can't discuss two opinions contradicting one another. Jimmo100 says in a free society only individuals can own a property, shirgall says, a club will buy a public property ...... now what? Could you two clear that up, before quoting me with your comments? Furthermore ...... in a free society, who will receive the money from a club "buying" a property, that upon start of the free society, as soon as the state doesn't exist anymore, belongs to nobody? First come first serve? Whoever can put a lock on the gate first becomes the owner for free?

Let me give you an example from the real world. After the 2nd World War, Germany was forced to (and even volunteered as well) make ANY form of "national socialism" illegal. The experience from the war has shown the whole world what danger Nazis pose, IFFFF they get to power. Today there are a few Nazis in almost all countries all over the world, but they pose no thread, because they are a tiny minority, held under control by a vast majority of peaceful people and not at last by a law that makes their core ideas illegal, so whenever one of those Nazi groups becomes too big, whenever they try the very first attempts of violence, they get arrested. The very same thing holds true for religion. As long as religion isn't in power, it will behave well. Without the power to change things, most religious people will accept non believers, everyone gets along with everyone else just fine and even gays are accepted, although that's already at the borderline where most strong believers find it very hard to see them as equal humans. This changes drastically in a society where believers of one specific religion gain the majority. How much that changes you can see in Saudi Arabia, where the state under Sharia Law beheads more people per year than ISIS has behaded throughout its existence. In short: Maybe you feel safe, as long as no religion becomes a majority, but beware if they do. Edit, just to make that clear: Of course I mean a majority of people taking the literal words of their holy book serious, not the vast majority of Christians who see the teachings of their religion more or less optional. ...... and if you are now tempted to believe no religion will gain the majority in your country, I got bad news for you. Due to the strength of their belief and their religions teachings about contraception, or better the condemnation of it, Muslims have a 5 times higher birthrate than ANY other group of people on earth. Today there are less than 1% Muslims in the US, by estimates of statista.com in 2070 that will be more than 50% of all Americans. Even worse, by 2070 more than 50% of the worlds population will be Muslims. I guess I should consider myself lucky, my statistical life expectancy doesn't reach that far, because I for one don't want to find out, what will happen then. The only difference between Nazis and Religions is the fact, Religions aren't illegal and that's why they can and have done pretty similar things to what the Nazis did, only on a smaller scale so far, as soon as they get to power anywhere.

Well, I really must have misunderstood a whole lot of things, from what you said as well as from what a free society is. So let me ask, just to clearify that for me: In a free society what will happen to buildings like the Cologne Dome, St. Peters Basilica in Vatikan City, and all the 1000s of religious buildings? They must be abandoned? Cannot be maintained anymore? If they can be maintained, who is to pay for the maintenance? If religious organizations hold their mess in there, who is going to forbid that, or is it perfectly ok if a group of people makes use of a property that nobody owns? What if some other organization, maybe the Red Cross wants to use a church as a hospital for the poor? Who would judge, who can use a church and who cannot, and if some judge has made a decision who would enforce it? The last question goes along with: If a free society still has a law, who will pay for the justice system, the law enforcement and how is that any different from paying taxes to a state that keeps law and order up? Are you saying for you a in free society laws remain as they are, only there won't be a state to enforce it anymore, but some other organization will take care of that? Wouldn't that be a "police state"? Or is a police state what you imagine as a free society? Last but not least, in a free society that still has a law, who gets to make the laws? Who gets to say what's right and what's wrong? Democratic decisions? Or dictated by some kind of regime?

Jewish success including their higher IQ might have something to do with them sending their kids to science school, while Christian kids waste their time in faith school.

Not sure why you think there is a contradiction in between "not believing someones claims" and "finding someones claims extremely unlikely to be true", I think that's twice the same thing, as in "I don't believe what theists say, because it's extremely unlikely to be true", makes perfect sense to me. Doesn't means it's impossible, doesn't mean I would exclude it completely, just means it's unlikely enough so I don't believe it. The big difference is, atheists are willing to change their mind, atheists always keep an open mind, look for evidence and if any evidence comes up, atheists will change their mind. If you push a theists far enough, you will hear statements like: "Even if it were proven false, I would still believe it to be true." Either way, this has nothing to do with free society and even less with public property. Churches, Mosques, etc., are private property of the respective religious organisation, so if you want to abolish any public property, but leave private property in the hand of it's owner, in a free society religions will be thriving more than before. Imagine not just in the US, but worldwide there were no governments, imagine what would happen in Israel. The holy places like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem would see the most violent battles between the followers of different religions. Think it one step further and you will realize, without government, religions will take over the ruling, as it was long ago. Crusades would reappear, worldwide Jihad would bring terrorism all over the world and there wouldn't be any laws, let alone law enforcement, to stop them.

I've had a Jewish girlfriend for a while, so I can tell, they follow nearly NONE of their religious commands (at least my girlfriend and all of her friends didn't). Except of some fundamentalists (as they exist in any religion) Jews don't give a shit about their religion. They stick together under the cover of their religion to protect their group from outside threads, but that's about it. They have some jokes, saying things like: "When will god return to earth?" - "The day all Jews follow all commands." So yes, I'd say Jews are way closer to atheists than Christians. Either way, that's not the point. It's quite logic that in old times the earliest forms of science came from religious believers, how could it not, back then 99.9% of civilized society was religious. It just turns out that the scientists who turned away from religion the furthest became the best discoveres, today you won't find many religious scientists, at least not among the international successful ones, Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss and many, many more, they all have as some kind of hobby aside of their science combatting religion. Therefore it's quite safe to assume that a society completly without any religion would do FAR better than even the Jews do today, simply because scientists wouldn't have to waste part of their valuable time with utter nonsense.

Oh ..... hmmmmmm ..... no I'm not. I'm aware the pope preaches condoms are worse than Aids. I'm aware stem cell research is generally seen as some kind of murder, meaning christians have blocked and slowed down any progress on that matter for decades already and I wouldn't dare guessing for how much longer they will do anything in their power to prevent progress and how many innocent people will die because the cure for their deseases come too late. I'm aware the catholic church alone has accumulated enough wealth to feed the worlds population for 5 years. I'm aware of countless science projects that have been terminated due to a lack of funding, but I've NEVER heard of ANY religious institution running out of funds for building a new church. I don't doubt religious institution do some scientific research, but the fact that ISIS does charity among poor people doesn't make them a force for something good. Compared to what would be possible without religion, just look at the nobel prizes given. The difference between 12 nobel prizes among 1.5 billion Muslims since 1901, or 1 nobel prize for each 125 million people, vs 423 nobel prizes among 2 billion Christians, or 1 nobel prize for each 4.7 million people, vs 193 nobel prizes among 16 million Jews since 1901, or 1 nobel prize for each 83,000 people, makes absolutely obvious that the stronger religious beliefs are, the less they do science. Couldn't find the numbers for atheists, but I'm sure it will fit into this picture.

Being an atheist doesn't have anything to do with belief of any kind, an atheist may still believe in many things, an atheist may still believe in the existence of an over natural entity or not, that's all entirely unrelated to atheism. An atheist is someone who finds the claims of theists not believable PERIOD An atheist doesn't make ANY claims, therefore an atheist doesn't have anything to prove. An atheist says, it's extremely unlikely that a god could exist, that's all. The claim of theists saying atheists cannot prove them wrong, therefore theism must be right is utter nonsense, because the fact that you cannot prove the non existence of a tea pot in orbit of Jupiter doesn't make that tea pot believable. Why I care if they fail to convince me? Because their continuous attempts to convince other people bother me personally more than my recognition of equal rights permits to other people. The church bells that wake me up every Sunday morning are NOT acceptable, because I'm not allowed to play my favorite music in the center of the city at that volume either. Why I care if they fail to convince me? Because they misguide their own children, who without religious indoctrination might become stem cell researchers and might save countless lives one day, maybe including my own life. So accepting religion might cause my own premature death and THAT I believe is against my human rights.

Let's see ..... 1) Before the Islam became what it is today, up to maybe 1000 years ago, people in the Arabian countries where the greatest inventors and discoverers in the world. Countless planets and stars have Arabic names, because the right to give something new a name is on the one who discovers it. After the Islam became what it is today, this stopped almost completely. Today 1.5 billion Muslims invent and discover per year less new things than 80 million Germans per day. The reason is simple: If you believe you know the answer already, even if the answer is as senseless as "god did it", you have next to no reason searching for a scientific answer. If for a brief moment you try to imagine what kind of revolutionary great new inventions the 1.5 billion people in Arabic world would have come up with during the last 1000 years, if only they had NOT taken their holy book for the universal answer to everything, you might get the idea, things like cancer, HIV, pollution and tons of other things might not exist today anymore. We can't be sure what all they could have invented, meaning we can't be sure whether or not they would have found a cure for HIV or something else, but we can be absolutely sure, there would have been some amazing discoveries in between. Other religions, which take their beliefs less serious, are less affected by this, the Islam is just the most extreme example we have so far, but we can be absolutely certain that ANY religion slows down scientific progress. 2) A religious organization will always put aside money for building their temples, churches, mosques, etc. and to pay their priests. All people working for a religious organization will always spend part of their time preaching their religion. Therefore no matter how much charity work any given religion does, we can be absolutely sure, without the religious part we would have more charity reaching those in need. Best example is maybe the MSF (Medicins Sans Frontiers or Doctors without Borders) http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/who use only 0.9% of their money for their management and 10.4 for fundraising, while 88.7% reach those in need. Not sure about the same numbers for the Christian churches, but I would be surprised if it were over 10%. 3) Believing in an afterlife makes people want to die. Not really hard to understand, if you believe there is an eternal life in happiness waiting for you right after death, if only you qualify, as soon as you expect to qualify, you will always be tempted to go for it. In Islam a martyr who dies for his religion instantly qualifies for heaven, that's why so many young Muslims can be persuaded to commit suicide attacks. If they would believe there is no afterlife, most of them wouldn't do it and on top of that almost all humans on earth would work on making this world a better place, rather than expecting to find a better place after death. So if you ask me, whether or not atheists and believers could get along ....... NOPE, NO WAY, NEVER EVER. The misery caused by religions all over the world, the delayed improvements in our lives, the money and resources wasted and the utter nonsense one would have to believe in addition with the fact that even an atheists life is for a good part distracted by believers and their attempts to spread out "the word of god", from way more important things makes me say: There isn't the slightest chance I will EVER go along with the existence of ANY form of religion. Even if god himself would show up and prove his existence for all humanity to see, I would still insist, making this world a better place and free ourselves from the bonds of religious backwardness, is BY FAR more important than the opinion of one single over natural being who commands us to kill one another.

I guess you first have to add, what kind of superiority you're talking about. I guess nobody here would argue that China would be a free libertarian country, in fact they are one of the most abusive forms of goverment that exist on earth today. They give business and anything that makes money for their corrupt leaders all the freedom corporations could ask for, while at same time forcing the vast majority of their people into unimaginable poverty, where they pay next to nothing in wages. This way China is way superior in any kind of mass production and logic the rest of the world drowns in unemployment, simply because all that's left for the western world is service jobs, but in a society without production, people who don't produce anything cannot pay for any kind of service. Just the opposite, as soon as the deficit countries are out of credit, even productive jobs like masons, plumbers and electricians will die out, because there will be nobody who could buy the Chinese products a mason, a plumber and an electrician could build a house from. In a free society that won't be any different, simply because the Chinese will ALWAYS produce, upon wages nobody can exist from, way cheaper than any free worker could. If you honestly believe a free society would be the most productive environment with the most wealth and the happiest people, then at least you have to explain, why the least free society on the planet is currently the most productive and most competetive one and how a free society could overcome this competition. Rabbits do not compete against wolves, just like flies don't compete against birds, they simply reproduce faster than their predators can kill them. Problem for us humans is, the western world doesn't reproduce anymore, in all European countries birthrates are below sustaining levels, they only keep their numbers up through mass immigration, which is mostly muslims, even China is trying to limit their population, so they will get into the same problem soon. India will soon have more people than China and Africa will keep growing as well. The effect of that will be that the Islam will take over the world. Muslims reproduce 5 times faster than any other group of humans, they don't even need a holy war, they can just wait 30-50 years and THAT is how you beat your competition. For them it will not matter whether we live in a free society, even if you still have some kind of government trying to enforce the separation of religion and state, you will be the minority, laws can be changed upon majority votes, and without laws it's even easier to enforce the will of the majority on the rest. Islam will become state religion, not only in the US but worldwide, you'll become their slaves and whether capitalism, socialism, democracy or anarchy is the better system will be the least of your concerns.

And just who would prevent an anarchic society from doing just that? Isn't the main idea of anarchy that everyone may do whatever he likes and doesn't that include building a road anywhere you like? I'm not sure whether or not I understood it right, but if I got the point, then an anarchy means there is noone protecting the rights of an individual, power, especially money power rules, where the only hope of libertarians is the belief that a completely free society would abandon all selfishness and everyone would respect the needs and wishes of the weak. But to get to the topic, I never understood why they would try to blame CO2 for anything. I agree to some of the alarm, where pollution really poisons the world, but CO2 never was part of the problem. To my mind they could have taken nearly any toxic byproduct of oil combustion and they would have been right to warn about the dangers, but CO2 doesn't qualify there. They could have requested almost all the same things, renewable energy and all that, to reduce emissions of carbon monoxide or something like that and they would have been right, but CO2 makes no sense there. The fact they try with CO2 anyway just tells me, some incredibly greedy jerks don't care whether or not we poison the planet, all they want is tax us for breething.

I believe that's just logic. If you're born in a halfway good environment, say a family that has an own house, parents who have well paid jobs and friends who live the same way, you never have any reason to question the system. You're taught from start, this is just the way it is, you automatically swim with the stream, get a good school education, go for a well paid job and live your life normally. If you ever find some kind of problem in the system, such as increased taxes, you're told that's the fault of the poor we have to support and unless you go for intense research on your own, in mainstream media you never get the info, it might be the fault of a money system that favors a tiny elite at the expense of 1/2 the population. Just the opposite, you will actually vote conservative, against the poor and in favor of the rich, simply because you never know, just how rich they are and what they are doing. Only if you lose your job or experience any other hardship that drops you down, out of the comfortable middle class, then you will begin to question things and you surely will discover the elite causing these problems, but then you belong to the bottom class which has no voice, so then it's too late. In short: As long as roughly half the population remains in the middle class, there is no hope for any change, no matter what direction you wish to go.

The ability to read is quite an advantage, but I guess one cannot expect high education from someone interested exclusively in bashing. Take a course in reading, then scroll up and discover, I said: "... , but that just cannot work out."

Clearly at the post Office. Sending a letter via postal mail from Germany to anywhere in the world costs 0.80 EUR, within Germany arrives in 24 hours, within Europe within 48 hours, worldwide usually in a week or so. FedEx and UPS refuse to transport letters at all, unless you pack them in a bigger package and pay them like a package. Sending a package up to 5kg via postal mail from Germany to anywhere in Europe costs 16 EUR, worldwide depends on destination, something between 29 and 43 EUR, within Europe usually arrives in 2-4 days, worldwide in about a week. The same package sent via FedEx or UPS costs between 74 and 133 EUR and is usually 1-2 days slower. I don't know about you, but I rather pay 80 Cents than 75 EUR, especially if it arrives faster. I don't know how these things work in the US, but just in case you don't know, German postal mail was in 1989 converted from a plain state service to a state owned commercial service, which actually generates a profit every year. Since this profit goes into the public household, all people in the country benefit from it, because whatever comes in from there doesn't have to be charged in taxes and since there is no private corporation behind it, serving the private profit of their owners, it can remain this much cheaper. And yes, in Germany FedEx and UPS are tiny companies struggling for survival while paying minimum wage, while postal mail is thriving while paying higher wages.

Private property protects itself by force against the public. All you'd have to do is apply the same kind of force to public property, which would be called regulation then. But then I guess from your point of view, what makes private property superior could never be allowed for public property, because as soon as it's public property, all rules have to be abolished.

What you see there doesn't have the slightest bit to do with proper maintenance, but is exclusively related to inequality. Privately owned timber forest can be maintained, because the owner sets the price so high, that a large part of the population cannot afford it, while a small elite enjoys a comfort not available for others. The owner sells only as much wood as can regrow and increases the price until demand matches the smaller supply. National forests, attempting to spread out resources evenly throughout the population simply hits the wall, when they discover, there just aren't enough resources to allow all the people the best possible comfort. This would require some kind of restriction, regulating the use of wood to a level where the forest could be maintained, but that just cannot work out. There are always the super rich ones, taking advantages for themselves that they want to keep, no matter what regulation might be invented, where the wish for equal rights within the rest of the population makes everybody act in a kind of "if he can break the rules, I don't care for rules either". Like Al Gore, travelling in a private jet while campaigning against climate change, or the (short term, former) greek financial minister Varoufakis, who closed the banks and set a limit of max 60 EUR people can withdraw from a bank per day, while he found it unacceptable for himself that he (after he quit his post) should have to cue up at the bank. The question is, whether or not you find it right that some people shall have an extra comfort others can never hope to reach. On the one hand its a good thing to have well maintained forest, on the other hand it might be fairer to maintain an environment where all people can thrive.

Well, not sure how I got there, but I'm further left than Gandhi and further down than Friedman and Gandhi together. Economic Left/Right: -8.0 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.26

A good example for ruining ownership may be the dams put into a river by one country, which ruins the land of the countries further down the river. I.e. the Aswan dam in the Nile, or the Turkish dams in Euphrates and Tigris.