Q & A

Q: With your recent changes in thinking, do you worry that you might piss off your readers?

A: No.

I don't know if the C-blog has a theme or a core set of beliefs or anything. I have written lots of manifestos, but I have also been committed to rethinking everything in the light of new information and evidence. My biggest worry is that people may consider me to be some kind of flip flopper on these things.

The two biggest things I have been known for over the years have been atheism and libertarianism. Both of those viewpoints went together as a secular ethic also demands a secular political philosophy. But as I have demonstrated in previous posts, you can't have atheism and also not be a nihilist. People embrace atheism because they think it brings them freedom, but it really brings them tyranny as the rules are made not by reason but by the strong.

Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want but to do those things that are right. If right and wrong are merely the opinions of whoever has the most power, there can be no freedom. And you can't insist that those in power do the right thing without an appeal to God. But I digress. . .

I change my mind when I see that I am wrong or when I see a better way. Others may disagree with me, and I am fine with that. I like to hear contrary viewpoints because they help me on my journey. St. Thomas Aquinas practiced a similar mindset by exposing himself to all the thinkers of his day including those who were not Christian.

I am not the first atheist to be converted, and I doubt that I will be the last. This may make some of my atheist readers want to vomit, but I can't help this. As for my libertarian readers, the change is much less severe. I believe in liberty, but I just don't base it on Enlightenment thinking anymore. Freedom comes from natural law, and natural law comes from God. I think Ron Paul and Judge Nap would agree with me. I can only call myself conservative these days though I still can't vote for anyone other than Ron Paul at this stage. But I do understand a guy like Rick Santorum a lot more now.

I am doing a lot of reading on Catholic Social Teaching and distributism, so I may change a bit in those areas. Forewarned is forearmed.

The only guarantee I can give going forward here at the C-blog is that I will continue writing blog posts. These changes usually happen every decade, so when I hit 50, I will probably become a Buddhist monk or something. I don't know. But the blog endures. You can count on that.

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