Homestead mailing list

[ted <music AT thenightshades.com>]

Good stuff!
Ted

on 2/8/05 7:55 AM, homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org at
homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> 
>> Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his
>> only means to gain it.
> 
> Not only not true, it isn't even reasonable!   Most really amazing knowledge
> is gained through insight and transcendence.  Reason only serves a secondary
> role as a filter for such knowledge.
> 
> 
> 
>> It is this characteristic
>> more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any
>> other group, dangerous to individual freedom.
> 
> That is, of course, unless individual freedom IS the cult or IS the 
> religion.
> It's possible but not likely.  Like all religions, individual freedom's
> existence is embodied in every decision every day.  Religions in the 
> ordinary
> sense don't go about dismissing themselves - rather even martyrdom is
> prefered.  
> Islam, Christianity, and such are not besprinkled with "But wait, you can't
> expect me to  ..."   From the homesteading paradigm every concession to "You
> can't expect me to hoe a garden, saw wood, milk a cow, scythe grass, can 
> beans
> ... 
> etc."  is a laying down of some individual freedom in that the alternatives
> make one dependent on others and worse, on the fickle corpus of society.
> 
> Don't worry about religions and cults and governments limiting our freedom,
> we do a much better job of it ourselves.
> 
> James