ARTICLES OF REASON

A.    On Atheism

1.   Gods are creatures of the human imagination.

2.   Faith in imaginary beings does not prove their existence.

3.   All laws and moral rules are man-made.

NOTES

1.   Agnosticism is ostensibly a non-commitment to belief or unbelief in the divine; but whenever belief is put aside, that is unbelief, and unbelief is atheism.

‘Seeing no reason to believe is sufficient reason not to believe’ – Karl Popper

2.   Passionate devotion to a faith does not prove it to be true.

Many a belief can survive persecution but not critical examination.

3.   Justice is a human need and a human responsibility.

Justice is elusive, but judgment is inescapable.

B.   On Conservatism

1.   Individual freedom is the necessary condition for prosperity, innovation, and adaptation, which together ensure survival.

2.   A culture constituted for individual freedom is superior to all others.

3.   Only the Conservative policies of the post-Enlightenment Western world are formulated to protect individual freedom.

4.   Individual freedom under the rule of non-discriminatory law, a free market economy, the limiting of government power by democratic controls and constitutional checks and balances, and strong national defense are core Conservative policies.

NOTES

My liberty should be limited by nothing except everyone else’s liberty.

Tyrants and socialist bureaucracies cannot know what people want, they resist innovation, and they cannot change in response to changing conditions.

Liberty and economic equality are incompatible.

The threat of totalitarianism arises when free markets are distorted by government manipulation, when free speech is constrained by rules protecting ideologies, including religions, from criticism, and when equality before the law is undermined by laws coercing economic equality.

When governments pursue ‘social justice’ – or redistribution, to give it its proper name – they rob industrious Peter to give a grant to indolent Paul. This is criminal and immoral.