(Full disclosure: I am a libertarian, philosophically and officially. Voted Barr in '08 and am pro-choice on everything from abortion to private schools.)
Those of a libertarian persuasion typically hold that:
Property is that which is created by virtue of intellectual endeavors. While the process of creating property typically manifests itself by a physical act of creation (i.e. building something with bricks) it’s the brains that validate the claim to ownership. As in the Lockean “first to mix his work with” principle for possessing something.
Because property is (mostly) understood to be intellectually owned, we support enforcing contracts that promise to deliver ‘X’ based on specified terms. Peradventure a contract is broken, all libertarians (and most everyone else who isn’t) would support forcing the violator to make restitution. Even though the bad guy in such a scenario would not have tangibly stolen something, we still believe that he would have violated the non-coercion thingy and, in essence, committed intellectual violence (similar to making a threat) by fucking with our understanding of what constitutes property.
Ergo:
If I make religious claim ‘ABC’ and it turns out to be by my own admission wrong then: a) have I violated someone’s property, seeing as how s/he would have made some sort of “intellectual investment” in my flawed theory and b) if so, do I owe some kind of restitution? While the inevitable objection from some will be “govt shouldn’t decide which/how religion is true” (which would admittedly be a terrifying and fascist world to live in) the govt makes every other sort of judgment on issues that overlap with religion. For example, if the govt feels that evolution is demonstrable then shouldn’t the govt view the teaching of ID as fraud? Axiomatically, if the govt takes a position on virtually anything it has inadvertently dissented with someone’s faith. By no means am I seeking to ban religion; in fact, I’d like a libertarian to out-libertarian me on this one and show me my error.
Why limit the discussion to religion? Why not include people promoting philosophies of labor or farming or coding or various types of leisure?
Why does the error have to be “self-confessed”? Is the person less “harmed” if the error is discovered by another?
Does (your view of) libertarianism hold that no person is permited to err if anyone ever suffers for that error? (Which brings us back to: why do you single out religion?)
Pragmatically speaking, I’m not sure. My view teaches that property rights can never be legitimately violated. So, if such occurs by default of error then… yes? Think of it this way: if I pay for a college course to be educated in science only to discover that the information I received was wrong did the institution breach a contract? In similar fashion, if I tithe to a church for the promotion of truth only to discover by universal consensus (or at least as close to uni-con as possible) that my religion was wrong am I entitled to a refund? (I qualify the discovery as universal as ultimately this would likely be the standard for punishing religious error.)
Btw, I am religious. Specifically, a pantheist/pandeist. Good call on expanding the OP, tomndebb.
Proof qua proof, yes. Proof qua that which we legislate by, not necessarily. Case in point: I’m a Cartesian innatist who’s open to the theory that my neighbors don’t exist. Now, I’m never going to have proof (at least not in this life) that they do, but the govt will still (rightly) enforce the theory they do insofar as my erstwhile propensity for hitting them with my car is concerned. To some degree, govt must treat some religious/philosophical claims as invalid. I’m trying to explore how with a bias for the maximization of choice.
No legal expertise but wouldn’t it depend on intent? If someone used faith healing to promote donations and it was then discovered that the “healings” were an orchestrated fraud then we have a crime. You might also have a case if you had a recording of a preacher admitting he promoted bullshit to get money. You wouldn’t have a case if someone taught what they believed was true and they later realized it wasn’t true. It would be pretty tricky to prove someone taught what they didn’t believe was true without solid evidence. It would also be hard to recover money put into a church building etc rather than money used for personal enrichment.
Dude, I’m a registered libertarian too, and this is ridiculous. Frankly, your OP is exactly the kind of extremist thinking that makes people point and laugh at libertarianism.
Political philosophy does not apply to everyday human relationships. It’s not supposed to be a freaking religion on and of itself.
Parents are allowed to coerce their children. People get to divorce, even if their wedding vows say “till death do us part.” You don’t get to sue your family because low-self esteem amounts to an fraudulent undervaluation of property. And no, you don’t get to sue me because I converted you into a religion you later reject.
