I’ve known atheist libertarians, agnostic libertarians, deist libertarians, libertarians of almost every religious persuasion … and when I look back at the commentaries we’ve carried in our daily roundup, I see a profusion of religious views expressed by writers whose political views are, beyond doubt, libertarian.

Some, however, believe that a particular religious orientation is essential to a sound political orientation — if not to reaching such an orientation, at least to consistently applying it. Orthodox Objectivists, for example, derive their political philosophy from a metaphysics which has no room for the supernatural. Throughout the history of the modern American libertarian movement, this debate has had its effects. See, for example, the discussion of the “Spiritual Mobilization” branch of the movement, the dissolution of the Volker Fund, and the effects of those two things on the movement in Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism.

I’m not really as interested in your own religious beliefs as I am in your opinion of how religious belief as such affects the ability to derive, consistently apply, and work with others in advancing, a libertarian political philosophy. Discuss.