Posted on 06/11/2002 10:12:35 AM PDT by thinktwice
Edited on 04/14/2004 10:05:12 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
In your June 7 editorial on the moving of the Ayn Rand Institute to Irvine ["Ayn Rand in O.C.''], you stated that you took issue with some of Ayn Rand's positions, including her ardent atheism. In today's world of terrorism and conflicts fueled by ardent religious beliefs, it would seem appropriate that you would take issue with ardent religious people, not with any atheists.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Only comment I can make is that Ayn Rand covers her topics thoroughly, and I only provided fragments; so I'd suggest you obtain a copy and read the rest of it.
I was tired last night and your comment regarding the above line confused me. So I gave up for the night and thought about it, but I'm still confused.
You wrote ...
this last statement makes a large leap that isn't supported by the prior text. That is, ethics should extend beyond one's self. The question is...why?
I'm confused over your "large leap" statement. It seems self evident that ethical matters can be simultanelously local (personal), communal (family), societal, national, global, and/or eternal (mystical).
Where did you get this: that man can't live without reasoning?
I'd say that humans won't live long without reasoning; like, how many trucks will miss you when you wander around on a freeway without realizing you should dodge trucks?
The thought of growing up with wolves has storyteller charm, but what does one become when raised by wolves? Without being able to learn anything about human civilization -- deprived of education -- that child's lifestyle and lifespan would be akin to those humans that discovered fire, or the wheel.
Assuming something should be good or bad is a large assumption?
If so, please explain.
Tha Objectivist Ethics is twenty-two pages long; which is about the same length as Aristotle's Poetics, and is -- at the least -- on par with the Poetics in philosophical importance.
Thoughts upon finding a pebble.
Just after my shower this morning, my bare foot detected something small and tiny on the bathroom carpet. It was only a small pebble, but it was also an eye-opening revelation about the magnitude and scope of sense perception capabilities inherent in the human body -- one of my multi-million sensors, one neuron on the bottom of my foot, told me ... "Something was there."
And so it goes with the human mind, with the beyond-the-marvelous capabilities contained therein.
Capable of rational thought, using reason, using the mind, man can acquire knowledge, live well, marry and support a family, and man can create -- art, literature, music, inventions, architecture, etc.
But humans can avoid thought, and live blissfully -- for a while; smoking pot, for instance. And humans can avoid reality and live the "just do it" life -- for a while; until, for instance, the inheritance runs out.
But avoiding thought and reality means avoiding truth, truth being the recognition of reality using reason (I felt it, I looked at it, it was a pebble) and knowing truth, especially those automatic truths (IT'S A TRUCK!), is important to one's life.
But there's more to it than that. Avoiding thought and reality can happen in insidious ways and your very mind can be rendered inoperable -- even destroyed -- in the process. Who might want to do that?
The human mind can be molded, wounded, rendered inoperable even destroyed by teachers, preachers, or seekers of power. The young and the weak are especially vulnerable. And when the mind is effectively destroyed (irrationality is a symptom) there goes the potential to use the mind as God designed it to be used -- to think and reason.
"Why would anyone do that?" you ask.
Well, there's money in in, for one reason; but the better answer comes from Ayn Rand saying ... "If men are to be ruled, the enemy is reason."
The "pebble" of post 1567 turned out to be a sesame seed; I'm going to frame it.
Cheers.
In your June 7 editorial on the moving of the Ayn Rand Institute to Irvine ["Ayn Rand in O.C.''], you stated that you took issue with some of Ayn Rand's positions, including her ardent atheism. In today's world of terrorism and conflicts fueled by ardent religious beliefs, it would seem appropriate that you would take issue with ardent religious people, not with any atheists.
Most religions teach a contempt for earthly life and that to reach some imagined "heaven" is the main goal of life. Religions have consistently resisted progress. Examples include the scientific understanding of the heliocentric solar system and evolution, abolition of slavery, medical developments such as the use of anesthesia and women's right to vote and choose contraception and abortion.
Nonetheless, I'll attempt to answer.
"Most religions teach a contempt for earthly life..."
1) How many times have you experienced this personally in order to draw this conclusion? Or, to what study are you referring that has taken an accurate poll of the subject?
2) Are you referring to "most" world religions, or just those confined to the United States?
1. How many times? Asking "how many times" is rather naive, but one anecdotal story speaks volumes ... I've read that the famous priest that built the California missions (Junipero Sierra) took supplies from converted indians (those that had completed "their" missions) to feed and convert indians building new missions -- without worrying about starving already converted indians because their souls were ready to go to God -- and they did starve.
2. Yes. Islam and Christian based religions being prime examples.
"In today's world of terrorism and conflicts fueled by ardent religious beliefs..."
1) Do you really believe that the world's present conflicts are fueled by "ardent religious beliefs" or isn't that just window dressing to cover up what really fuels the conflict: human pride and selfishness?
1. In all of history, ardent religious beliefs have fueled war; the present war on terorrism is a prime example.
Meanwhile, you impose your wrong beliefs on me while perhaps forgetting that your "God" Biblically imposed the Ten Commandments upon all of mankind.
Atheists were responsible for the annihilation of more than 200 million men, and women, and children in the 20th Century alone. When it comes to human slaughter, the most ardent religionist cannot hold a candle to history's more renowned atheists.
The 20th century mass slaughters were primarily the work of tyrants and dictators using a combination of racial cleansing ( Hitler, a Catholic) or the imposition of the ethics of self sacrifice -- altruism -- on their own people (Stalin and Mao -- Communists).
The facts show that 20th century mass slaughters were not the product of the rational fact that God does not exist in reality; those slaughters were the product of either hatred or the irrational ethics of altruism.
In other words, truth -- to you and all those devoted to mysticism -- is "relative."
Within Objectivism ...
Reality is that which exists.
Reason is the standard for knowing reality.
Truth is the recognition of reality.
In other words -- in the real world -- mystical beliefs have nothing to do with truth.
Good luck with your relative "truth."
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